Developing An Eye For What To Buy And Sell At Online Auctions JandK Publishing
This is An E-Book
Buying And Selling At Auction Introduction When you think of online auctions, what's the first place you think of E-bay right, but it's not the only auction place out there. It is of course the biggest and most known by far. You can shop and buy everything from posters to shoes, or even vehicles. You can also sell things that are cluttering up your house. Buying from wholesale distributors for less than retail pricing and them up selling them for profit is a good way to begin.
Some things you may already have on hand that might be sold are software you're not using anymore. Or maybe you're getting a new computer and want to sell your old one. Buying closeout sale items on e-bay and Amazon is simple, all you do is search for an item, hit enter and look at all the choices. You can find some very good deals on purses or jerseys. I've found some outstanding deals personally on e-bay. It's amazing what all you can find on e-bay; the most obscure things can possibly be found.
Selling online is simple also. All you need is to setup an account to be a seller. It's also wise to have a way to take a picture of whatever you may be offering. This gives the possible buyer the opportunity to see what kind of shape the item is in, plus with a picture you may be able to get more money from your item. I don't even look at the items that don't have any picture.
Also with buying, if you would like to get the item quicker, you might want to consider looking at "Buy Now" items rather than auction. At times you may pay more for a "buy now" item than you would if you bid, but at times it will actually save you money.
When selling items you're going to have to include a shipping cost, usually you can estimate closely to what the actual shipping cost will be. But don't put it too high either, this is unethical and not something you should do. Maybe a good way to get a possible amount is to compare your item to like items and see what others are charging for shipping. Then put the amount down. If you have postage scales by all means do it this way. Do not forget to include all of the fees that are involved in each transaction like costs, postage, materials, shipping and handling and PayPal fees and seller final fees. These things do add up and will affect your final profit margin after costs have been subtracted.
Also be sure to check other auctions out there. They may not be as well-known but you may find other cool items there as well. Or, possibly, that something special you've been looking all over for. They're easy enough to find; just do a Google search on auctions. Then look at the different ones that come up. I like tophatter.com live auction and I also like to buy and sell items on etsy.com. ETSY is not and auction but it is a good marketplace to sell your hand made arts and crafts.
Let’s Get Started Buying and selling at auction: You have finally made the decision; you want to earn some serious cash from internet marketing. Congrats! EBAY was the grand-daddy of them all and I first started to list items for sale there. The first thing you need to learn in order to earn money on eBay is what sells and what to avoid. Indeed, eBay may be visited by 10s of thousands every hour of every day adding up to millions of people per day, but with thousands of auctions going on at any given time, it would be hard to generate great interest in your products if the market isn't really hot for them. The result can be quite detrimental to your efforts. You might end up paying mounted fees without realizing any profit, since no one would bid on your auctions. This exact thing happened to me the very first time I decided to get rich buying and selling on eBay. This also applies to tophatter.com and etsy.com as well. So how do you know what products would be the hottest sellers at auction? Here are some tips you could employ. o You can start with offline research. Learning just what sells well is a matter of studying the general market. This entails research. I put in a fair amount of time studying the newspapers in our fair city. What are the items or products being aggressively advertised by two or more companies? There is a good chance there is profitable market for them. Don't skip over the classifieds, I constantly find real gems in there and you will also. Which products are being sold the most? Note: If your classifieds have a "looking for" or "LF" section you have an opportunity to meet a demand if it is large enough. It's nice to be in your comfort zone, but don't let that be the cause of your lack of income, learn more and you will sell more or have more to sell. Consult with established resources to help you come up with new great ideas. o You Have Access To Some Awesome marketing tools online, So Use Them. Your favorite search enginet should also provide for you a way search the most popular auctions. What are people buying and selling on at auction that could help you earn more? This should give you an idea about what sells well, and how much they are going for. Simply visit a website called automatedsearches.com for a rundown of the day's top auctions, and try to view the same with a critical mind. Determine if the demand is really huge, or if the price is responsible for pushing the demand to the limit. If the latter, determine as well if you'll be able to compete with the said price. Be sure to check out the Marketplace Research websites like terapeake.com to learn more about buying and selling at the most popular online auctions..
