Learn how to use your cellphone as a treasure detector, and find items to resell at big profits. Find out which apps are the best, and how to use them. Check prices instantly, and know your potential profits before risking a dime. Learn to resell on eBay and Amazon, and rake in the profits.
Find bargain inventory virtually anywhere - yard sales, retail stores, outlet malls, warehouse clubs, wholesale dealers, bargain basements, and online bulk suppliers. Learn to specialize in books, videos, games, toys, electronics, grocery, fashion, health and beauty, auto parts, niche regional products - or take them all!
Many books promise to teach you how to start an online business. Look closely, though, and you'll see that very few are written by someone who's really done it. Author Steve Weber has been a full-time, five-star seller on Amazon.com and eBay for ten years!
- Feed your e-commerce business with a continual stream of hot products.
- Learn how to leverage the "Long Tail" of retail for low-risk, high-return profits.
- Uncover online shoppers want to buy.
- Diversify your product line.
- Learn to minimize sales taxes and write off the business use of your home office and car.
- Find new and hard-to-find products from real wholesalers.
- Know exactly how much potential inventory is worth, and how quickly it sells.
- Get dirt-cheap warehouse space.
- Get the best product research tools available for your phone.
- Outsource your fulfillment and customer service tasks.
- Benefit from advice from the most experienced, profitable online sellers.
The Internet Gold Rush is just getting started. In this insider's guide to online selling, you'll learn the secrets to profitable trading. You can profit from price differences in local and global markets. This book teaches you how, every step of the way.
From the Intoduction:
One weekend last February, my wife and I packed a big suitcase, put our two children in the car, and drove up Interstate 95 to visit my mother-in-law near Philadelphia. Saturday morning was bitter cold, but to get some fresh air, I took my 5-year-old son for a drive.
Right down the road, before the car had warmed up, I spotted it - a big TJ Maxx store. I hadn't shopped there for 20 years, but recently I'd heard TJ and similar discounters were becoming gold mines for Internet sellers like me. For 10 years, I'd been an online bookseller, and kept so busy with it I'd never thought about selling anything else. But it never hurts to try something new.
We made a quick U-turn, pulled into the TJ parking lot, and backed our minivan up to the front door. Grabbing a shopping cart, we strolled through the door, right past the purses, beyond the bathrobes, and around the skirts. I craned my neck, squinted through my bifo-cals, and grinned - almost there.
"Toys!" my boy squealed. Or did I say it first? Anyway, it was true - the back shelves were jam-packed with toys of every kind. Hundreds of them! Dart guns, dolls, train sets, miniature china, soccer balls, board games - all marked way below retail. Was it my imagination, or could I see more variety right here than in a mammoth, big-box toy store? "Looks like Santa had some leftovers this year," I told my son. "Let's look around."
I didn't know where to begin. On the bottom shelf, partly hidden toward the back, was the biggest, most intriguing box in the store. Inside was a giant, remote controlled robot.
I'd never seen anything like it, and I wasn't prepared for the price - $30, batteries not included. Gulp. I almost threw it back.
"Let's get it, Daddy!" my son shouted. I glanced around at a few raised eyebrows from the older ladies rummaging through the dress racks. I felt my ears getting red. I caught my breath. The ladies went back to their shopping, and I pulled the phone from my pocket. "Who are you calling, Daddy?" my son asked.
"Just checking something," I said. After pointing my phone at the bar-code on the robot box, my phone emitted a soft "beep" and then displayed its Amazon price, $280. "Holy cow!" I muttered, "I've made about $250, and we just got here."
I dropped the robot into the cart, with the same satisfaction I might get from hitting a hole-in-one, or pulling a slot-machine arm and hearing the jackpot rain down, red lights flashing. But this was no gamble. Thanks to my phone's free scouting app, I knew my likely profit before risking a dime.
The feeling was familiar, but the surroundings were refreshing. In the past decade as a secondhand bookseller, I'd worn out the knees on five pairs of jeans by scooting around in musty basements and moldy attics hunting for books. Here, in a brightly lit room with the smell of perfume, soft music, and friendly people, it hardly felt like work at all.
Diversification is good. For a decade, I'd made my living selling books, mainly on Amazon. I'd developed a knack for spotting valuable books just by looking at the cover. Now, with a price scouting app on my phone, I could improve my book-picking tremendously, and expand into toys while I was at it.
And why stop at toys? Now that Amazon has opened virtually all its categories to us independent sellers, I could sell virtually anything. Instead of waiting until the weekend for yard sales or library fundraisers, I could scout for inventory anytime, practically anywhere - Wal-Mart, the pharmacy, the local warehouse club.
That's what this book is about: cashing in on stuff other people have written off as "junk." The bean counters at a big retail chain - perhaps Target or Toys 'R Us - decided those robots didn't sell fast enough, or they didn't have enough left for a big display. So, to free up cash and shelf space, they dumped the rest at TJ Maxx for pennies on the dollar.
