Review: A Mini Guide to Using eBay & CafePress to Sell Your Photography
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Book Title: A Mini Guide to Using eBay & CafePress to Sell Your Photography
Author: Martin Hurley
Publisher: Hurley Pix Inc.
Publishing Date: 2008
Pages: 26
Website: http://www.howtosellphotosonline.com
Since I have an avid interest in eBay and my wife has an equally avid, yet much more expensive, interest in photography, I thought that purchasing Martin Hurley’s eBook, A Mini Guide to Using eBay & CafePress to Sell Your Photography might be a good investment.
Unfortunately, even with the low purchase price of $7.00, I was disappointed.
I was intrigued by the author’s concept. Sell framed prints of your original photography at auction on eBay and have CafePress print, frame and ship the order for you. This is a unique spin on the drop shipping business model which is especially effective for sellers who live outside of the U.S. to sell to the American market. (The book’s author resides in Thailand.)
The book claims to be 26 pages. However, there’s only 19 pages of content - the majority of which are taken up by screen shots of the CafePress account creation and product design process and creating a listing on Auctiva.
I’m used to eBooks taking the reader through the very basics of the process, such as creating an account, listing a product, etc. However, after laying the foundation required for a common understanding among all the readers, most eBooks attempt to add to that knowledge by discussing more advanced topics. Unfortunately, this eBook never gets past the basics.
The target audience here is obviously the photographer looking for a venue to sell and not the the eBay seller looking for an item to sell. If you are interested in learning how to set up a CafePress account (and for some reason feel that CafePress’ instructions are inadequate) and would like to see some screen shots for creating an Auctiva eBay template, then your $7.00 is a good value.
I was hoping the author would present some ideas on what sort of images would sell well on eBay and get a feel for the market. Again, I was dissapointed. The eBook only suggested what I already knew – search completed auctions in eBay’s advanced search function.
One of the things I like about eBooks is the ability to learn a proven technique from an expert author while the concept is still “cutting edge.” A quick check of this author’s feedback (his eBay user ID is visible in one of the 15 screenshots) shows that of his 21 positive feedbacks, only 3 are from selling. Although I realize that many sellers have multiple user ID’s, this is not the way to establish your credentials as an expert on the topic.
While appreciate the concept the author is forwarding – selling photography on eBay and using CafePress as a distribution method, I was hoping to learn more by purchasing the eBook than I could gleen from the sales page.
It’s still worth a try though. Hopefully, my wife’s photography hobby will start to pay for itself — just like my eBay hobby!
Review: Sell Used Books Online eBook
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Book Title: Sell Used Books Online
Author: Gary Hendrickson
Publishing Date: 2005
Pages: 42
Website: Sell-Used-Books-Online.com
I was perusing my collection of online auction eBooks recently when I decided to spend some quality time re-reading Gary Hendrickson’s, Sell Used Books Online: Selling Common Everyday Books on Half.com Like Crazy. Even though I bought the books a couple of years ago (it’s been revised recently), it’s still very relevant and a great value at $19.95.
The book consists of the following chapters:
- Introduction
- The Best Part-Time Home Business in Existence
- What You Need to Get Started
- Finding Books to Sell
- The ABC’s of Getting Ready to Sell
- Listing Your Books For Sale
- After the Sale
- Getting Paid
- 30 Tips to Help You Make More Money and be More Successful
Getting Started on Half.com
A significant portion of the book’s beginning is the obligatory basics detailing the process of listing books for sale on Half.com. There’s not a whole lot of value added in this section because the process itself is very simple and Half.com does a more than adequate job of explaining it on their site. However, Gary does include some valuable insights on setting your book’s condition, pricing guidelines, and comments to include in the description.
Sourcing Your Used Book Inventory
A key theme of the book and, in my opinion, what makes it a great value, is the section on sourcing your used book product inventory. He discusses several options for procuring the books, sources to avoid, what books are the best to sell (you’d be surprised), what books to avoid, and what you should pay for your books. His “30 Tips” chapter expands on these topics and does an excellent job of providing concrete examples of Half.com strategies and tactics to emulate and avoid.
If you’re looking for an easy-to-understand and implement guide to successfully sell used books on Half.com, then I heartily recommend Gary Henderickson’s eBook. It outlines the soup-to-nuts techniques necessary for:
- Acquiring inventory
- Storing & tracking inventory
- Pricing guidelines
- Listing for sale on Half.com, and
- Post sale actions
Click here to visit Gary’s site and download your copy today.
Review: Simple Market Research eBook
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Book Title: Simple Market Research
Author: “The Market Research Coach”
Publisher: Idea Time LLC.
Publishing Date: 2007
Pages: 180
Website: SimpleMarketResearch.com
I recently purchased, downloaded and read an eBook that caught my eye called Simple Market Research. The book’s publishers advertise it as “the fastest way for beginners to pick great product niches to sell like professionals do.” My perspective is someone who started reading this knowing next to nothing about internet market research, so I was definitely in the target audience. Sure, I knew that market research involves finding a product in which there is significant demand and low competition. But I didn’t know much else.
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Learning What I Don’t Know about eBay
Filed Under Auction Tools, Reviews | 2 Comments
A Review of Terapeak.com
As the owner of AuctionInsights.com, I frequently receive requests from businesses to review their latest eBay tool or service. Such was the e-mail I recently received from Chris Smith of Terapeak.com.
After a month of procrastinating, last week I finally made time to give Terapeak a test-spin. I only wish I has access to this useful tool a few months ago when I was selling off my collection of Star Wars comics.
Terapeak is a data-mining service for eBay sellers. The toolset is the only service currently authorized by eBay to perform statistical analysis of the auction site’s closed auctions and categories. Terapeak helps eBay users sell more effectively by providing them the information they need to effectively understand and predict the performance of their auction listings by highlighting market trends.