The store of Your Dreams has Launched! The prelaunch checklist

There are many avenues by which self-owned and self- operated websites can enable you to earn “Recurring Income”.

This can be achieved by selling items through a Primary Market or Secondary Market, with a primary focus on Inventory advertisement, the very definition of ‘product marketing’.

In a nutshell, product marketing is the sale of goods, either tangible or digital and it is what’s being sold on a multitude of platforms.

Below, are examples but not limited to avenues to be leveraged for a wide variety of primary and secondary marketing campaigns:

1. Drop Shipping
2. Parallel Import
3. Affiliate Marketing
4. Creation of Inventory or self-created Inventory
5. Offering personal growth products such as consultations and establishing SEO (Search Engine Optimization based consultancy) companies or organizations.
6. Creating or establishing a centralized Affiliate platform with many ‘know’ merchants.
7. Trading and affiliate marketing in the Crypto currency-bitcoin markets.

Based on well-known Market Entrepreneurs, including the founders of Wealthy Affiliate Institute, Kyle and Carson, a product can be sold in a niche of high competition, mid to low competition and ideally ‘low competition’, to summarise and is not only limited to this avenue. If you are curious and thirsty to pursue a thriving e-commerce avenue read on but do make it a point to read this: https://superflaminaffliatiers.com/do-your-business-the-wealthy-affiliate-way-the-scope-on-wealthy-affiliate

The basic premise of digital sales campaigns, revolve around identifying a keyword that carries with it, purchasing influence and results in ‘purchasing intent’, and customizing campaigns around this very pivotal keyword.

Keyword research helps a great deal in understanding how ‘saturated’ a market is and if it’s worthwhile, or if you are visibly placed on search engines, indexed and then ranked for that purchase-influenced keyword. It

The Primary markets will be discussed separately, owing to the volume and diversity within those markets, sub-markets and niches respectively.

You can expect e-commerce stores that permit you to drop ship, import or parallel trade consumables or affiliate marketing, a prime example of not having to hold your own inventory, however you earn a percentage of commissions in this structure.

Secondary Markets are sales platforms which deal with selling ‘pre-owned’ items, or new-gently used but purchased items that you cannot return to the original store of purchase, or through another buyer and you are either attached to the item, mildly or completely disappointed in your secondary purchase, or are not attached or in love with your purchase, tangible in context.

Why do we define attachment to an object? It is a very human concept to make ‘emotional and logical’ decisions on our purchases, for a seller it has a reference to pricing and channel of sales, as to how it is sold or marketed if digitally or advertised?

It’is rhetorical question that begs insight within personal experiences and ideally cannot be generalized.

This applies both in store and online retail shopping. It might differ significantly for digital purchases, or books as such, but in personal experience, I have a hard time deleting a few good audio books, in lieu of newer audio books, and perhaps the books have fondly won me over?

That is the premise of attachment to goods. It’is concept to consider in assessing price and avenue of selling goods, as it has a profound impact on its availability, by this I mean the ‘availability of the goods’.

It resonates with the advertising method and impact or attractiveness of a campaign, which profoundly impacts psychology of purchase. Price point can be a significant attract or as can media and presentation or let’s say how it’s promoted widely.

With respect to a secondary market, it has the most significance, as you are selling usually gently used goods or well-loved items, perhaps heirlooms that could use a new lover?

It becomes imperative to truthfully represent it but that might not attract you any buyers.

What is a seller to do and how do they go about it? That’s where understanding your audience and using creativity can inject new lease into your loved goods. The objective is to hand it to a new lover and your items need to be dressed for the occasion.

We all have a favorite item that deserves the best second home it can get, and with this in mind, secondary sales platforms for used or gently used items, such as EBay or Craigslist maybe a great starting point.

However, the crux more often than not, is that you will be offered with a price below your ‘reservation price’ or asking price. What’s your call as a merchant? Do you comply or submit a counter offer? Agree and disagree or agree to disagree?

You must bear in mind the effort of emotionally impacting your audience versus the cost of the product or it’s extended life or value.

