How to buy and sell distressed, overstock, liquidation, closeout,
off price and surplus merchandise on ebay from your home based
business.

How to information on buying and selling closeout, distressed,
overstocked, surplus, off price and liquidation  merchandise. Ever
wonder where the ebay Power sellers get their merchandise to sell on
eBay! Well many of them purchase from the many surplus and liquidation
businesses all around the world. This website is designed to show you
how and where to buy from these surplus liquidators and sell on ebay
and other ideas to help you make a profit. There are many other places
to find surplus merchandise also and we will show you some of them for
you to compare with such as www.liquidation.com. We do not limit
ourselves to any specific surplus merchandise or supplier and are always
looking all over the globe for the best deals.

ebay solves the number one reason for business failure lack of
customers. Now it is up to you to present them with the right product at
the right price. Remember this it will make you money. The seller with the
best presentation will make the sale it is all about how the product is
presented. Build an HTML presentation worthy of your product, do not
just throw the product on ebay. Building a proper presentation will pay
you many times the time invested in preparing the presentation. With that
said let’s get started!

Where to begin?
Step one        Determine who the buyers are first before investing in
products. Spend some time on ebay looking for what sells. It is unlikely
with the millions of products on ebay that your products are unique. Get
on ebay and see if your products will sell before purchasing anything.
Once you have determined that similar products are selling on ebay then
and only then is it ok to purchase surplus merchandise to sell.

Step two        Register as a buyer and seller with Ebay and setup a
Paypal count to allows the customers to pay by credit card. Be careful
and never release your ebay or Paypal account information over the
internet to anybody!!! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!

You will receive many email's attempting to get you to give them
your ebay or Paypal account information and they all look very
real. There are so many of them it will amaze you so be careful !!!

Step three        List an item for sale

Click Sell in the navigation bar at the top of any ebay page. eBay's Sell
Your Item form will take you through the process of listing your item step-
by-step.

Set your price.
Do not set your price to high, the reason for buying online and the
reason you sell surplus merchandise is to bargain shop. Many items you
will want to start the price at .01 one penny and let the bidding begin. For
example you purchase surplus DVD movies to sell for one dollar each
and price them at one penny to start the bidding. But you set the
shipping and handling charge at 2.99 to guarantee you will not lose
money. Cost to ship United States Postal Service media freight is often
below 2 dollars.

Get paid!
When your listing ends, contact the buyer by email. Let your buyer know
the total price of the item, including your stated shipping costs, and how
they can pay you. Using Paypal will allow the buyer to pay by credit card.
A must to operate a serious business online.

Ship the item.
After payment is received, send the item to the buyer's shipping address,
specified with their payment or by email. (USPS) United States Postal
Service is the cheapest way to ship your products.

Tips for listing on eBay!

Take one or more pictures of your item using evenly distributed light from
a well-lit area not the camera flash. The picture is vital to selling on ebay
use a  tripod or other stand to steady the camera when taking pictures.

Transfer (download) your picture from your camera to your computer
hard disk following the instructions in the camera manual. Use another
web site to host your pictures, you should upload them before you start
listing-follow the file uploading instructions provided by your Internet
service provider or hosting service. Note the Web Address (URL) for
each uploaded picture, so you can copy it into the Sell Your Item HTML
form. There are many free websites on the internet you can use to host
your pictures without having to pay ebay for each picture.

Write your HTML code.

Take your time and write a proper description and save it to disk so you
can reuse it for other sales of the same type products.

What will buyers most want to know about it? What are its most appealing
characteristics? What words might buyers use to search for your item?

Choose the most specific category available.

Plan your pricing. You may want to do a little research into the selling
prices of other items similar to yours. This will help you set your starting
price or your Buy It Now price. Also, decide whether you would like to set
a reserve price.

Initially you will want to sell in the united states only to keep it simple. You
can add international later when you are comfortable with which countries
you want to sell to.

Offer Paypal as a payment method to accept credit card or checking
account payments.


Step four        Inquire as what other merchandise they may be interested
in remember this is a customer in the hand try to build a relationship for
future purchases, but never Spam (send email without permission as this
will usually make them mad). Never pay more than 30 percent of the
wholesale price for surplus merchandise. Never offer with the price
having a zero cents on the end such as $1.00 instead use something like
$1.02

Step five        Use local auctions to liquidate merchandise that does not
sell and do not throw away broken merchandise use it for parts on the
next shipment to fix things. This is surplus merchandise so be sure and
ask what percentage of the shipment will be not usable.

Step six        A great source for Jewelry to sell on ebay is www.bidz.com
check out the 3 minute auctions but never pay more than 10 percent of
the suggested retail price. This will take a little bit of discipline but is
essential in making money. The lower priced items we have found usually
sell better.

Step seven        Focus on the sizzle. The old saying do not sell the steak
sell the sizzle is very true and should never be forgotten when selling
online. Always focus on the sizzle or in other words give them the cure
not prevention. Take the time to develop great headlines such as “
Would you spend 1 dollar to ?”. Try to make the headline jump out at you
and use short paragraphs that are easier to read. Be honest never hide
product faults, purposely draw attention to them. They will not buy from
you if they do not trust you. Paint a mental picture of your product. Like
we said earlier presentation is everything on ebay

This Is The Headline
Line Two in Color!

Check out this item.

Benefit number one remember sell the sizzle not the steak.

Benefit number two, what will this item do to make your life better

Buy now before it is to late
Sample html code for the above example
<h1><center><font color="#ff0000">This Is The Headline
<br>
Line Two in Color!</font></center></h1>
<p>
<center>
<table bgcolor="#0000ff">
<tr>
<td><img src="http://www.surplusmania.com/picture.jpg.bmp".
</td>
<td>
<center><h2><font color="#ffffff">Check out this item.
<p>Benefit number one remember sell the sizzle not the steak.
<p>Benefit number two, what will this item do to make your life better
<p>Buy <i>now</i> before it is to late</font></center></h2>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>
P.S.        Start and end your auctions in prime time between 6pm and
8pm Pacific standard time
Do not end your auction on friday or saturday night when many of the
buyers are not at home.

We have found it is better not to list  auctions at times that competes with
major sports events such as Monday night football and this year Sunday
night football.

Never list an item without a picture!

Do not sell 2 of the same items on the same day spread them out
preferably several days apart.

When you get ready to build a website there is four things you must do:
  1. Include keywords in the title
  2. Include keywords in the heading
  3. Include keywords in the file name
  4. Include keywords throughout your website for example the most
    important keywords for surplusmania are surplus, liquidation,
    closeout and distressed and we use them liberally throughout the
    articles in this website.
Hot Tip: It’s more difficult to make a good profit on items that sell for less
than 25 dollars over a 100 dollars is ideal.
eBay shops another home based business option
of how people with home based businesses buy and sell on eBay.

To achieve high prices for rare and unique items an auction is still the
best way to sell but for most sellers that aren,t selling rare merchandise
that isn,t in high demand or scarce consider using:

An eBay Shop inexpensive to run and can be profitable. eBay Shops
have much in common with other retail outlets the difference being that
brick and mortar sellers typically work face-to-face with customers, on
eBay all the buying and selling is done on computer.

The difference being:

1.        On eBay you are paying a tiny fraction operating costs and can
undercut their prices considerably. Also no one has to know you are a
one man home based business and that you work entirely from home.
2.        eBay's polices it’s own market place a huge advantage.
3.        On eBay you can have dropshippers ship direct to your
customers.
4.        You can sell worldwide from your home based business and
take time off when you want to. Adjust your schedule to meet your
needs. You can even ban undesirable people from bidding or buying in
your eBay Shop, earn money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.