Scott Fillmer

Today we have officially moved on to a new chapter in our leisure time life.  We have sold our sailboat in Orange Beach, the 1979 Morgan Out Island 33 which we bought in Tampa in April of 2007.  We had big dreams for this particular sailboat (over the other two sailboats we have owned) but we finally decided the distance from Auburn to Orange Beach was just to much to maintain.

Plans are to replace her with a tiny little camper and go back to our camping roots and get to know some of the land and parks here in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida.

We first officially put the sailboat up for sale on June 3rd (For Sale: 1979 Morgan Out Island 33 Sailboat in Orange Beach) but decided by September that we needed to go ahead and sell the boat.  Our philosophy has been pretty much the same every since we got married.  If we are not using it, and well, then we don’t need it and should not keep what ever that happens to be at the time.  Having sold on eBay full time for many years, and the Internet in general, people tend to want to get what they paid for on items when they go to resell them, we know this just isn’t the case (see also What is Your Blog or Internet Business Worth // eBay or Sitepoint?), so, when we want to sell something, we sell it.

This is good for the buyer of course, but when we have made up our mind to do something, we would rather do it than sit around for month after month working on it.  When we started looking for this boat, a Morgan Out Island, there were not many on the market, but the ones that were on the market, are actually still on the market, 18 months later.  Not because they are not good boats, they are, but because these people refused to sell something for what someone else would pay for it.  A concept we don’t get.  So we sold it for half of what we paid for it, but we had some wonderful times on the boat and great memories, worth more than what we paid or sold the boat for anyway.

Now it is time to move on, although we will both miss having this sailboat, she was great.

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Other Posts Related to this Topic

• 1979 Morgan Out Island 33 Sailboat in Orange Beach For Sale
• Delivery Captain Sails From Tampa To Orange Beach
• Cold Day on the Beach in February is Empty and Fun
• Bought a Morgan Out Island 33 Sailboat Called LAUGHALOT
• History of Morgan Out Island 33 Sailboat, Hull Number MRY02337M79B

For more reasons than can be expressed, we are selling our bus that we called home for more than 5 years. It has been up in Colorado for the last two years and needs a new home. Below is how it was listed on eBay. It was a successful auction and the new owner now has it up in St Louis and will continue building where we left off.

We were sad to see it go, but glad to see it went to someone who will enjoy it as much as we did.

As Listed on eBay on July 14th, 2008

Bus Conversion TMC MCI MC9 MC-9, Detroit Diesel 6V92

Vehicle Description

This auction is for an MCI 9 bus conversion that is at about 50-60% complete. This bus was purchased in Florida as a church bus, was previously a greyhound bus. We purchased the bus for $20,000, shelled the bus, then built it from the ground up to what it is right now. The only thing it really needs to finish it off is a finished floor and ceiling, and some reworking of the bins to fit current needs. We replaced the Detroit Diesel 6V92 and had a completely new engine put in it in our home state of Alabama. After the new engine (ordered directly from Detroit, a 6V92 rebuild) we put less than 1000 hours on it, and it has always worked perfectly.

The bus is currently sitting in Creede Colorado and has to be moved before the end of the summer months. Creede is very cold, and summer ends August to September. We have to have the bus moved from this location. We had a death in the family and the house property it is sitting on is being sold, so it can not stay at its current location. The winning bidder must have the bus moved by September 1st.

The bus has been in its current location for about 2 years. We stored it in Colorado because we were building a house and the weather there is cold and dry, great for storage. The engine has not been cranked since then. It will need a new set of starting batteries and a full tank of fuel and probably need the fuel lines bled to prime the pumps and the throttle cable needs to be fixed (that is just a wire that attaches to the throttle in the engine compartment, an easy fix).

The bus is being sold as is, where it is, with no intended warranty. The bus is titled in Alabama and we have clear title, and it is title in the state of Alabama as a motorhome. We will sign and ship the title upon receipt of final payment for the bus.

