One of my goals at BlogWorld was to help my readers understand how they can use blogs and social media in order to help their business.

Dave Bullock took some time to give me his take on what you can do to connect to your customers through social media. Take a look . . .

You can find more from David at www.DavidBullock.com

Some of you are looking for the overall idea for a new business. Others are looking for idea after idea as to what products to sell on a platform like eBay. And as I mentioned in my last post, you should really consider choosing your market before a product. With all of these strategies in mind, there are so many ways to keep your eyes open and start to come up with ideas. Once you have an idea, you will need to perform market and competitor research, but that’s another post . . .

When I started looking for my first eCommerce idea, I looked within my own hobbies and interests. However, as you know, I ended up going with a product idea that was completely outside of my own hobbies which has worked out great.

One must-read book in my library has helped me a great deal on this topic. It is What to Sell on eBay and Where to Get It. It has some terrific idea generation techniques and the section on “where to get it” is invaluable. One of the habits that I have formed after reading this book is to keep a notebook with me at all time for ideas. I’ve expanded into a “business journal” will all ideas regarding products, marketing, business management – you name it. But for the purpose of this discussion, it is important to have something with you at all times to remember your ideas.

Product ideas are all around you.

Most importantly, you want to keep your eyes and ears open to market trends and consumer desires. Kick off the process with newspapers, magazines, trade journals and newsletters. If you are targeting a specific market, pick up the consumer magazines targeted to that market – there are a flood of ideas based on what both the content AND the advertisements. Trade Journals show you what the manufacturers and distributors are doing which is golden as well.

Something to consider if you have chosen a specific niche or market is to attend trade shows relating to your market or niche. These events, like the trade journals, will give you a mountain of information and ideas as to what is hot in that particular market place. Once you have chosen your market and product line, trade shows are a must to build relationships and stay informed.

Trend Watching

There are several websites, as well, that focus on trends, such as www.trendwatching.com. Keeping an eye on what is hot overall or in the target market you have chosen will keep you on the right path.

I have only scratched the surface on places to find product ideas. You get the idea – hang where your market hangs; Understand their needs, desires and problems. The important outcome of the activity is to generate many ideas. Once we have these ideas, we will research their viability using market and competitor research tools and techniques we will describe in another post.

If that sounds like you, then you are going to love what we have in store with this newly revised column!   

The New Expanded eBay & eCommerce Column

You’ve gotten to know Megan Jordan on her eBay column at eMoms.  She has been answering so many of your questions about starting and growing an eBay business with her first-hand experience.  Now, Sparkplugging has decided to expand the column to include general eCommerce topics and discussions of other platforms.  This is where I come in.  I have been running a Yahoo! Store for 2 years and built mine from scratch as well. 

We are passionate about selling products online and excited to talk to you about the ups and the downs and the how’s and the what’s.  Between the two of us, we have a ton of experience (and practically a Masters education) in selling on eBay and on Yahoo! Stores.  Not to mention keeping-the-family-happy while you build your business!

So, what are the types of things we are going to cover here? 

Getting Started in eCommerce

First, we are going to focus our attention on Getting Started.  We’ll cover topics like choosing and researching a product to sell, building your store and understanding all of the technology and tools involved. 

Getting Traffic

Once we have gotten you started, we’ll talk about getting traffic to your site. This isn’t as relevant in the eBay realm, but with other platforms once your store is live and ready, it is a little like being on a deserted island – you realize you are completely alone!!  But we can fix that with a mix of PPC, SEO & Social Marketing.  Don’t worry if these acronyms don’t mean anything to you yet . . . they will.

Conversion = Analytics + Testing

Now, unfortunately, many online retailers stop here.  “Okay, I’ve built my store (isn’t it gorgeous?).  I have a bunch of visitors coming and going every day.  Now what?  Where are my sales?” 

Does that sound familiar?  This is where the ball really got rolling for me.  Analytics, Testing & Conversion!  Without applying these tools and skills, all of the time you have taken to build your store and attract new visitors was wasted.  I don’t care how nice your site is, how much traffic you are generating – if you don’t know the details about what your customers are doing on your site, you are driving blind. And if you don’t test what is working with them, you have no idea what you might be leaving on the table.  We will discuss how to get started in analytics & testing and how to turn your new knowledge into new customers. 

Customer Management

And finally customer relationship management.  What’s better than getting a brand new customer?  Selling more to your existing customers!  It’s less expensive and actually more fun when you start to build relationships with your customers that bring them back for more.

Get Ready, Get Set, . . .

Okay, so there is a lot for us to cover.  This has been an amazing ride for me – one that I have absolutely loved, even with its ups and downs.  My husband and my kids have been along on this ride and we are having a blast!  Come and join us for more info, tips and tricks on the “perfect home business”.

Savvy? (insert Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow swagger here)

It begins with this: give and you shall receive. I admit, that doesn’t seem to fit the “eBay Pirate” theme, but that was the first step toward my becoming the “Bay Rum Runner” on eBay.

As I mentioned in Tell Me About Your Big eBay But…, the key to my growing eBay sales seemed to hinge upon my customer-based approach. I wanted my listings to be friendly, easy to navigate, and, most importantly, enjoyable. Bring back a little of the “world’s largest swap meet” kind of vibe, particularly the fun of feeling like you are haggling with some real characters, not just buying from some indifferent warehouse.