Online Research: The internet is an enormous resource center for your market research campaign. There are more tools than you can shake a stick at online, some are free and others you will need to pay to use. These tools can help you learn what any market is really looking for. You could try http://www.nichebot.com for example. Go there and type in any subject that comes to mind. On the results page, view the number of times the subject and its related inquiries were searched for. This should give you an idea about how popular the subject really is. From there, you could come up with relevant products to help you cater to the demand in the aforementioned market. Another alternative, which is more convenient for your purposes, would be http://www.andale.com This is a paid service that would deliver a list of hot selling items at eBay, as well as some tips on when to start your auction and how to proceed with the same. * Keep in touch with the times. Generally speaking, what is popular in the real world should be popular on eBay as well. Merchandise for the latest movies often become highly sellable items in this auction site. Billboard chart toppers are also in high demand. * Speculate. Interested with the latest developments in technology? Familiar with the upcoming releases of your favorite companies? You could play the speculation game, and plan before these items are even released. You could easily determine the demand for them by employing the steps we have enumerated above. Additionally, you would also want to keep abreast with subjects that are enjoying a renaissance of sorts. Culture, after all, comes around in circles. What were popular some decades ago would become collector's items eventually. It's just a matter of knowing when the resurgence would be experienced.
How To Know What Buyers Want Knowing what customers want online and giving it to them consistently is the key to a successful internet business. What customers want is a question that should always be central to your business thinking and strategy when selling online. Here are 5 easy tips to help you plan this: 1) Make the solution you offer easy to understand. We all like quick solutions to our problems, and everyone has their own way of getting to those solutions. Many of the customers you will serve will look on the internet before they do anything else. To respond to what customers want you need to understand what problems they are trying to resolve. So make your website attractive and simple to go through with simple and obvious signposting. 2) Speak their language Whoever you are targeting in your business, make sure you speak the language of your buyers. For example, if you are targeting a professional group, like lawyers, you need to let them know you understand them and their world, but you also need to explain what it is you're offering. Most
importantly, make sure you communicate the benefits not simply the features of what you are offering and make those benefits tangible. 3) Finding out if the are in a position to buy from you? Understanding your customer's situation in terms of buying can save you a lot of time and energy. Not everyone who comes into a shop will buy something - not because they don't like what you have but because they don't have the money. Selling online is the same. Make sure you target people who are in a position to buy and when you do make sure your sales copy makes the importance of having your product or service a 'no-brainer'. Focus on how they will be 'richer' not poorer as a result of buying from you. Customers want to know that what you have is for them and that you understand they are potential spenders. 4) Begin to build relationships Though not always the case, people prefer to buy from people they trust. They are more likely to trust you if they have some kind of relationship with you. If you seem trustworthy on your site and in your email communications (by giving good value) then it raises the chances of them becoming a customer. Few of today's business people have the time to talk to everyone who calls them. 5) Building that relationship and staying in touch If possible, strike while the iron is hot. When people first find you it is then they are most receptive to what you are offering. So an immediate offer can work well. In most cases though, as we mentioned in the earlier point, they are more likely to want to get to know you better. So stay in touch and build your relationships. Keep them up to date. Ask permission to make them similar offers and communicate with them frequently. Email is a great way to do this.
Making Good Product Selections Learning how to find products to sell online is the thing to do these days, many people are seeing a rather good deal of success, and this is something that you want to start as well! You want to gain an advantage amongst your competition and create an opportunity that will have you seeing tons of cash on an everyday basis! You can gain an advantage by finding the hottest products to sell, and not only doing that, but to locate them, buy them either by dropshipping or wholesaling! We are going to give you the best tools in order to try to succeed immediately! Learn How to Find Products to Sell Online & Earn Profit First of all, you need to find out how you can find the hottest products. You want to get ideas by going on big websites such as amazon.com,and seeing what the best selling items truly are. After you do this, after you find what items are selling best, you want to see how much they are selling for on eBay, seeing how many people are selling them consistently for profit.
You can also go on websites such as Google trends and see what people are searching for, or what trend a product is going in. These little things can help you gain an advantage among your competition rather quickly actually! Another thing that you want to think about, once you actually believe you have a product that can help you get cash, is to locate it and be able to sell it consistently. There are many people who are doing this successful, but they use one of two methods, or maybe even both. First of all, the products that people sell are either dropshipped or wholesale bought. And they use these two techniques to give products to their customers on a regular basis! Just make sure you start today and use these techniques!