If you have had noteworthy experience, please do leave a comment below in the comments section and It’s definitely valuable to compare with, in the context of this article.

For those of you with strong attachments to your items, as I do, there are a multitude of things that can go wrong from the point of request or asking from a customer, the transaction and delivery of your item to the customer.

Each stage is fraught with risks which can lead to loss of product and reputability. Okay you lose a product, but if your goodwill is lost it is very hard to gain back.

According to many resources, it is six times easier to keep a customer and ensure longevity of your business, than it is to completely start anew each time you lose trust.

It is that much harder an uphill battle, and rumors can spread like wildfire as comments or reviews of your business.

That is not the goal ideally! Our objectives lie in ensuring (call it ensurance) losing trust is NOT something we head down the path towards!

More often than not, you innocently trust and give into a questionable deal or short-changing, It‘spam’ or fraudulent identity online.

You might have to oblige and at times it’s at our loss both financially, and if it was a prized possession that had to be sold for some reasons, well that’s lost too in these dealings.

Not savory, however that’s’ where understanding the limitations of both the primary and secondary markets are educational themselves. The experiences of both can be ideally merged for the best results.

In marketing campaigns for your ‘gently used’ or goods of previous attachment, such as that sold on eBay or craigslist, Angie’s list or 5 mile to name a few, you have current freedom of creating advertising campaigns.

The question then lies in the most appealing methods to Implement?

Please read on to find some compelling methods in your eBay advertising campaigns, or for secondary markets as such. It

I was faced couple of times with customers who, after receiving an item, four to five days later, created a claim for refund on false pretenses.

Although I had photographs the bottom line was the customer satisfaction and assessment of my inventory. I didn’t think twice and its normal for me to offer a partial refund mostly, or if I sense I want to uphold five star rating on my profile or eBay dashboard, I often give them a full refund.

This is an easy decision in the secondary marketplace however you have to be more analytical in a primary market, as you are selling primarily or as a middle party, new inventory and often highly priced tangible or digital products.

This can be a stand out difference in approaches to selling goods through either platform.

Some will request you send an item to an unknown PO. Box, and there are options to ship items to such locales and unknown P.O.boxes.

That irked me, because as a 100% rated and reputed eBay seller and buyer, I never once thought of that. Yet, I haven’t faced a fraction of what some eBay sellers might have experienced.

Cyber health and security threats can practically collapse your efforts in a minute and if you have a sales platform, its essential to be up to date on privacy and anti virus protection. Not to mention theft of financial information, identity theft or basically a collapse of your e-commerce store is a possibility.

Hackers who can send viruses to reputable companies, throughout their structural framework are another business health concern of magnanimous proportions and will be discussed under cyber-security in a separate article. I have yet to compose quite many articles on pertinent root questions, we all have as budding entrepreneurs.

So you might think with a personal website you are that much more at risk? The precautions here are to NEVER STORE PERSONAL OR FINANCIAL INFORMATION ANYWHERE ON ANY MOBILE DEVICE.

That is a completely different avenue of thought and one that can imply you keep all your defenses up. It is mostly related to regular updates and backup of your website, the gear and malware protection you own.

(Please refer to my article: Gearing up for success).

My policy was straight and simple: do accurately represent the item and if I was a customer, to study the details and make a commitment based on its necessity of purchase. I didn’t bid on items if I Wasn’t serious about them, but life throws lemons too often even online!

A Multitude of Missteps (M&M’s) can occur, such as logistics and transport condition or the customer wearing the item and damaging it, within even minutes. The result?

You know it all too well, if you are ‘attached’ or were previously ‘attached to your goods. You have already parted with your goods and now with your money. It’is double whammy really with no benefit for the sellers.

This is despite the ‘No returns Policy’ and quite a detailed account of the item you are selling. You need to issue a refund or you will go down in seller ratings, or be completely banned from selling on that platform.

That is not an option if that is your livelihood or you have one store and do not want a brick and mortar store that costs rent and wages.

Not to mention rates and tax!

