Sell Products on Amazon Seller Central

Amazon is a well trusted global brand that can get your products in front of thousands if not millions of web users. Therefore selling on Amazon is a smart move for those wishing to develop a revenue generating business. Best of all however is that Amazon Seller Central works perfectly with the iPad allowing you to upload, update and generally manipulate your inventory.

Whether you are selling used books and CD’s or your own creations Amazon Seller Central should be on your list of sites to learn more about. Combined with your own web presence and an eBay account you should have the key tools that you need to sell products as part of a business or just to raise capital.

Branding

What is hard to convey in the Amazon market place is a sense of branding. So it is a good idea to keep a web site or blog to build up an army of loyal customers. That’s not to say getting followers on Amazon is impossible, just that it is hard to stand out from the crowd.

Customer Service

Just because it is hard to stand out doesn’t mean that you should provide second rate customer service. Actually if you are quick to deliver your products there is a better chance of getting the type of customer loyalty a growing business needs. Never under estimate how important customer service is, especially over the internet as people still like to know that there is a person handling their order or query.

Pricing

One easy way to stand out is to have the cheapest prices around. Whilst this can work in the short term (and could be part of your initial strategy) this shouldn’t be considered a long term approach. By under cutting the rest you probably will leave yourself without enough margin for things that get lost in the post or to be comfortable with returns. Therefore make sure that you price to incorporate all of these facets and you stand a better chance of having an enterprise with legs.

Communities in Google Plus iPad App

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Google Plus Communities iPad App

The latest update to the Google Plus iPad App brings with it a slightly improved interface and some excellent community features calles “Communities“.

Communities is a little like Facebook Pages where you set up a community and other Google Plus users can join without the faff of adding people to circles. As a consumer there are some brilliant communities aimed at small business owners and startups. You too can easily start your own community around your business and is something I will be experimenting with in the New Year.

To get started all you need do is download the free app and sign in with a Google account. If you don’t have a Google account (who hasn’t?) then you can sign up from within the App. Once in press the three little lines in the top left hand corner of the main page to reveal the menu. Five lines down is the word Communities – bingo! Search and join a few communities of your choosing and get a feel for what they are and how they work.

If you are running a business / startup related community please get in touch as I’d like to follow more like minded folk.

Be Inspired Today

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Be inspired today…

Here is a testimonial tweet which describes the “Achieve More, Work Smart” eBook as inspirational. By signing up for my mailing list you too can get inspired. Please note that I’ve sorted out the typos and hope that you enjoy being inspired too.

Mate read it over the weekend very good stuff was a couple of slight typos apart from that very inspiring good work

The tweet comes courtesy of @delphisantiques who is a self employed antiques dealer that leverages the power of eBay to make a living. He is someone well worth following – especially if you are remotely interested in antiques and fine things. Once you’ve done following him then head on over to the www.delphis-antiques.com website where you can browse all manner of antiquities at very reasonable prices with free world wide delivery.

Achieve More, Work Smart Cover

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Achieve More, Work Smart Cover Hot on the heals of writing my eBook “Achieve More, Work Smart” I’ve taken some time out to create a cover. Whilst not as important as the content I’m hoping that the strong “blueprint” visual identity will convey the message contained within the 24 pages.

If you want to get your mits on a copy all you need to do is sign up for the mailing list and a it will be waiting for you once you’ve completed the sign up.

Diversify Your Income For Stability

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You need to diversify your income if you want to enjoy long term stability. So rather than deep d upon one stream of income, whether it’s an employer, product or ad revenue you need to have multiple streams of income. That way if the flow from one stream stops then you can intensify efforts elsewhere to pick up the slack and help you weather any storms. In these economic uncertain times, having this spread bet approach to life is more important than ever.

Where to start

First off take a long hard look at what you are great at and enjoy doing. Could you write about this subject and create a blog? If not could you create some instructional videos which help folk when they are starting out? How about selling specialist items on eBay? As you can probably tell the list goes on…

OK, so I have something set up but no money yet

It can take time to reap the rewards for your efforts as your reputation needs to grow before the real money starts rolling in. In the world of full time employment this is otherwise known as work experience. You can however help kick start your reputation by telling folk about what you do. Hang out in virtual or physical forums where people meet to discuss your chosen subject. By networking you’ll find people who are engaged in your subject and may one day be a customer. If not a customer they may refer friends or colleagues to you so keep the positive communication up.

The money has started to trickle

With a stream trickling you need to take time to develop another stream to compliment the first. This might be related but doesn’t have to be. Either way you need to put the same levels of dedication in to get this going as you put into the last venture – no one said this was easy.