My wife and I were full timers in this bus for almost 5 years and traveled to every state in the U.S. in this bus. We have made countless upgrades, fixes, adjustments, and we have put over $75,000 of improvements into the bus, plus a $20,000 Detroit 6V92 engine. We worked for almost 6 years on the cabinets which are all solid wood, no partial board. All cabinets are custom made for this bus. The kitchen has huge cabinets, draws, and great counter space. Some of the features include.

All in all, we have:
Original Bus purchase – $20,000
Improvements – $75,000
New Detroit 6V92 – $20,000
Total added by us – $115,000

Our loss is your chance for a great gain if you are looking for a new DIY project or just need a Detroit 6V92 Turbo engine. The engine itself is probably worth what the auction will close for, so if all you want out of it is the engine, it is in great shape, but, the bus MUST be moved from its current location. There is even storage facilities nearby that you could just have a towing company bring it to for later use if that is what you wanted to do.

What is included with the bus:

GREAT Detroit Diesel 6V92 Turbo
Installed in 2004 by Detroit dealer
Less than 1,000 original hours on the engine
This engine was professionally installed by a Detroit bus dealer in Alabama. This is a very popular engine still in use today on buses, fishing boats, and a ton of construction equipment. It is a power horse of an engine and costs us $20,000 to install.

ALLISON TRANSMISSION
this was original with the bus as far as we know. We have never had a problem with the transmission at all

TIRES
We purchased 6 new Goodyear G-391 tires. These tires were about $650 each at the time of purchase. They have about 50% treat on them. The tags have about 5% tread and we did not replace them. There is a spare tire in the front compartment. We have all chrome rims on each wheel. There were also about $3,000 for the set and includes the drives.

LIVING QUARTERS – RV
Two RV A/C units – the rear unit has a bad squirel cage motor, but the compressor is great, the other works perfectly.
3 FULL 100 watt solar panels and control panel mounted on the roof
A stackable washer/dryer. Installed only months before we parked it, they work GREAT. These are the full stackage units from Lowes built into the closet.
20 gallon hot water heater
Large TV
All granite marble counter tops, professionally installed.
All solid wood cabinets
Flexsteel chairs
Large full size side by side refrigerator with ice maker
Full size shower
RV toilet
Bathroom sink in matching marble counter top with cabinets

LOWER BINS
The bus has three full open bins. The first bin to the front was where we stored the house batteries, it now has the hot water heater on one side with electric boxes in the middle and storage on the other side. The middle bin is storage and the rear bin has the tanks. There are 4 75 gallon tanks. Two 75 gallon black/grey and two 75 gallon fresh tanks. There are two water pumps, one for the front and one for the rear of the bus. The washer/dryer drains into the grey tanks. There is also a small portable generator on the outside bin under and rear of the drivers seat.

This is a work in progress motorhome, rv, bus, project. It needs some TLC if you want to make it into a home, if you want everything we have put into it at this point, you will still need to remove it from the current location first. I am sure there are a tons of things that are included here that I forgot to mention. Keep in mind that this is a DIY project. A ton of work has been done, and we lived and drove the bus while we did the work, but it is not a finished and polished half a million dollar motor home or Prevost. It can be if you want to put some work in it, or you can use it as is like we did for many years.

I will answer any questions here on the listing. Please review all the photos included. They are from the time we bought the bus in 2000 through the conversion process. The cabin with the snow is where the bus is currently sitting. I can give you the exact address if you like, the bus is actually viewable in google earth where it sits.

We did not place a reserve on the auction and we started the listing at a penny because we need to sell the bus and have it removed from the property so the owner can sell the house. We currently live in Alabama and can not afford to pick it up and drive it down to our house, otherwise we wouldn’t sell it because we have put so much into this bus.

