Doba Deals for the week of March 8, 2010

Categories: Doba Deals
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Garmin Nuvi 5" GPS w/ Bluetooth

In keeping with the seasonal nature of last week’s Doba Deals post, today we’re introducing more products to get your customers geared up for spring:

If there are products you would like to see included in future Doba Deals, let us know by emailing me (Jason Cook), contacting our Customer Service team by email, or by leaving a comment on this or any other Doba Deal-related blog entry. And, as always, if you’ve tried accessing our weekly deals without a membership, please try our FREE 7-day Trial.

by
Jason Cook

Marketing Technology Specialist

New Features: Inventory Notification by Email, and Customizable Product Data

Categories: Announcements, Doba
15  Comments »

If you ask any of our affiliated retailers to list their top five Doba-related pain points, you’ll hear about items going out of inventory without any advance warning, as well as the sheer number of people attempting to sell many of the same products with the exact same product titles and descriptions. Today, I’m pleased to announce that we’ve made significant strides with respect to both issues. Doba members can now easily customize product title, description, weight, dimension, and more; and, by accessing the new and improved Watchlist, receive updates about product inventory by email.

In today’s post, I’m going to walk you through these changes, which we feel will ultimately make your Doba experience more pleasant and profitable. To get started, let’s first take a look at the new watchlist notification feature, which essentially allows you to receive updates about products within your Doba Watchlist via e-mail. Continue reading »

by
Jason Cook

Marketing Technology Specialist

What would you do with $180,000,000?

Categories: Doba
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At one point or another, we’ve all played What would you do with a million dollars? Well, here’s a new for you: What would you do with $180 million? Before answering that question, take a look at this, courtesy of the good folks over at KSL TV in Salt Lake City:

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

More from KSL TV below: Continue reading »

by
Jeremy Hanks

Co-Founder, Chaiman, President

Doba Deals for the Week of March 1, 2010

Categories: Doba Deals
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TaylorMade R9 460 Driver

With spring rapidly approaching, this week’s Deals feature products to help your customers prepare for the new season:

Please Note: If there are products you would like to see included in future Doba Deals, let us know by emailing me (Jason Cook), contacting our Customer Service team by email, or by leaving a comment on this or any other Doba Deal-related blog entry. And, as always, if you’ve tried accessing our weekly deals without a membership, you will quickly learn that prices are available to Doba members only.

If you’re interested in joining Doba, please try our FREE 7-day Trial.

by
Jason Cook

Marketing Technology Specialist

Search Engine Optimization for Drop-Ship Retailers

Categories: Online Marketing, SEO
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Ask anyone who owns a Web-based business if they’re at all concerned about their search engine ranking, and you’re likely to receive a resounding “Yes!” Ask a firm that claims to specialize in search engine optimization (SEO) if they can improve your search engine rank, and you’ll likely receive a similarly resounding “Yes!”

Sadly, many people working in the get-rich-quick world of SEO are only in it for themselves, use antiquated methods, or truly believe optimizing websites is as easy as spelling ESPN. In the following video, I show you — the online drop-ship retailer — how to develop a website that is properly optimized for search engine rank.

Questions, comments, horror stories, keen insights or observations? Leave yours via the Comment link below!

Doba Deals for the Week of February 1, 2010

Categories: Doba Deals
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Table Top Soccer Game

Welcome back to yet another edition of Doba Deals. By popular demand, this week we’ve decided to re-feature a few of our most successful Doba Deals alongside the best new deals around. Thanks again for your feedback, and enjoy selling! Here are this week’s deals:

Please Note: If there are products you would like to see included in future Doba Deals, let us know by emailing me (Jason Cook), contacting our Customer Service team by email, or by leaving a comment on this or any other Doba Deal-related blog entry. And, as always, if you’ve tried accessing our weekly deals without a membership, you will quickly learn that prices are available to Doba members only.

If you’re interested in joining Doba, please try our FREE 7-day Trial.

by
Jason Cook

Marketing Technology Specialist

Guest Post: Amazon vs. eBay: And the Winner Is… ?

Categories: Amazon, Online Retail, eBay
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Amazon vs. eBay: the ultimate head-to-head.

Following up on Stuart Lisonbee’s excellent blog entry here on DropShippingBlog.com post about competing against Amazon, today we’ll take a look at which site — Amazon.com or eBay.com — is the best place for you — the small to medium size online retailer — to set up shop and sell your wares.

If you ask loyal eBay sellers which online mega-shopping sites is best, they’ll probably claim that eBay is far superior, supporting a free-market approach that allows sellers to develop and market their unique brand. If you ask longtime Amazon sellers which retail space they prefer, they’re likely to declare Amazon the champ, citing the consistent, safe-shopping experience that Amazon offers its customers.

A good way to judge which sales venue is best for your online drop-ship business is to perform a point-by-point comparison. In the following sections, I do the work for you, comparing eBay and Amazon side-by-side in a dozen categories:

Continue reading »

Top Tweets of the Week

Categories: Twitter
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The classic cross-sell.

This week we learned from our very own blog why we can’t compete with Amazon, how to effectively cross-sell, and whether or not Facebook is surpassing Google. Oh, and don’t forget to check out the 10 dumbest things businesses buy. If you’ve bought something on the list, don’t worry, we won’t tell anybody about it. The following are some of the most popular Tweets from Doba this week:

Join the fray! Follow us on Twitter!

by
Jimmy Dunn

Online Marketing Manager

Why You Can’t Compete Against Amazon.com

Categories: Drop Shipping, Online Retail
16  Comments »

Pretty glaring title today, don’t you think? And yes, I already know what some of you are thinking, “But Stuart, if I can’t compete against other retailers on the Web, than why even bother?

That’s a legitimate question. After all, if you could capture just 1% of Amazon.com’s market, you’d be sitting pretty. Here, take a look at Amazon’s most recent quarterly income statement (taken from Yahoo! Finance):

Over a period of one year, you can see that 1% would come out to about $24.5 million in sales. Well, I hate to break it to you, but you’re not going to get 1% of Amazon’s market. While you can eventually do 1% of their business, you’re just not going to get it by stealing their customers. Continue reading »

Would You Like Fries with That? The Benefits of Cross Selling

Categories: Online Marketing, Online Retail
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If you’ve ever stepped foot in a fast food joint, you’re intimately familiar with cross selling. Think about it… who among us hasn’t been asked, “Would you like fries with that?

Recently, when it was time for my wife and I to buy a new washer and dryer, we bought into an offer from a local retailer providing credit with one year of no interest. Long story short, I’m fairly confident that if you went into the store where we made our purchase, you’ll still find bits and pieces of my face, because it was cross sold off!

You know, Wes, you still have $1,500 credit left. Have you considered insurance for your new appliances? We have a sale on plasma televisions today, as well; would you like to take a look at those while you’re at it?

If used correctly, cross selling can be a valuable revenue-generating tool for any online business. To get started, think of yourself as a consultant and not a sales person. What additional products, services, or information can you give your customer that will truly help them? The key here: Don’t be pushy; be helpful instead. Continue reading »

by
Wes Lapioli

Account Consultant (SMB)