Become A Bargain Detective Ever wondered how to find the lowest prices on the internet? Probably, it puzzled you once. Although it is the easiest way to shop these days, online shopping can be a bit perplexing when you want to find the greatest deal but you do not know how to begin. Almost all online shoppers experienced being puzzled like that during their first try. The internet is just so vast that you wouldn't really have the chance to visit all possible websites. There are a lot of them and you could only visit some. Despite this, you can always achieve your goal of finding the lowest prices on the internet by employing some tips and tricks in shopping online. Finding a bargain on the internet is not really a struggle. In fact it is one of the thrills when shopping online. Instead of walking around the mall in person, all you need to do is to click here and there. After all, you own your time. When you want to grab a really nice deal, you would have to go through the nitty-gritty of comparing and contrasting products. Go to websites that your search engine suggests and see if the offers in them would fit your needs. Scan through product reviews cited so that you would have better knowledge regarding the product. Such reviews can be found in comparison shopping websites, which will give you insights about different products. Have you tried waiting for a special day to avail of discounts in the malls? Quite exhausting to wait, isn't it? No need to worry about such occurrences because special deals are also offered online, and this will help lessen the burden of spending a lot for a specific product. Everyone wants discounts, right? At times, online retailers take advantage of you by monitoring the total demand for a product. When they see your high interest, they may instantly change the price without further notification. You might be shocked when you are all ready to apply for a purchase and suddenly the details changed. For this reason, there is a need to monitor and update yourself with certain changes on a regular basis.
Get Organized In Your Business When you are in marketing, no matter what your product or service might be, and no matter whether you work from your home, from an office, or from a brick-and-mortar store front, you need to make sales. Studies show that once you have made a sale to a new customer it is wise to maintain a good and trusting relationship with that customer in order to keep that customer for the long term and have that customer make repeat purchases from you. It is also much cheaper to keep an existing customer than to acquire a new one. With that in mind, here are a few ways to maintain the relationship and bring that customer back for more of what you have to offer. 1. When you make your first sale, follow-up with the customer. Send a "thank you" email or post card and make sure they are happy with your product. Include an advertisement in your email signature or as the picture on the post card for other products you sell. Follow-up every few months to see if they need more of what they bought. Keep the lines of communication open; make sure you are always on their mind - in a good way, or course! 2. Gently upsell to your customers without being pushy or obnoxious. Make sure you tell them about a few extra related products you have for sale, such as matching or coordinating accessories, nail polish, etc. If they like what they see, they can add it to their original order. If there is some ancillary product they will need to make what they just purchased produce at it's best, make sure to offer it. (Have you ever purchased a new computer printer only to discover at home that the clerk did not bother to make sure you had the right cable and ink or toner? Ever bought something that needed batteries but nobody thought to make sure you remembered to buy some? Gr-r-r-r-r!) Upselling is more than just asking if "you want fries with that." 3. Give incentives for referrals. Companies that sell products through home parties discovered this gold mine years ago. If enough product is sold at the party, the hostess gets a freebie from the product line. The more product sold, the better the freebie. Sometimes if a guest decides to book a party, both that guest and the hostess receive an incentive, and so it goes. Some internet web hosting services give free hosting or actually pay for referrals. With a bit of creativity, you should be able to make this concept work for just about anything. 4. When you sell a product, consider giving your customers the option of joining an affiliate program so they can make commissions selling your product, thus multiplying the sale you just made. Clickbank and PayDotCom are internet examples of this concept. Some of the home party companies do this, too. 5. Sell the reprint/reproduction rights to your products. Include an ad on or with each product for other products you sell. You could make sales for the reproduction rights and sales on the back end product. This of course is an option only of what you sell is your own original work. Two types of products to consider would be internet information or some type of art work or original craft idea.
