Troubleshooting Doba
Editor’s Note: The following blog entry was authored by a former Manager of Doba’s Service Department.
As Doba’s Manager of Service, I have the opportunity to interact with our customers on a daily basis, which means — more than anyone else here at the company — I know all too well what the most commonly raised questions are regarding our services. Tops on the list of the most commonly asked questions:
- What should I sell?
- How do I find products with high profit margins?
- How do I rediscover items on Doba once I’ve sold them on eBay or elsewhere?
Confusing at first, once you have a handle on these three issues, your Doba experience — not to mention your experience selling online — is bound to more enjoyable and rewarding.
What Should I Sell?
If I had a dime for every time I’ve answered this question or overheard one of my fellow Doba service team members answering the same or a similar question, I could retire to the southern coast of France! This question (What should I sell?) is so common that we penned an article that addresses the issue head on. From “Choosing Your Market Niche”:
If you and I were to decide to go into business together, and we chose to open up a brick and mortar store on Main Street, there’s no way we’d sign up for an 18-month lease, order display furnishings, install carpet, hook up a phone line, and hire employees without first knowing what we’re going to sell. Yet, online retailers–or, more accurately, casual sellers who want to become successful online retailers–do it every day.
Without giving much thought to a company name, product line, or business or marketing plan, new online sellers sign up for services like Doba, work with a third-party vendor to build a webstore, and only then get around to asking, “Hey, what should I sell?” They head to eBay, see what’s selling, and then decide to sell the same products–usually consumer electronics–for slightly less than the competition. They end up being disappointed, mainly because their profit margins are so low.
The problem is that these misguided novices have nothing unique to offer, so they try to compete on price alone–an almost surefire way to go bust. One of the keys to online retail success is your ability to establish yourself as the person or the company from which to purchase a particular selection of related products.
As it is with anything in life, each of us has a personal preference toward things that suit our personality. To successful sell online, you must find a niche that suits you well and is marketable to a large enough customer base that you stand a reasonable chance of making a profit. To learn more about this concept, login to Doba.com and finish reading “Choosing Your Market Niche” by Mikal E. Belicove (located under Education à Articles, eNewsletter, Elite Seller Report à Business Basics).
How do I find products with high profit margins?
Once you determine your niche, it’s only natural to ask, how do I find products with healthy profit margins? One tactic you might want to employ is to read the current and archived editions of the Elite Seller Report, Doba’s members-only monthly eNewsletter, offering, among other things, a detailed overview of top selling items from our virtual inventory catalog of over 1.5 million products. With an archive spanning 55 editions (going as far back as June 2005), you’re bound to gain unique insight into the selling trends of successful online retailers.
If pouring over loads of lists isn’t your thing, consider conducting price comparisons using Froogle.com. To get started, go to www.froogle.com (a service of Google) and enter the name of the product you’re thinking about selling. Once you do, you can distinguish if the item would be better suited as an auction listing on eBay or as an item being sold straight from your own webstore.
For those of you who do like to conduct deep research, consider using Terapeak, an eBay Certified Services Provider offering one of the most relevant and easy to understand and use eBay research tools available on the market today. Terapeak’s award-winning solutions include research tools for eBay, eBay Motors Parts & Accessories, and many of eBay’s international properties. The company’s in-depth research analysis tools, which are available online, provide online retailers with two years worth of trending data that can help you decide what price and auction format to use.
Another handy tool for determining which products might sell and at what price, is HammerTap, a market research tool that extracts and analyzes mountains of data and statistics from the eBay marketplace. Basically, HammerTap reveals market trends that allow you to develop effective strategies to maximize your profits when selling on eBay. (Disclosure…both Terapeak and HammerTap are Doba partners, and by clicking on their links in this blog post, Doba could potentially generate revenue if you choose to use either company’s services.)
How do I rediscover items on Doba once I’ve sold them on eBay or elsewhere?
Once you’ve established your business with products that consistently sell, the time will come when you’ll need to quickly and efficiently place and process orders for items you’ve sold using Doba. From a product management standpoint, there’s no better tool for managing your orders than the Doba Watch List — a handy tool that can help you keep a close eye on specific products in our virtual inventory product catalog (think of it as a separate shelf on which you stack popular products so you always know where to find them).
Imagine yourself in a huge warehouse filled with thousands of products. You know that your favorite products are in there somewhere, but tracking them down could take hours. To make them easier to find later, you gather up your products and stack them neatly on a shelf right near the warehouse entrance. Our Watch List technology offers the same convenience as that warehouse shelf, providing Doba members with quick and easy access to their hottest selling products and any items they may want to sell in the future. Every item in the Doba Catalog has a “Watch” link. Simply click the link to add the product to your Watch List.
As you can probably tell by now, we offer a wealth of articles and online Web-based tutorials that answer almost any question an online retailer using our services could ever ask. To see for yourself, login to Doba.com, click on the Education tab at the top of any page, and start exploring. If self-service isn’t your cup of tea, feel free to contact us by email at support [at] doba [dot] com or by phone at 1-877-321-8622 during normal weekday business hours (Mountain Time).
