The following is a guest post by Amanda Tradwick. If you would like to write for this blog, please check out the guidelines here.

Drop shipping provides a low-risk way for entrepreneurs to make money online. Drop shippers sell products online without having to purchase the products wholesale up front. When an item sells, the vendor collects the money and the item is shipped directly from the wholesaler. No money is lost, and all sales result in direct profit.

As with any online venture, hard work and marketing savvy is needed to be successful with drop shipping.

Here’s how you can set yourself apart from others.

Choose a Reputable Source

There are many drop-shipping wholesalers who make promises of big profits, but who provide inferior products, are delayed with their shipping, or who are actually middle men who order the products from legitimate wholesalers and then charge a markup on the products. Be sure to do your research to choose a wholesaler with a good reputation and quality products. Make sure the wholesaler is known for timely shipments and legitimate business dealings.

Set Yourself Apart

There are hundreds of sellers on eBay and other sites that sell products from drop shippers — the same products from the same drop shippers. In order to be successful, you must find ways to set yourself apart from these other sellers. There are many ways to do this. You can choose niche products from quality wholesalers, ensuring that you are one of fewer sellers with those products. You can create a high-quality Web site in which to sell your products rather than relying on eBay or other online auction sites. Of course, as with any online venture, a successful marketing strategy is also key. Concentrate your efforts on building traffic to your site, promoting your products through social-networking sites, and other ways to get the word out about your products.

Write Your Own Copy

Wholesalers provide marketing copy and photos for the products in their catalog, which many sellers use for their own websites or for their online auctions. The result is that dozens of sellers use the exact same photos and descriptions of the same products. The only way these sellers can set themselves apart is to drastically undercut their prices or to build up their reputation. You can make your products stand out by ordering samples to take your own photos and by writing your own descriptive copy. You can highlight different features of the products and showcase them in new and unique ways, helping to drive sales.

Create a Blog

In addition to a website for your products, you should also create a blog to help promote what you are selling. A blog can help create awareness for your products by attracting new traffic to your site, highlighting the features of your products, and more. A blog also offers your customers additional value, creating an additional component to your Web site, rather than just offering a list of products for sale. Proper marketing of your blog — including keyword research, generating quality back links, and more — can help you to maximize marketing for your products, as well.

Drop shipping presents a low-risk way to start your own business online, allowing you to sell products without coming up with a large initial investment to purchase products. However, to be successful, you must do the proper research and put the right effort into marketing, as you would with any online venture. These tips can help as you begin your drop-shipping business.

About the Author:

Amanda Tradwick is a grant researcher and writer for CollegeGrants.org. She has a Bachelor’s degrees from the University of Delaware, and has recently finished research on grants for women in college and college grant programs.

You’re probably thinking that ANY time is a great time to sell on eBay, and you’d be mostly right. I can tell you that the worst time is during the summer months. People go on vacations and usually spend the least amount of time at the computer during that time.

Any other time is worth spending the effort to sell some unwanted junk around the house. However, right NOW, in my opinion, is the BEST time to sell on eBay.

Why?

It’s simple. Christmas is right around the corner. Literally. There is just over a month to go. People are looking for those all important gifts for their loved ones and friends. And, believe it or not, a good percentage of shopping is done online these days, and that includes eBay.

I’ve had success selling on eBay for a number of years now, mainly just selling unwanted stuff. I’ve sold items all throughout the year, even during the summer. But, for high-ticket items and those pieces that you want the most amount of eyes on, the fall months are your best bet.

Examples

Here’s an example of a past selling experience I had on eBay. A few years ago I got into selling video games systems; the Original Nintendo NES, Super Nintendo, games and other accessories. It was an interest and hobby of mine (I own both systems, still). The summer months were very slow, and the bids were low.

I was sitting on a very nice Super Nintendo with a variety of 8 different games, and Christmas was coming up, so I decided that it would be a good time to get it up for auction. Any guess as to how much it went for?

If you guessed $102, you were right. Normally, during the slower months, I may have gotten $50 for everything. Since it was close to Christmas and people were looking for that all important, perfect gift, a bidding war ensued on my item.

I love bidding wars! People are passionate about getting the item they want/need and will go to drastic measures to ensure they get it. Another example would be a Nintendo DS I sold last year at this time for $100. That price isn’t uncommon, at least it wasn’t a year ago. I paid $100 for it on eBay and turned around and re-sold it for the same amount, and that wouldn’t have happened if it was after Christmas or during the summer months, I assure you.

Conclusion

If you have anything around the house you think could potentially be valuable or draw interest from people, sell it on eBay. You’ll get rid of some old junk that’s collecting dust and make a quick buck in the process.

You can get signed up on eBay for free by going to their sign up page.

Have you ever sold on eBay before? Why or why not?

If so, what has been your experience with the online auction giant? If not, why haven’t you? Leave your thoughts below…

I had the opportunity to review a book titled, “The Official Alibaba.com Success Guide.”

I was offered a free copy of the book, and being interested in what Alibaba was all about, I took the offer. I not only agreed to review the book because I was interested, but I thought that maybe you all would be interested as well.

Afterall, it has everything to do with entrepreneur-ism and selling products online. I hope you find this book interesting and thought provoking, just as I did.

If you’ve never heard of Alibaba.com before, it’s the largest B2B marketplace provider.

Alibaba is all about Global Trade, which is what makes the world go ’round if you didn’t know. Every product we handle first came from an idea. The idea is then turned into a prototype, which is then mass-produced and distributed worldwide.

Alibaba makes this whole process as simple as possible by creating one single place for product inventors and manufacturers to come together and do business directly.

The “Success Guide” provides inside tips and strategies for sourcing products from the marketplace that you will find on the website.