Is two streams enough?

I’d argue that two streams can be a handful to manage but might not give you the resiliency to life that you need. Instead you need to dig deep and set up your third stream.

And beyond

If you’ve got more to give then now is your time to shine as you can set up as many streams as you like. Make sure you do not neglect streams that are serving you well as that can be the undoing of enthusiastic entrepreneurs.

Let it flow…

Achieve More, Work Smart

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Achieve More, Work Smart Cover “Achieve More, Work Smart” is my new eBook which gives you the tools to achieve more. By being intelligent about what you do and how you do it delivers massive rewards to those that want it. It’s a culmination of two years work refining my process to maximum benefit. Now you can enjoy the fruits of my effort.

The book is 24 pages long and can be read cover to cover in a couple of hours. For so little time you will get a head start, giving you the tools to leave your colleagues / competition behind.

To get a copy of the book all you need to do is sign up for the iPad Money Maker mailing list. Provide your name and email address and once you’ve completed the process you will get access to download. That’s it. You don’t need to send me money (although you can if you want), just sign up for the mailing list. Seriously.

Once signed up for the mailing list you can expect weekly website updates and special offers, providing you with even more insight into the world of making money with your iPad.

Getting Started – Set Your Infrastructure for Success

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Setting up your infrastructure for success is important when getting started as an internet entrepreneur using your iPad. This post will point you at what you need to do to hit the ground running.

Payment

Before you can start earning money you need a way to get paid. This should be your very first task. Set up a free PayPal account and connect to a bank account of your choice. This way that once the payments start rolling in you can get access to these funds.

PayPal is also incredibly useful as a means to pay for services as it allows you to avoid having to type in credit card details over and over again.

Website

I’d strongly suggest buying a domain and hosting your own WordPress blog. WordPress is great as it is incredibly customisable, has lots and lots of free plugins and for small sums of money you can get a professionally designed theme or contract a designer to great a theme for you. Because it is such an established standard there are lots of professionals out there that are used to working on top of this platform.

Social Media

Get yourself hooked up with a Twitter, Facebook Page, Google Plus & YouTube account as a minimum. You need to post content to these sites to improve your audience engagement. If you are just starting out on Twitter then you should have a look at the ipad money maker Twitter strategy.

Also if you wish to schedule tweets then look at this post.

Some Social Media Glue

IFTTT.com allows you to connect your various interests together. This means that posts which come from your blog can be automatically sent to Twitter and Facebook. This automation once configured saves a lot of time and effort and is worth its weight in gold.

Affiliates

These can provide a very useful stream of income whilst developing your products. I’m a big fan of the following schemes:

Pay for some more web site traffic

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Paid for web site traffic For about the price of a pint of beer in a UK pub you can get freelancers to complete small “gigs” for you. As an experiment I am just about to try using fiverr.com to send 5000 real human visitors to my site. This does sound too good to be true so will monitor the effects using Google Analytics to find out where the traffic has come from and what the “visitors” are doing.

For $5 I have low expectations and doubt that 5000 folk from the UK will generate this traffic but I think it would be interesting to test this out and share my findings.

Project a strong image with quality business stationery

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It’s important to present your business well and quality business stationery should feature heavily in your marketing strategy. It is worth spending some time working out what your stationery needs to say about you and your business.

Do you want to be recognised as a serious outfit or is your business focused on the lighter side of life???

Either way taking time to get the right look is incredibly important as this should project up your business image and help you communicate your message to existing and potential customers.

DIY vs Outsourcing
If you feel you have a good eye and are a dab hand with graphics software then doing it yourself would be a viable option. If this isn’t your thing then outsourcing either to a local graphic designer or individual via a company like elance.com is a better idea.

If neither DIY or paying someone floats your boat you could try a template. Whilst you will end up with a strong look and feel there is a danger that others are using this template – so beware.

Get It Produced
There are lots of ways to get you business stationery produced. I personally prefer Vista Print as the quality and prices are fab. Delivery times can be long if you don’t want to pay high fees so figure this in when placing an order. It’s not unusual to have to wait three weeks.
If you manage to see this post before 2013 then you can using this coupon to get a £10 discount when spending over £20.
If time is against you and money less of an issue then using a local printer is a good idea. This gives you more chance to preview samples before large volumes are produced.
Just do it
Whichever way you choose to get you business stationery designed and produced it is imperative that you get it done to avoid awkward moments when asked for your card and you don’t have one.