The Secondary Sales platform usually has mechanisms centered toward a ‘Pay what you want’ scheme (PWYW). This is where the consumers actually have a control over the price they pay, the ‘Reserve’ or asking price.

Through extensive study, and research it has been suggested that though this might increase a consumers’ intentions to purchase, it can conversely lead to exploiting the system.

The consumers might pay significantly below the seller’s costs or nothing at all. It’s one of the reasons that reinforce a new method, a Hybrid method where you can choose between a Pay for performance and Pay for impression model, for the seller.

This is easily justified by a store and a website, guaranteeing that certain purchasing conditions can be specified by you and policies put forth to protect against exploitation.

If a combination method including maintenance of an online store that compliments your secondary sales platform is entered into, the ‘Pay What You want’ sales model can complement rather than deter your sales. It(Kim and Associates, 2009).

This is in particular reference for secondary sales platforms such as eBay where the concept of ‘Reserve Price’ match or limits are set in mechanism.

So you sit in deliberation of what next ? How do you take your online store to the next level without spending more than you already have?

That is where the importance of your own website plays in!

Read my article: The vital line of your business life line: The online store and how to market it!

The next week alone will be spent in writing and communicating with the company’s claim department.

In this time, you will be issued your sales statement that shows the gross amount you made with the deduction for seller fees. Again another outward payment.

What’s more? Some secondary sales platforms automatically deduct 1-2% of your sales.

You are already paying 30% -40% of the income and depreciated value of a used or even gently used item.

You may even be selling brand new items or receive last seasons’ run way trends to sell on an online consignment store? What then?

Say, you do sell couture brands and the frequency is low, or you run an online consignment store, on these platforms, eBay, Craigslist, Angie s’ List, Etsy, through Classified Advertisements or polyvore.

1. You still need to closely abide by ‘customer’ oriented approaches and be often shortchanged as a merchant.

2. As a merchant in a secondary market the degree to which you sell your pre-owned goods, depends to a large extent on your ‘attachment’ to that product.

3.The question becomes : How willing are you to consider a ‘Reserve’ or ‘Best Offer’ price to customers with no established ‘Customer Feedback’?

4.It becomes increasingly difficult to prove ‘intent’ of usage of the product you are selling and what constitutes that subjective dimension of sales.

Yet, within this vagueness the advantageous edge, you have over your competitors, is that you are readily amenable to clients’ personal trust and are ready to lower the minimum price you had set earlier on an item, over your competitors who may not be that ‘attached’ to their products, and reluctant to lower the minimum price they have set. It

The result is that customers will form ‘ideas’ and be reluctant to reconsider shopping on your competitors site and rush to your site and products instead.

This gets you that ‘competitive edge’ which is quite vaguely defined till date.

The ‘Novel consequence’ as cited by this study on ‘product attachment within a secondary market’, is increased traffic to your site, either within EBay or an established website that you may need to upgrade soon.

The most unlikely of sellers to provide ‘Discounts’ to their customers are those sellers who are conversely ‘increasingly attached to their products’.

This is why that ‘product attachment’ as defined by Aaron R.Brough and associates, within the ‘American Journal of Marketing’ in July 2012, can skyrocket your secondary market business more than it’s limitations.

So how do you go about creating Trust and volume of sales within the secondary Market?

It is no different from the ‘Primary market’. This study proves that decisions to purchase, are based on ‘subjective emotional-product’ attachment leading to ‘product-disposition’. (Brough and associates, 2012).

I can attest to this as a seller on EBay, being often ‘attached’ and still inclined to offer a decreased minimum price or ‘discount’ to my customers. Touchwood this has led me to receive only stellar 100% rating on eBay.

I am not on that massive scale and sell infrequently so it makes sense to stay within the eBay platform, but I definitely think that added social media marketing and reviewing the items I was so closely attached will drive sales for even infrequent secondary market merchants, as myself.

The challenges may arise in selling a large volume of goods. How do you circumvent these challenges?

