Question #50: My Target Market is eBay Sellers

Answer: If eBay No Longer Allows The Sale Of Digitally Downloaded Products, What’s Your Recommendation? Let us explain.

Please click the image below to start that presentation.
(Opens in a new window, duration: 13 min, 41 sec)

My Target Market is eBay Sellers

My target market is eBay sellers and if eBay no longer allows or any other marketplace, the sale of digitally downloaded products in auction or fixed price format what’s your recommendation?

This doesn't only apply to eBay.  This applies to any… not only marketplace, but anywhere selling online.  If someone, some company or organization no longer allows a certain type of species of sale and it may change, from time to time.

For example, Google AdWords doesn’t allow gambling, adult websites to purchase Google AdWords.  They have other rules and regulations.  If you're going to purchase Google AdWords there are certain things that you're allowed to do and certain things you're not allowed to do.

If you buy and sell on eBay there are certain things you're allowed and certain things you're not allowed.  I’m going to tell you, before I give you my answer where to go for digital products without eBay.

Answer: My answer to this question is first a quick story about Sears.

Sears Roebuck was invented, because Henry Ford invented the assembly line for the automotive industry.  The assembly line was invented before Henry Ford and then he brought it after seeing how the assembly line worked as the story goes at a meat packing plant in Chicago.

He invented the middle class, because many people were now able to get cars, the Model T specifically, as a result people could live now in the outskirts of town.  In the rural areas outside of main cities, because he had transportation, it’s not only going for a picnic, but a suburb was invented.

Henry Ford helped invent the suburb indirectly as well as the middle class.

What does this have to do with Sears?  Sears Roebuck, when they had the catalog it was invented, because people couldn’t get into the city, into the stores.

The discount store chain and Wal-Mart’s weren’t invented back in the 1800s, so farmers and other people living in the rural areas would purchase through a catalog.

The catalog would have delivery service.  There was no FedEx or UPS back then, but they would have delivery services and then people could purchase merchandise.

Sears' Clothepin Trick

Here’s what Sears used to do.  Because of the shear buying power that Sears had, Sears was the Wal-Mart of the late 1800s and the turn of the century.  Sears used to do something called the Sears clothespin trick.

If you’ve ever been through an MBA program you know the story.  Sears would work with a factory and back then the factories were all domestic there were none overseas.

The Sears buyers would walk up or visit, because the telephone wasn’t available and they would start becoming 20 to 40% of a factory’s business.

Let’s say you're selling clothespins to Sears, it seems like it’s a trivial thing, but let’s say that 60% of all the clothespins that you're manufacturing are going to Sears; 70 to 90% of all your output, your manufacturing of clothespin sales is going to Sears.

Then two people from Sears and in this case they happen to be vice presidents from Chicago and they're coming from Sears Company headquarters and they visit your manufacturing plant.

They're all smiles, they come by they knock on your door and say hi we're from Sears, we're about 90% of your business and we’d like to buy your factory.

You say wait.  You are great, but I don’t want to sell you my factory.  Then Sears says, I don’t know if you understand what we just asked.  We want to buy your factory we're 90% of your business and if you don’t sell us your factory we'll pull all of our orders.

What do you think happened?  That was called the Sears clothespin trick.

Sears would buy factories for bargain price; bargain terms, because they became the majority of all the business that they would generate from clothespin manufacturers and other manufacturers that would sell to Sears that's the Sears clothespin trick.

You don’t want to fall victim to that online.  You don’t want to fall victim to that same scenario with eBay or with any other resource.

The reason I mention that story is, because if you are focusing on eBay as your only source of income and I know many people who do this or if you're focusing on one marketplace as your sole source of income chances are that that’s going to dry up at some time.

It’s important for you not to focus as your sole source of revenue or business on one source or even a large percentage is because, if for whatever reason there’s an economic change or shift, you haven’t syndicated your risk and your risk isn’t placed over many different sources of business, what happens is you may lose the majority of your income.