6. Cross promote your product with other businesses' products in a package deal. You can include an ad or flyer for other products you sell and have other businesses selling for you. This type of arrangement has become known as a "joint venture" or "jv" for short and is enormously effective. Do you walk or groom dogs? Consider a "jv" with someone who makes doggie sweaters or home-baked doggie treats. Or, promote your friend's scented candles at your cake decorating parties, and she will promote your cake decorating service at her scented candle parties. This is another area where you are limited only by your creativity. 7. When you ship out or deliver your product, include a coupon for other related products - or even more of the same product. This has worked for decades for almost everything. Many items you buy in your local supermarket have coupons either on the packaging or tucked inside to entice you to buy more of the same when you run out of what you just bought. 8. Whoever said you had to limit yourself to just one type of home-based business? It is perfectly OK to combine more than one type and make customers from one business customers from both. For instance, if you run a family day care center and sell environmentally friendly cleaning and personal care products, your daycare moms would be more than interested in these products for their own homes. Do you clean offices or work organizing homes or offices or do freelance bookkeeping? Those customers would buy such products from you, too. 9. Sell gift certificates for your products. You'll make sales from the purchase of the gift certificate when the recipient cashes it in. They could also buy other items from your web site. You may have to be wellestablished before you begin this one, but what a great idea for the holiday season as well as birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduations, etc. You will have made two happy customers from the purchase of each gift certificate and widened your customer data base! 10. Send your customers free products with their product package. The freebies should have your ad printed on them. It could be bumper stickers, ball caps, t-shirts etc. This will allow other people to see your ad and order. Get a logo professionally designed or better yet barter your product or service in exchange for the logo design. Cross-market each other's business afterwards!
Get Ideas From Others At Trade Shows In today's competitive business climate, it is more important than ever to build and cultivate professional relationships. Networking is often mentioned as an effective way to seek employment. Just by 'knowing somebody who knows somebody,' job seekers can have a higher chance of being offered a job. Similarly, it is crucial to develop relationships with people in your current industry. Trade show stands are such a specialized segment of the business world, so those in the industry will often run into the same people over and over again. Taking advantage of building these professional relationships can greatly help one's business succeed in the world of trade events. Be Friendly With Vendors And Exhibit Hall Managers Since trade show exhibits are such a niche market, your company will definitely benefit from building connections with the vendors you use time and time again. Treat the people who handle the drayage with respect and they will do the same for you in return. After all, you don't want those who are setting up your trade show stand to have any kind of reason to do it carelessly. If vendors also have a booth at the same exhibit, visit their booth to meet them for the first time, or say hi if you've already established a relationship. Working with someone face to face can often be more effective than over the phone or internet. Greet the exhibit hall managers and thank them for hosting the show. Treating everyone you work with well will pay off when they refer other business to you later on. Treat Existing Customers Well Trade events are obviously a great place to stay on good terms with existing customers. Having a person's face to place with a company's name can make a big difference in terms of maintaining relationships. A friendly smile and greeting go a long way towards making your company seem more approachable and real. If you can, find out ahead of time what clients will be at the show. Consult past records of your business dealings with them, and refer to these products or services when speaking with them at the trade show stand. The attendees will love the individualized attention and be all the more likely to continue your close business relationship. Plus, they may tell other companies to consider doing business with you as well. Nothing increases business like a good reputation. Bond With Co-Workers Working together at trade show exhibits leads to closer business relationships among your own staff. The long hours spent preparing for the event itself, as well as manning show booths, enable team members to learn more about one another. It is important for team morale to actually know the people you are working with, instead of just on a name-to-name basis. From working on trade events together, managers are also able to gain a sense of what each staff member brings to the table. This allows for decisions to be made regarding future staffing positions.
By maintaining good relationships with vendors, greeting existing customers with a friendly face, and getting to know your co-workers at trade show stands, your business will thrive.