What I liked most about the book is that it provides real-life experiences from the founder of Alibaba and other successful business men and women. Not only that, but it outlines in easy to understand terms how to get started selling online and forming partnerships with companies and manufacturers. It goes through the entire process from start to finish, giving you all the information you need to know as well as tips to make everything as easy as possible for you.

The book also has screenshots that illustrate what it’s describing in relation to the website. What’s really cool is that both the book and website go hand-in-hand. The book is basically a guide on how to use the website, but at the same time the book itself is a motivational and instructional tool. It’s simply brilliant.

If you’re looking for encouragement and inspiration, there’s none better than from the mouth’s of some of the most successful people in the world. You will find them right in the book.

Let’s get  into what exactly Alibaba can do for you…

Say you have a product idea. You’ve done all the research, testing, etc. and know there’s a market for it. You just need some way to bring the product into reality that you can then sell to the masses. That’s where Alibaba comes in. You can converse directly with manufacturers from all around the world. This is huge if you’re an inventor and looking for contacts that will be able to manufacture and mass-produce your product.

The other side to this is what really caught my attention (since I’m not an inventor ). Say you don’t want to create a product of your own but want to sell existing products. You also want to get wholesale prices on your items so you can earn a decent profit from each sale. Alibaba is a good source to find such items because again, you can deal directly with manufactures and get the best possible prices. Selling on eBay came to my mind.

Do you see the benefit of having a site like Alibaba.com where you have hundreds of manufactures ready to do business with you directly at your fingertips?

If you’ve been looking to sell actual physical products online, then I recommend taking a look at what Alibaba.com has to offer. And, here are some Sourcing Tips to help you in your search to find manufacturers and products.

Interested in getting a copy of the book? You can get it on Amazon today…

I know I’m well overdue for a post, but I promise I’ll make up for it. In my last post I discussed some of my personal strategies for making money on eBay and some important resources. Today, I want to provide you some other avenues for selling your stuff online.

TripleClicks is very new but starting to get noticed as the fun and easy place to sell your stuff online. TripleClicks is SFI’s new online store and provides a quick, simple and easy way to sell your unwanted stuff for cash! Use TripleClicks as your online garage sale to turn the clutter in your closets, attic, and garage into cash!

As you may know, I’m a big fan of SFI and how they’re always looking out for their affiliates and making changes that benefit all of us involved. Their new TripleClicks store gets my highest recommendation.

There’s a lot more to TripleClicks than just selling your stuff online, but if you’re looking for an eBay alternative, you can’t go wrong. What’s better is that when you sign up today you’ll get a free complimentary listing, just for trying them out.

Sign up for TripleClicks today and start selling your stuff online.

If you’ve been online for any amount of time, you’re probably aware of the online auction site eBay. Making money on eBay isn’t all that complicated, unless you want it to be. You can use the auction site for simply selling unwanted stuff around the house, or you can start your own work from home business selling a high volume of products every day on eBay.

If you want to start making money from this online auction giant, then I recommend first starting small and getting rid of unwanted stuff around the house. This will get you familiar with the whole process of how eBay works and what to expect. There’s many features of eBay that you’ll want to be familiar with if you want to take your selling to the next level and work from home full-time making money on eBay.

First, you’ll need an eBay account. You can sign up for free HERE.

Here’s some things you’ll want to get yourself familiar with:

• Buying/Bidding
• Buyer/Seller Feedback
• Payment Options
• Shipping Options

The best thing to do is go to eBay’s Help Center that will provide links with everything you need to know to get started selling and making money on eBay.

Buying and selling on eBay can be very fun. I say this from my own experience. Bidding can be a rush! Of course, selling is a lot of fun as well. You’d be surprised what kind of money you can make selling some old junk around the house.

If you want, check me out on eBay… workfromhomeopportunities.

I used to have a semi-business on eBay, but now I just sell stuff I no longer want. Check out my user page and see what all is available to you. You’ll also get a glance at the feedback system they have.

Now, if you want to get serious about making money on eBay, the best route to take would be to find a dropshipper that will provide you with a list of items to sell at wholesale prices, and then when you make a sale through eBay, the dropshipper will ship the item to the buyer for you.

This eliminates the need of you having to stock any inventory, which is a huge plus. This is the best way to sell a high volume amount of products on eBay. No inventory; no shipping. Just list the items, get paid and notify the dropshipper. That’s it.

The hardest part is finding reliable dropshippers with reasonable wholesale prices. That’s where The SaleHoo Wholesale Directory of eBay Product Suppliers comes in handy. The SaleHoo Directory is the #1 Directory for finding wholesale suppliers and dropshippers specifically for eBay products. They offer a one-time lifetime membership fee plus a free trial to check them out.

This is definitely the way to go if you want to earn extra income or work full-time from home making money on eBay. At this point you’ll be listing a large amount of items per day which can get pretty tedious and time consuming. There are some free tools available to make this process easier for you.

eBay provides a free listing tool called Turbo Lister. Turbo Lister is an application you install onto your computer. You make your listing within the application going through every single option available to you. Once you have your listing setup with the options that you want, you can upload your listings directly to eBay from within Turbo Lister. It’s very comprehensive yet very easy to use. I personally use it for all of my eBay selling that I do.

Another free tool and one I highly recommend is Auctiva. Auctiva is a third party software client that is web-based, which means you don’t have to download and install any software. Auctiva is provided specifically for eBay sellers, but it’s not provided by eBay themselves. Auctiva actually provides many more beneftis and perks that you wouldn’t get otherwise from Turbo Lister or eBay. For instance, no image fees, no scheduling fees and over 1500 templates to choose from for free.

If you’re planning on selling a lot and making money on eBay, I would recommend using one of these two listing tools to simplify the selling process and making your life A LOT easier.

I hope this helps you learn more about eBay and the possibilities that are available to you.