If 50% of your income is coming from one source that’s very dangerous, so even if business is good, that doesn't mean anything, pretend that business is not good.

To answer the question where would I go if I were to sell digital products, the obvious answer and this is not only for anyone selling on eBay, but for anyone selling and wanting to do some creative imitation and spy on your competitors, I would go to ClickBank.

There are a few things that ClickBank has, even if you don’t sell digital product’s that’s very important.  ClickBank.com, everyone knows about ClickBank, but people don’t realize the power of ClickBank and the aggregated power that they’ve assembled.

It’s an affiliate network, first and foremost.  The easiest way to learn about ClickBank is to go to ClickBank, click on the FAQ and if you're unfamiliar with it you can learn about it in less than half an hour.

If you go to the buy products tab at ClickBank you’ll see a list of categories:

• Business to business,
• Health and fitness,
• Home and family,
• Computing and Internet,
• Money and employment,
• Marketing and ads,
• Fun and entertainment,
• Sports and recreation, and
• Society and culture

Let’s say I clicked on health and fitness.  If I want it to, it will bring up the top 10 sellers or websites for that category.

Imagine the power that you have if you know the top 10 websites.  The reason they know this is because it’s an affiliate network and they know who’s selling what.  With ClickBank, you don’t have a merchant account you're using theirs.

You're paying more to use theirs and that’s one of the advantages if you don’t have a merchant account, you can work with ClickBank and they can make sure you get paid.  They take a larger percentage, but you get to do business without a merchant account, which a lot of people don’t have.

Because of that they get to measure and they know exactly what people are doing.  They know who has the best and highest selling affiliate programs.  They're actually arranging to pay the affiliate relationships that you have there.  They have a longer guarantee policy there as well.

Read the rules and regulations if you go to ClickBank, but here’s what’s so important about digital products in ClickBank.  With ClickBank that involves DVD, recordings to teleseminars, eBooks and online video such as screen capture anything that’s digitized you can sell on ClickBank.

Read the rules and regulations, anything digital, information products especially on ClickBank are very hot.

If you look at the top 10 websites in each category you’ll be shocked at some of the copy you’ll see there.  You won’t think that it sells, but it does.

One of the things that I like to do on ClickBank, even it weren’t an eBay question like, I can’t sell on eBay anymore, where do I go?  Go to ClickBank and check out the frequently asked questions in the top 10 or 20 websites that you would be competing with.

Remember, the best place to find new customers is from your competitors.

The best way to capture more customers is to figure out what questions are being answered by your competitors and then you answer them better or in a more competitive way.

I recommend that you purchase from your competitors at ClickBank if you have any.  Any business is an information marketing business so find a competitor that’s close to your category and just peruse.

If you spend a couple of hours a week on ClickBank in fact, 20 or 30 minutes a day is more than enough, but two hours a week and you’ll be at the top of the food chain of understanding where the Internet is as it relates to information products and how to repurpose your product.

In fact, many times all you have to do is repurpose something that’s selling well on ClickBank and you have a strategic alliance possibility there or you have a competitive possibility there.

My answer to the alternative to eBay is ClickBank.  It is one of the largest, if not the world’s largest resource and affiliate network for any digital products.  If it can be delivered via the Internet it’s going to be sold on ClickBank.

Some of the best marketers are on ClickBank simply, because they know that it’s a built-in marketplace.  That's what I going to recommend.

If eBay disallows you to sell something and you can sell that something digitally, go to ClickBank instead.

Remember this year’s clothespin trick.  If ClickBank becomes 90% of your business that’s dangerous so go elsewhere.

You can do a tremendous amount of business without selling on ClickBank.  You can do millions of dollars.  There are people who are not on ClickBank that do millions of dollars each year.

ClickBank is not only a great place for you to get started, but to add as an adjunct to your existing business and a great place to spy on your competitors.