Find Your Niche Market Ok, you have decided that you want to make money online, but how do you go about finding your niche market? First let me say that the internet marketing niche is a massive market to get involved in. There is certainly money to be made in that market. Wouldn't it be better though to earn money by entering a niche that you have an interest in. You may have a hobby or interest that you know a lot about. If your great passion was gardening for example you can look for products to sell in that niche. Your expertise and enthusiasm will shine through in your writing, say on your blog or sales copy. This is definitely the way to go, isn't it better earning money from something you are enthusiastic about. Rather than trying to sell stuff in a niche where you have less knowledge and would find it hard to motivate yourself. Write down a list of your interests and hobbies and then go and search on the internet and see if there is a market for you to sell to. But where do you start? Here are a few tips. •
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Go to Google.com and type in your chosen interest or hobby then add forums, so to go back to gardening you would type in gardening forums and you would get a list of results. Type in gardening groups and you will get a list of groups. Then type in gardening discussions and again you will get a list of discussions. This shows you that there is a market for you in this niche. If you type in your chosen niche and there are not many results then you know there is not a market for you in that particular niche. Have you heard of the dummies books? I think everybody has by now as they have been bringing out these books for 20 years now. Go to dummies.com and see if they have a book out about the niche you are thinking of entering. If they have one that is a sure sign that there is money to be made in this niche. Go to Amazon.com and go to the books section. Type in your niche again and you will see a list of the top selling books in that niche. If there are a lot of books that are selling well you have found a niche you can make money in. Now go to ClickBank.com and see what products there are in your niche and start promoting the best ones on your blog or site. Once you sell one product you know you can do it, it's just a matter of repeating what you are doing and the sales will come in.
Take these tips and use them to your advantage today. Start by finding your niche market and you can start earning money by selling in a niche you love and that you are passionate about.
Marketing Research Tools For Selling At The Online Auctions It is undeniable that eBay is the biggest marketplace that happened in the online auction world. Millions of people have used eBay to build a successful online business and eBay has made it quite easy to setup a storefront on ebay. Etsy.com and tophatter.com are also wonderful marketplaces to sell products and services. The main issue for sellers, though, is to identify the best selling items at auction so they can determine what to sell and which price point. Competition is quite fierce in certain categories since there could be many sellers selling the same product as you. Therefore, picking the right wholesaler or dropshipper to do business with is vitally important. One easy way to determine what are the best selling products online is to check out the best sellers at amazon.com. The most popular auctions and the most search keywords are available there and you can use that as a reference. eBay also has a marketplace research tool available though it is not free. There are also many third party research tools such as Hammertap and Terapeak that does a good job of telling you what products sells and at which price point. Once you have an idea what people are buying, you will know what things to capitalize on and this will help you increase your revenue. Doing this kind of competitive analysis can virtually guarantee your product will sell for a better price and more profits. If you are scrapped for cash, another tool I find useful is Mpire. Mpire is free to use and it takes data from various sources and compiles them over time to give you a idea of the trend of the product and the price point over time. Of course, once you have determine a product that you know sells well, the next step is to find the best wholesaler or dropshipper to work with. Although price is important, you should also take into consideration the reputation, the delivery agreement for the products and whether the product is available at all times. The last thing you want is for your customers to order from you but your wholesaler or dropshipper has run out of stock.
You Need Internet Marketing For Your Business
Internet marketing is the key to accomplishment on the web. It is not nearly as hard as it is made out to be so long as you know the general rules. You can break it into various areas but there are two biggest options, that is, the paid and the free marketing. For immediate traffic towards your website you will have to pay for this. Big industries gave a real boast in this kind of marketing. Online auction has become a huge business. These sites provide convenience for both the buyer and the seller. Online banking is playing a major role in this industry. Internet marketing has huge advantage over traditional marketing. Measuring the statistics is very easy and inexpensive. You can trace nearly all aspects of online marketing. The advertisers have plenty of choice like pay per click, pay per action, and pay per impression and still there are other methods. Online marketing is used with elaboration of geo marketing which emphasizes or appeals to some specific interest or behavior rather than you have to reach out globally demographic. The experts divide the market according to geography, group or other factors. This form of marketing has the advantage to targeting the audience by geo-location or activity like some company with some specific product can post advertisements on this related specific websites. Internet marketing has different forms of business methods that are suitable for each