The first step toward my eventually taking on a new nickname was when I decided to focus on the bonus gifts a bit more. I wanted to alleviate some of the “Am I going to be ripped off here?” worries on behalf of my potential eBay customers, many of which were newcomers. The bonus gifts seemed to do that quite nicely.

As I was running low on my baby product travel sizes for bonuses, I hit a local clearance store for anything else that might be suitable. As the babies of the family were clearly going to be pampered already with the primary auction item, I chose to focus on pampering the parents a bit through the free gifts. I was thinking about my customers’ wants, needs, and desires. What would they consider a treat?

After ultimately purchasing several “sampler kits” from a well-known organic bath and body products company, with the goal in mind to break up the kits into individual samples to give away as the bonuses, a display of the same company’s men’s line of “Bay Rum” grooming products caught my eye on my way to the door.

This is where the”give and you shall receive”principle begins to come into play. Call it karma. Call it whatever you like… the gods of capitalism were about to show me my next big eBay sale.

Years of living on the Gulf Coast had made me fairly familiar with all products boasting the scent of “Bay Rum.” Blame it on Jimmy Buffet and our plethora of palm trees, sandy beaches, Hawaiian shirts, and every casino offering free drinks to guys who say to themselves, “It’s five o’clock somewhere” after their lunch at the buffet. I knew this line was popular. I made mental note of the prices of each of the key full size products and then a bee line for my home computer to do a little research.

This is how you find new products to sell. You keep yourself open to opportunities. You never know when one will find you. You train yourself to move fast because you never know when that opportunity will pass right on by if you don’t move. You learn to make decisions and then act on them.

An hour later, I was back at the store and bought out their entire line of discontinued Bay Rum grooming products.

Now it was time for me to get them on eBay. More specifically, now it was time for me to sell them on eBay, despite some already established stiff competition selling the same line. Otherwise, I was going to have to learn to seriously love the smell of Bay Rum.

Oooh, what’s that tingle? Was that a twitch of panic? No, no, now is not the time to panic. Now is the time to breathe, be confident in my research, and launch. I’m an eBay Pirate, remember? Pirates don’t hesitate. They see what they want and they take it! Aaarrrr! Now walk the plank launch those auctions, Megan!

We’ll learn shortly the essentials to building your auctions, creating a checklist of the key ingredients for a successful listing. We’ll get to the point that you can knock out a new product launch, from discovery to research to launch, all within a handful of hours. If we weren’t parents managing the demands of kids and home simultaneously along with our eBay business, I’d say we could knock these new auction launches out even faster, but this isn’t called eSwingers at the Bachelor Pad now, is it?

One thing was clear, I had to figure out why a potential buyer would buy from my auction listings rather than one of the dozens of others. Some of the other sellers were starting their auctions at less than the price at which I bought my products. How on earth were they doing that and how was I going to compete?

Fortunately, this had also been the case with the baby bath products and I had managed to sell mine for more than my competitors in the end and in higher quantities. I achieved this through personality. I did it through professional polish, cobbled together through my hardly professional skills. I did it by thinking of my customers and what was going through their minds while they browsed the auction search results. I needed to set myself apart through personality once again.

I needed to begin branding myself. Creating an identity with which to relate.

The “Bay Rum Runner” was born.

I built auctions that complimented the theme of the product. I chose rich brown and red color schemes, outfitted with themes featuring palm trees hanging over ocean shores. I built punchy text, easy to take in by a scanning eye, and fleshed it out with clear, focused, close-up photos of my products that I took myself. I had snapped up every sample grooming kit from the same Bay Rum line and broke it down into individual samples to be given away as bonus gifts. Then I signed off each listing with the phrase, “Make me your Bay Rum Runner…”

I knew it had worked when the emails began coming in with the salutation, “Hey, Bay Rum Runner!”

My customers were identifying with me and they were having fun with it. And the sales flowed like, well, free rum at a buccaneer’s blowout. These were the sales that made me a PowerSeller. Although I no longer sell Bay Rum grooming products as my primary store line, I proudly don my “Rum Runner” hat when I do list a few.

Give and you shall receive. Yes, the bonus gifts cut into my profits, but in the end, I had higher numbers of sales and higher final bid prices because of those bonus gifts. I was selling more than the competition and my auctions were going for as much as 50-100% more for the exact same products listed by other sellers.

I thought like a customer, respecting their needs, as well as their choice to buy from me. Because they do have a choice. They deserve your respect. If you are sincere and thoughtful, they will trust you.

In order to think like a customer, you need to be a customer first. Have you bought on eBay before? Are you registered, yet? If not, the process of registering is incredibly simple. Then join my first eBay Challenge: Be the Customer First and share your buying experiences with us. Walk the plank, me mateys, I think you’ll find the waters are warm.

Ye be warned, though. You just might enjoy it. You might love it. Before you know it, you’ll not only begin contributing to your family’s finances more, but also begin contributing to the eBay community. Hopefully improving it along the way for everyone. Give and you shall receive.

Savvy?