Using my phone's scouting app, I found 11 more money-making toys that day at TJ Maxx - vintage Cabbage Patch dolls, last year's Thomas the Train accessories, special-edition Monopoly games. All were in short supply online, commanding $75 to $120, while gathering dust at the back of TJ's, marked down to $20 or $30.
After an hour of treasure hunting, I left the store with my son, who helped me load the van. He'd forgotten about the robot after finding a football jersey (an Eagles McNabb No. 5) and a giant puzzle (marked down 75 percent). Not including those goodies, I'd spent $130 to get $1,000 worth of inventory.
After dinner that evening, I smiled and told a briefer version of my robot story. Some people are amazed to learn how you can earn money using your phone, without even making a call. "Incredible!"
"Just another day at the office," I said, rolling my toothpick. Then I turned to my wife and said, "Honey, we need to visit your mom more often!" And that, perhaps, was the biggest surprise of the whole weekend.
Contents:
1. Introduction
• Getting started
• But this sounds too good to be true
2. Use Your Phone as a Treasure Detector
• A whole lotta scannin' going on
• Buy upside-down for profits
• Pic2Shop
• RedLaser
• Amazon Price Check
• Snaptell
• Google Goggles
• Getting started with Google Goggles
• Google Shopper
• Bakodo
• Half.com app
• Campus Books
3. Avoid Scouting-App Minefields
• Beware of generic, store brands
• Troubleshooting barcodes and more
• Troubleshooting your app
• Seller profile
4. Find Gold Amid Creative Destruction
• Supercharge your shopping
• Find new books
• Sidestep food allergies
• Bargain down prices
• Juice your grocery shopping
• Seller profile: Andrew Rigney
5. Profit With Retail Arbitrage
• An aversion to haggling
• How to profit from retail arbitrage
• Slickdeals.net
• DealCatcher
• eBay
• Craigslist.com
• Local sales and coupons
6. Use Advanced Scouting Apps & Services
• Amazon Sales Rank
• Scan your choices
• iBookSeller
• Treasure Tester
• ScoutPal
• MediaScouter
• FBAScout
• A last word on scanning
• Taking your business beyond time and space limits
7. Stake Out The Best Sales Platform
• eBay.com
• Half.com
• Bonanza.com
• Buy.com
• Facebook
• Barnes & Noble
• ABEbooks.com
• Alibris.com
• Craiglist.com
• Seller profile: Sue Johnson
8. Outsource Your Fulfillment
• Fulfillment by Amazon
• Costs of FBA vs. self-fulfillment
• Basic fulfillment
• Competitive advantages of FBA
• FBA disadvantages
9. Use Auto-Repricing and Listing Tools
• Listtee.com
• RepriceIt.com
• Aman for Amazon Sellers
• Online postage
• Heavy-duty services for mega-sellers
10. Dig Up Long-Tail Inventory Locally
• Supermarkets
• Off-price retailers
• Wholesale clubs
• Library sales
• Estate sales
• Thrift shops
• Used bookstores
• Local retailers
• Storage unit auctions
• Bankruptcy sales
11. Mine Bargan Inventory Online
• Craigslist.com
• Liquidation.com
• Salehoo.com
• Alibaba.com
• eBay
• Woot.com
• Yugster.com
• Groupon.com
• Overstock.com
• SmartBargains.com
• JacobsTrading.com
• FatWallet.com
• Milo.com
12. Score Wholesale Books, Videos & Toys
• Bookazine Overstock LLC
• American Book Company
• Bargain Books Wholesale
• Book Depot
• Bradley's Book Clearance
• Daedalus Books
• East Tennessee Trade Group
• Fairmount Books Inc.
• Great Jones Books
• J R Trading Company
• Marketing Resource
• Reader's World USA Ltd.
• S & L Sales Company Inc.
• Tartan Book Sales
• Warehouse Books Inc.
• World Publications, Inc.
13. Raid Outlet Stores for Resale Profits
• Hassles for resellers of brand-name goods
• Insider tips for outlet store shopping
14. Keep Your Business Legal
• Sole proprietorship
• Partnership
• Corporation
• Limited liability company
• Local ordinances
• Sales taxes
• Income taxes
• Supporting documents
• Reporting by online marketplaces
• Business use of your home
• Insurance
• Bookkeeping
• Hiring employees
Reader Emily says, "As a part-time online seller, I found the topic of this book interesting, but once I read it ... WOW! It's way more than just interesting! It contains such a wealth of knowledge that even someone like me whose been doing this for seven years still learned some new tips. Definitely a good book for anyone who is interested in finding and selling deals, either as a hobby, side business or full-time job. Great reference book!
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