business requirements. Search engine optimization, banner ad, article or blog writing, social media optimization, call to action marketing, lead scoring and lots of other techniques are used for the online marketing purpose. There is a huge security concern which is talked among the internet marketing experts. The companies with online business and marketing sometimes sell the buyers or sellers information to other companies. Another major concern while purchasing online after some customer is influenced by the company's online marketing, whether they will receive the same thing what they are purchasing. Some companies gain trust from the audience to market the product or services that the seller or buyer's transaction is totally encrypted and no information will be shared. Emily is one of the team members of online marketing experts - An Internet Advertising Company offering advanced media services in addition to PPC & SEO services
Social Media Marketing For Sellers Social networking platforms build buzz, boost business and serve small businesses as low-cost/no-cost marketing tools. Small business owners need to understand how these tools strategically serve and support small business first so they best implement social media strategies to sell products and/or services. Social Media, simply put, serves users and organizations in marketing in three ways: 1. Communication Marketing is all about building relationships -- relationships start with communication. New web tools like blogging, micro-blogging (Twitter), social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning), podcasting (BlogTalkRadio), video distribution (YouTube), event coordination tools (Meetup), wikis (Wikipedia) photo sharing (Flickr, Photobucket), and product review sites (epinions.com) allow small businesses to communicate, educate and share information directly with their current and prospective customers. Content in the form of blog posts, audio, video, comparison/review sites, tweets and social network messages help share information in a less-formal way that builds the know, like and trust factors that influence decision making. Content is no longer just text. Small businesses can use audio or visual content for a "show me" and "tell me" to make communications a pack more interactive punch. Social media's direct communication distinction serves and supports small business as it brings the people you want to attract directly to you and makes direct communication possible. Social Media makes communication a conversation so small business owners can share, receive feedback and connect on equal ground with their target markets. 2. Collaboration When small businesses empower their target consumers, they feel powerful. When your target market feels powerful, it trusts you, buys from you, and stays with you. Social networking collaboration transforms consumers into "prosumers". In an era of social media prosumers, it's people (not companies) who make, shape, or break purchase patterns. Small businesses can ignite collaboration for marketing by creating their own communities and/or joining communities. By doing so, they can listen and connect to their target customers and build a free forum to bring their market together. Collaboration = Marketing Acceleration. Social networking collaboration tools like review sites, video sharing sites, blogs, wikis and more allow users to self-serve, collaborate, and potentially serve as an endorser for your small business. Social media works as a marketing tool because people are more likely to trust peers rather than companies. The power of mass collaboration serves and supports small business owners in a distinct way. Tapping/creating valuable collaborative options can bring people together to share ideas, exchange
information, and help each other -- and support relationship growth. Removing the "company/client" disconnect can break down elitism and boost marketing mind power. 3. Entertainment The most important reason that social networking works as a marketing tool is simple -- because it's fun. People want to go where they feel they belong, have a voice, are listened to, and enjoy themselves. Small business owners need to be where their target markets are -- and these days, the masses are on Facebook, Ning, Twitter, Linkedin, Photobucket, YouTube and more because it has entertainment value. Remember the Will It Blend? campaigns by Blendtec? They were a perfect example of social media marketing in brilliant action. Videos were relevant as they showed the product, were entertaining (they blended an iPhone!), and they were viral! People could easily share the fun with friends due to the ease of social media sharing widgets. You can't put a dollar amount on free promotion. The way social media stores data as an "Interactive Rolodex" also has an entertainment factor. Sites like Facebook and LinkedIn are becoming the "new databases" because they are fast, easy, and fun. People are more likely to update their Facebook and LinkedIn information than a sterile address book because it is fun. Small business owners use social media's entertainment factor to build their online database of contacts and connections, be visible to prospective customers, and get the word out in creative ways like YouTube videos, blog posts, images, podcasts to make people smile and spread the word. How Social Networking Helps Small Businesses Sell Social Media Marketing helps most small businesses boost sales indirectly by increasing relationships. Understanding that social media marketing serves users for communication, collaboration, and entertainment is the first step to considering how to strategically implement the multitude of social media marketing tools and choose the ones that work best for your unique organization. The key thing that small businesses need to remember when using social media to help sell is that efforts must have value. There has to be value to your content, community, and execution to get people to engage with you or your organization. Social media doesn't sell things -- people sell things. Engaging in social media marketing starts the relationship-building process. Start small and snowball. Social media takes understanding, passion, effort, and commitment to make it work. Give your small business an authentic voice with social media and commit to providing value and you will be off to a smart start
