Dear Tony,
I hope (and pray) that my decision to buy your “program” was a wise one.
I too, am a Christian and a lot of my buying decisionfiltered= )
Before I really get going… please note that I don’t have any current interest in the whole drop-shipping thing.
My name is Kevin Koop. My wife, Christi, and I have been buying and selling on ebay for over six years
(under username jeepchick00 ). It’s just been a hobby, but one we’ve really enjoyed. My wife owns her own,
home-based business, a Graphic Design and advertising company. She specializes in Design for Packaging
and Print Advertising but also does some website design (www.k2graphix.com). The home-based business is awesome as it allows my wife to stay home with our 3 1/2 year old daughter, Sydnee.
I am 38 years old and am a Custom Cabinetmaker and Finish
Carpenter in Southern California. I have an informal
partnership with a friend who’s been in this business for over 15 years. We produce “Upper Mid” to “High-End”
cabinetry for the residential market. Our “average” cost for Kitchen Cabinetry is $30,000 and our last job was a large
upper-end kitchen which sold for $64,000. We both do alright financially, but the hours involved are too much and the
work is quite rigorous. I don’t mind the “heavy-lifting” but my partner is going on 50 and I can see it’s becoming harder on him.
I want to position myself differently so I don’t have to be turning out two kitchens a month when I’m 50!!!
Anyway, I’ve always been a fan of residual income and decided to investigate what avenues were of interest to me.
I decided I’d like to write a
series of How-To eBooks marketed to the “weekend-warrior” woodworker. This market is huge
but I haven’t found many products available in the eBook format. I’ve started writing and developing a game plan but find
it hard to get a lot done because of my current obligations.
I took a partial-leap and informed my partner that as of June, 2006 I would only be willing to work three days a week. He’s
not the happiest camper but he’s done this business all by himself before so to get my help three days a week is better than that.
I am hoping that you can show me how to sell existing eBook materials on eBay (as Automatically as possible). I don’t need
to make a killing. It would be nice if I could bring in $1,000 to $2,000 a month to carry me through while I continue to develop
my own eBook products. I started a new eBay name, cabinetguyonline, less than a month ago to prepare for selling my own eBooks.
Here’s some bullet points of my eBay experience:
- Buying and Selling experience of over six years (100% positive feedback on both usernames)
- I have sold regular auctions, fixed-price auctions and dutch auctions
- Quality digital photography and cleanup with Photoshop and Imageready
- User of PayPal to send as well as receive funds
- Packaging and shipping of items via USPS, UPS and Fedex Ground
All of our eBay experience is pretty much “old school.” I take the photos, Photoshop them, Place the listings, write the text, code the html,
answer the emails, package and ship the items. Not that I haven’t made some money, but it’s more labor intensive than money making.
Questions I have in General:
- Do I need a “Store” now or is this something that can wait?
- I see there are three store types… is the “Basic Store” acceptable or does the “Featured Store” really make more
than the $35 a month difference? - What are Selling Manager, Selling Manager Pro and Reports Plus and do you use these?
- I saw something on eBay’s site relative to Stores and
it said, “get 75% of Final Value fees back on qualifying traffic.”
Do you get this 75% back and what is “Qualifying traffic?” - What does it really mean to be a Powerseller? I’ve looked and haven’t been able to find out exactly what this means.
I’ve seen eBayers with very large feedback ratings who are not Powersellers and I’ve seen eBayers with much
smaller ratings that are Powersellers. - Should I start a new eBay name to sell generic eBooks in and save my “cabinetguyonline” name for my future products?
Or do you think it won’t matter?
Questions specific to you and the eBook business:
Can you run down for me (please) what formula you were using when you were selling eBooks. What I mean is… Were you listing
the auctions yourself or was some software or service doing this? Were you mainly using the auction format or fixed-price selling?
Once they paid, say thru PayPal, were you using eBay’s digitial delivery or were you using the “My DD” software you mentioned on
your site? If using the “My DD” software, how user-friendly is it? Can I be up and running rather quickly - given my advanced intellect = ) .
After the book was downloaded to the customer’s email address I assume you were using Merlin Software’s Instant Feedback, weren’t you?
Is the info on Outlook rules the only “Autoresponse” stuff you were doing with email or was there something else?
Have I missed anything along the “signal path?”
--SORRY THIS IS SO LONG BUT I HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND—
One more thing (for now)… I looked up your available auctions and didn’t find any eBooks (in your store at least). Can you please
point me to a current eBay auction for an eBook that follows your
formula. I’d be more than happy to throw some more money your way
or the way of a students, if I can go through the whole process from the point of a buyer. I’ve bought other eBooks on eBay with spotty
success. Some have come in wacky, non-PDF formats, and several times I’ve had problems downloading via eBay’s digital delivery system.
Thanks and may Our God Bless you,
