Some of the errors are quite common even with experienced eBay retailers. You have to learn to avoid them if you want to get high close rates and thus better final prices.

Here are 5 most common eBay mistakes:

1. A bad title.

In order to make up a good and relevant title, you’d better look at the keywords other sellers use. Try to use all the possible relevant keywords – make use of the 55 character provided by eBay. Don’t pay attention to the punctuation and irrelevant keywords that are aimed at attracting users’ attention.

2. The Wrong Price

Have a look at the completed items to find the best appropriate initial price for the item. If you start too high you are likely to lose part of the clients immediately.

3. Inaccurate or Vague description

Don’t fail to include the features as:

• Size
• Condition
• Markings
• Age
• History

Otherwise you will get dozens of email inquiries. Buyers trust honest and straight sellers

4. Bad or No Images

Make photos of the items on the right background. Lynn Dralle, of TheQueenOfAuctions.com, says:

“Keep your environment out of it. It makes your auctions look more professional.”

5. The wrong time for the auction

Both the time of the day and the season of the year affect your eBay performance.

Dralle explains:

“At the base of all these mistakes is research. You’ve got to do your research.”

Do your best to research the completed items and make use of Marketplace Research. Moreover, you can study your competitors’ ideas and success stories. Moreover, there are third-party web-services (like Terapeak.com or HammerTapNow.com) that can help you find the right ways to list the items you sell.

Once you know the major eBay strategies you have to make sure that your supply of products is not drained. That’s what dropshiparea is here for. We do our best to supply you with the best and most reliable wholesale and retail suppliers. You can find them in our directory.

Is dropshipping good for entrepreneurs from any country? Well, it depends on what markets would you like to service.

If you come outside North America it does not mean you can’t dropship US products to US customers – and that proves that dropshipping is a universal business model. But not all US distributors agree to cooperate with noon-US companies and entrepreneurs. Even dropship intermediaries like Doba service US and Canadian customers only.

No doubt, one could drop some locally produced goods to US or affluent European markets, but the problem is some state regulations and customer (un)willingness to buy foreign products not supplied to their market officially.

But there are solutions for international dropshippers eager to dropship products on US market.

Why not to dropship products locally and target Europe and North America? The answer is that in other parts of the world e-commerce is an emerging trend and added to that the purchasing power of the potential customers is low.

For those who are eager to try dropshipping and do not know where/ how to start – a new case study.

Analyze:

• products to dropship,
• merchants sources & relations,
• sales channels,
• traffic sources,
• profit margins

And do not forget that dropship business and website is an asset that you would be able to put on sale one day…

High SEO rankings on competitive keywords

• URL: www.vitaminbungalow.com
• Established: Sun Aug 31 2003
• Page views/month: 12,000
• Monthly Revenue: 4,500
• Google Pagerank: 5
• Uniques/Month: 4,000
• BIN: 7,000

Description:

4 Year old drop ship fitness product website(with sister 3 way link site) for sale. 4-7k visitors a month over 4k in customer database and newsletter subscriber list. Repeat customers , low overhead. Professional SEO and link work throughout-

Revenue Details:

Direct repeat customer, site referrals, Organic search engine we do not do paid search engine listing all traffic is organic. We also use MS product upload and google base uploads for products profits range from 400-800 / month .

Traffic Details:

Direct repeat customer, site refferals, Organic search engine we do not do paid search engine listing all traffic is organic. We also use MS product upload and google base uploads for products

Dropshipping is getting harder. Really. And there are a number of obvious reasons:

- It is expensive to promote products online. It is getting more and more expensive. And dropship affiliates that have low profit margins are not competitive with the merchants or manufacturers.
- More and more merchants enter online space. More and more producers start online e-commerce to cut the middlemen.

So, the question is if dropshipping business model is likely to be a lasting business strategy remains open. Is it a smart move in a situation when competition gets tough to acquire an established dropship business? Probably it is, as you get valuable assets – established website, reliable merchants, customer base…

New case study is maternity and baby clothing store.

Well established, great reputation

• URL: http://www.InStyleMoms.com/
• Established: Thu Jun 30 2005
• Uniques/Month: 3,200
• Page views/month: 24,000
• Monthly Revenue: $1500
• Google Pagerank: 4
• Sold: $11,000

Description:

Comprised of drop ship accounts, this web boutique has the potential for massive growth!

* Established 7/2005
* $1,500/month in gross revenues
* Net Revenues average 25% of gross as the sales are drop shipped from the vendor. The new owner may want to consider wholesale of the best sellers to increase net profit. I would be happy to recommend the top sellers.
* Approx. 3200 Unique Visitors per month based on Google Analytics
* Established vendor relationships with top-selling designers, the best in the business.
* We have a google ranking of 4
* Site was redesigned and renamed in November 2007
* Included in sale is a Blog that ties directly to the E-Commerce site (instylemoms.blogspot.com)
* Email list includes nearly 600 emails. Current account is with Constant Contact
*Aloha Cart shopping cart and administration.
*Currently using PayPal to process credit cards and PayPal payments. Aloha Cart has capabilities to use other merchant accounts.
* The current monthly expenses are

$30/mo for Constant Contact newsletter with 552 subscribers

$24/mo web hosting. There are cheaper options available but I have found the one I am using to be reliable.

Sale includes web site, current stock of merchandise (approx. $200 worth), ongoing ad relationship with a popular maternity information website and blog, 30 days of support during the transition.

Revenue Details:

Online sales of maternity, baby, nursing products and mom-inspired clothing.

Traffic Details:

Based on google analytics. I also have stats via cpanel