As an advocate, social media marketing is extremely useful and effective but only with a good strategy, plan and execution. So should product sourcing agencies, companies, buyers or exporters engage in the social media community? My answer - a definitive YES. But how and to what extent? Here are a few tips, guidelines and strategies (categorized by social media platforms) that you can use. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is probably one of the best choices for product sourcing and procurement specialists. LinkedIn is a platform specifically made for professionals, experts and industry leaders to connect, share ideas and insights. It is also an excellent place to find your customers, especially if you are in the B2B business. Make sure you join the groups. Join groups that are both directly AND indirectly related to your industry but of course also those that interest you but are nothing to do with the industry. You never know who you might connect with that can help grow your business. I personally have joined several in the export, product sourcing, trade and marketing field. This is one I have particular liked (Strategic Sourcing & Procurement) as it gives a lot of insights and advices on sourcing. Participate in discussions and polls. See what other people are saying and analyze polls. Add in your own insights and listen to feedback. If you are a market research or product survey, casually create a poll and get instant results. Signup to alerts and newsletters. LinkedIn allows you to sign up or subscribe to news and alerts. Make sure you get those in your email at a daily or weekly basis to stay updated. Twitter Twitter is just amazing. I only recently made a personal account that led me to make one for MPN Intertrade. The great thing about Twitter is that everything is in real time and in fact most of my daily news comes from it. It is a superb tool for micro blogging, which means any blogs, articles or news you have, you should definitely "Tweet" it. Here is how you can leverage Twitter to gain leads. Use the Search function. The basic search function is extremely useful tool as it lets you save loads of time when searching for any topic or subject. It can be your brand name, the industry you work in (i.e. export, trade, product sourcing) or even your competition. The advance search function can further filter your searches by location. This allows you to monitor what people are talking or "Tweeting" about you or your business. Post and Share Engaging Content. If you wrote an article, joined a seminar or hosted an event... Tweet it! And don't forget to use the #hastags with your keywords. It makes finding your content easier if people aren't following you. Use the ReTweet function as well if you find interesting content by others. This lets your current and potential followers know that you are an expert or industry leader and can be trusted. Be responsive. Twitter users often search for services or products. It is a missed opportunity if you are providing it and even if you do not have that particular product or service, you can advise and direct them to the right ones.Being helpful and creating a network of followers might not bring you immediate leads but it sure can increase your chances. If you simply try to sell yourself to potential leads, they will just unfollow you and consider you a spammer. Download Tweetdeck. A great application that can be downloaded to your desktop or your iPhone/iPad that allows you to monitor, manage and engage your followers. The search function can be integrated into the desktop, allowing you to monitor and reply to conversations in real-time. Hootsuite is another
excellent marketing tool that allows you to schedule updates, post your social media messages across several social media sites. Facebook Facebook is remarkable for making company or product/service pages, where consumers can interact with your brand. For product sourcing companies it may or may not be the best choice for social media marketing. It really depends. If you are a B2B business like ours, chances are that Facebook won't bring you much in sales or even leads. However, if you have promotions, extensive product offerings and most importantly your customers are on Facebook, you should definitely create a page. Just make sure you know what it is for: brand awareness, sales, community engagement, etc. Pinterest One of the more recent social medias, Pinterest is rising exponentially fast. For product sourcing and export companies, this is quite an interesting platform to look into, but not without some controversies. This social media allows users to post pictures or 'pins' of just about anything within categories called "boards". So this can be a great place to showcase your products if you are a manufacturer who exports. If you are service-oriented company like us, then Pinterest is probably not the best place to be on. Top concern for exporting/product sourcing companies using Pinterest Are the product images being pinned yours? If not, does your company have rights or agreement from both clients and suppliers for posting them? Most manufacturers or clients would not want their product images floating around the web without prior consent or mention. Get an agreement from each of them to post their products and it might just work wonders for your marketing efforts. The Bottom Line - Conduct your market research and make sure your target markets are on the particular social media. Engage and provide useful content and not simply try to sell. Find out what 'people want' rather than what you 'want to sell'. Finally, if you have presence on several social media websites, use management applications to integrate them into one location.
The more research and practice you do in quality product sourcing you will find your right market niche and enjoy your business much more. Happy Selling!