The winning bidder will need to pay 10% up front through paypal within 24 hours of the end of the auction. The remaining payment needs to be made within a few days through a money order or cashier’s check from a U.S. bank only. We will only sell to U.S. bidders that can remove the bus from the property. Once we receive the final cashier’s check payment we will express mail the title to you. The next door neighbor to the property is a very helpful person who works in construction. He can fill the fuel tank for you and possibly help with logistics. We will provide you his name and phone number when the auction is over.

If you do not have any feedback or low feedback, have negative feedback please contact us prior to bidding. We are only taking serious bidders and if your user ID does not look to be legitimate, your bid will be removed and your user ID blocked from future bidding. We have sold professionally on eBay for many years under the ID piecesofthepast-al, so you can check our great feedback over there too. Any attempt at fraudulent bidders will be removed.

I am very sorry I can’t believe I forgot to put the year and transmission type. The bus is a 1980 TMC MCI-9 with a 4-speed automatic transmission.

There have been a few questions that I will try to address here.

1. Q-Can the next door neighbor help with getting it started?
A- you would need to work that out with him. I will provide the winning bidder with his name and phone number, he is aware we are selling the coach. He will probably do what he can for you, he is a super nice guy.

2. Q-what do I need to do to get the bus started?
A- the coach has been at this location in storage since we stopped traveling about 2 years ago. The new engine has about 10,000 miles on it, about 1,000 hours total, so the engine is in great condition. Anyone familiar with big diesel engines knows they need a few things to get going. Heat, fuel, and power. So,
(1) You will need two new truck sized starting batteries (these are big rig bats).
(2) You will need to prime the fuel lines. This just takes filling the tank with diesel (full if possible), disconnecting the fuel line from the engine and starting the flow into the filters. The reconnecting them.
(3) and heat. The engine is equipped with a great engine block heater. It will need to heat up the coolant for several hours to get a good crank (this is just because it has been sitting, don’t have to do this each time). Coolant levels should also be checked.
(4) block heater must be turned off prior to cranking the engine. There is a rear engine starter on the control panel from the back, pretty standard.

3. Q-are there any repairs that need to be made prior to driving off.
A – The only thing I know of is the throttle cable. It came disconnected at the engine block. This is just a metal wire that broke. All you need to do is connect the two pieces together with a bracket or metal crimp. This is an easy and very very cheap repair but needs to be looked at. Once you start it and air it up, just as a standard practice you will need to check the air lines/valves to make sure you don’t have any air leaks. No bus is air tight, they all seep air from their systems.

4. Q-How many miles does the coach have, what kind of gas mileage does the Detroit 6V92 get?
A – this is almost impossible to answer since it spent its life as a greyhound bus. Once retired we put about 80,000 miles on it, and about 10,000 miles on the new engine (1,000 hours). The bus dash board does have an accurate engine hour gage which is total hours for the bus but I don’t remember what it is reading right now. Gas mileage on a 6V92 is 6-7mpg and doesn’t change much no matter what you do. It is a HUGE engine.

5. Q-When is it available to be picked up?
A – we are going to be at the bus the first week in August to remove our personal belongings from inside. This is just a few remaining clothes and items like that. After that, you can take it any time you like between August 5th and September 5th or so. It needs to be removed prior to the winter setting in when you will not be able to move the bus due to the weather in that part of CO.

6. Q-Do you have clear title?
A – yes, we do. The title is from the state of Alabama and it is stated on the title as a motorhome.

7. Q-Can I call you to ask you a question?
A – yes, just send me an email and I will send you my office phone number where you can call me during office hours.

There have been a few more questions come through that I wanted to address, these are a continuation of the first posted Q&A.

