As a preliminary to formulating a pricing guide for online marketers or small business owners in the offline world, you need to focus on the strategy you want to employ. This is a very important first step as it will put you in the ball park when it comes to what you can realistically expect. Here are some factors to consider:

What is your aim with the launch of this particular product or service? Is it to undercut your competitors? In that case, your price needs to be under market value initially to secure a customer stream. You have the choice of either losing money on the first X number of sales or coming close to operating or production costs to secure a small profit. Once your sales campaign is up and running the price can of course be reviewed and increased.

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There are two main reasons objections come up in selling and there are sales tactics you need to successfully deal with them. One reason is a knee-jerk reaction on the part of the customer to realizing the close is imminent. They bring up an objection to slow down the process. These objections are the ones you can get past easily by just acknowledging them and carrying on with the close. Let’s assume you are starting to write an order and the customer says, “Hold it, that’s a lot of money for a computer system.” Some salespeople stop here and leave. Did the customer say he wasn’t buying? All he said was it was a lot of money and he is probably right. Try using a sales tactic like, “I understand” or “Yes it is” and keep writing the order. About 40% of the time, the objection won’t come up again because it was just a delaying reaction to the close. But, in 60% of the cases, you still have work to do. That’s when the following sales tactics can help. Read the rest of this entry »

Drop shipping is a retailing technique in which you (the person running the eBay business) would not keep inventory in stock, but, instead, when auctions are won, you transfer the order to a wholesaler or manufacturer who takes care of shipping the item to the winning bidder. So basically, you sell items on eBay, collect money, send a portion of that money off to the drop shippers, and let them do the rest of the work for you. You, like all retailers, make money on the difference between the retail (eBay) price of the goods and the wholesale price.
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