As a long established eBay seller or online consignment dealer, you will need an established brand and website to earn your ‘clients’ trust’ in your products future disposition and resale’s.

This might necessitate a fully customiziable but highly responsive website to promote your Online store, the Ecommerce Store that you Dream can be Launched finally!

The requirements are similar for all websites despite the nature of promotion or the specific sector or type of market you are targeting.

Your customers will rely on other customers who reviewed your products in your merchant history. One or more negative ratings can drastically deter future customers, or lead them to question you more.

The negative ratings may not be your fault and principally be the result of ‘customer only friendly’ approaches of these secondary merchant platforms. In a few cases the product may not be trustworthy and requires more ‘explanation’.

In all these scenarios, it makes sense to have ‘control’ over how your customers view you and your products, through your own website to create your own store.

The benefits I can envision are ten fold: TREAT IT AS A CHECKLIST OF PRE E COMMERCE STORE AND BUSINESSS REQUISITIES:

(Along with the other points above also)

1. Control over advertising and promotion of sales, driving up your sales.
2. Increasing volume of sales and gaining recognition.
3. No platform sales or at least you can diversify your ‘recurrent’ income stream if you do decide to stick with your account through secondary sales avenues.
4. Gaining Trust of your customers for other products you may consider selling in the near or distant future.
5. No claims and litigation processes. You can directly deal with your customers to ‘resolve’ issues.
6. No negative rating or falling below ranks, thereby losing your ‘goodwill’ so hard earnt.
7. You do not deal with non-established fraudsters and con artists who request you to ‘ship the item’ before they pay, and make a dash with your product.
8. You therefore do not need to initiate claims or you can keep this secondary avenue to deal exclusively with claims only.
9. The reason you won’t need to initiate claims, is because you add cart features and payment terminals to your website that you created and own, thereby increasing ‘Seller Protection’. Hey you need that.
10. Logistics are very easy and you can keep both your website and the secondary platform to get the best of both worlds, redeeming your outstanding merchant shipping discounts.
11. You can avert these misfortunes by creating a backup security option for your business through your own self owned and cheaply hosted domains.
12. This way you can customize your own policies and still keep two stores running both through your website and through secondary sites such as EBay, polyvore, Craigslist, Etsy and all other secondary sales platforms.
13. The options are infinite and you may consider options such as ‘Drop shipping’ and Affiliate marketing to compliment your secondary merchant sales. Thereby, you create multiple avenues of ‘recurring income’.
14. Not to mention Affiliate marketing has shown some promising financial prospects, as you capitalize on an existing major company’s good will and reputability. It
15. There are infinite possibilities currently, that were not there a few years ago for secondary merchants.
16. You can amplify resale through your own ‘store’ and promote it, on all social media platforms with the correct approach. There is indeed a correct approach, that which you can achieve on your own with no advertising budget, it can be done by yourself.

Please refer to my article: Topic 3:Skyrocketing your Business across the world!:https://superflaminaffliatiers.com/shouting-your-business-over-the-rooftops-of-the-world-strategies-that-yield-results-and-why?

This article essentially targets social media advertising that you can achieve with nil outward advertising cost. Free of charge but slightly intensive of time. Yet, that can be managed efficiently, with correct direction and guidance.

Please refer to article: ‘The Scope of Wealthy Affiliate’ for a more comprehensive reason why, owning your own ‘retail space’ can boost your sales and diminish your problems tenfold.

The specifics of website hosting, domain ownership and the wealth of training you can expect to receive will astonish you.

Here, the only cost you can expect are ‘Domain ownership with annual renewal’ and ‘Hosting’ or broadcasting charges.

Please refer to my first article:Topic 1: ‘Domains as ‘Business Real Estate’: https://superflaminaffliatiers.com/topic-1-domains-as-business-real-estate-their-importance-in-your-success-stories

References:

1. Aaron R. Brough, Mathew S.Isaac(2012).Finding a home for Products We Love: It

How Buyer Usage Intent Affects the Pricing of Used Goods. Journal of Marketing:

July 2012, Vol.76;(4); p78-91.