1. Q – What condition is the generator in and, how big is it, where is it?

A – the generator is just a small portable 3500 watt gas generator, same as you would buy at Lowes or Home Depot. It was running when we left it, but it is a gas generator so I am not really sure about its status. The cost from Lowest was something like $500-$700 or so. We used it a lot, so it might need a good carburetor cleaning after sitting a while. You can take the 50amp plug for the coach electric and plug it into the 30amp generator and it runs everything except usually only one a/c unit at a time (or the hot water heater in the front bin). The front bin has the 120v on one side and the 12v wiring on the other side and there is a 20 gallon electric hot water heater in the middle of the front bin. The wiring isn’t real pretty looking but you can just plug the 120v into either outside RV power or the generator. Any other questions at all just let me know, thanks. Scott

2. Q – Will you send the keys with the title?

A -there are no keys to start or run the bus, it is a push button, but there are also several switches you have to flip, in order, to be able to crank it. Almost all buses built during this time were built without a key ignition. We did however put in a keyed entry on the door which is locked, and that we will send with the title, but we also have a copy of that key in the cabin where the bus is sitting and when we are up there in the first week of August we will place that key in the bus somewhere.

3. Q – I know the bus is being sold as-is, but what if I don’t know how to get it started, what then?
A – it will be the owners responsibility to move the bus off the property. The winning bidder will need to make their final payment within 3 days of the winning bid. At that point the title and key will be mailed to you, and then you own it, it will be your responsibility to move it, if not by you, a local mechanic can get it started, or you could have it transported to a local shop to have them start it. Either way, I could safely say, using the steps I outlines in the auction, I could go right up there and have it running in a matter of a day. There are several good diesel mechanics around the south central Colorado area. If you couldn’t get it started, I would have one come out and start it.

4. Q – Is September 1st the last day to move it set in stone?
A – I said it needed to be moved by September 1st, this is not set in stone, we have a little wiggle room on the “remove by date”. It starts to get very cold up there in September / October so it is as much the weather as the house being sold, so no, if you needed to move it on September 3rd or 8th, that is fine, just needs to be moved before the freeze starts to set in or the house is sold (freeze will most likely come first).

5. Q – Can I stay in the bus a few days while I am there to pick it up?
A – You can stay there in the bus while you work on getting it ready to move if that is what you want to do. Keep in mind there is no water there. Everything gets winterized in a severe way when no one is there, that includes the outside water. There is 50amp electric on the pole where the bus is parked, that will be on and you can plug in there if you need to while you are there.

6. Q – Will the guy next door fill up the fuel tank for me?
A – I will provide the name and phone number of the next door neighbor. What he does and doesn’t do for you is up to him, but he has told me in the past that he can get the fuel tank filled up. You will probably need to send him a payment and then he can have it fuel up before you arrive. It holds about 150 gallons of diesel.

7. Q – Can I go see the bus if I am close by?
A – yes, by all means, please run by and take a look at it if you like. Email me and I will send you the address where the bus is located, but the auction ends on Monday and we will not “hold” it until you go see the bus, sorry.

These are all very good questions and I will post additional Q&A’s here as they come in over the weekend if needed. Please contact me with any questions you might have, I will respond as quickly as possible. Thanks, Scott

Other Posts Related to this Topic

• We Have Arrived in Colorado for Our Winter Stay
• We Have Officially Arrived in Colorado for a While
• Installing the AC Units on our MCI Bus Conversion
• Our MCI-9 Bus Conversion is Under Way with Painting
• Finding the Right MCI Bus for Conversion, What are We Thinking?

This is probably the saddest post I could make on this blog but we have come to the decision that we can not keep up with our house here and the boat we love down at the coast.

I will be posted more photos and information as time goes on but you can look through this blog and all the posts and history of the boat to know what we are selling. It is a 1979 Morgan Out Island 33 in great shape. We had put a lot of hard work into her since we purchase her in Tampa in 2006. The only issue she has at all is the 50hp Perkins motor needs a new head gasket. The Perkins has been serviced, a new heat exchanger installed, filters changed, and she runs GREAT. Starts right up every time, but she does need the header gasket replaced.

Comes with all sails and equipment needed to take an off-shore cruise to the keys or Bahamas. I will post the latest survey soon. We did not have one done as we did not continue the coast guard registration process. Along with all the normals for a boat this size, it also has a GREAT marine a/c and heater unit. We used this all summer last year and this winter and it works great. It is a very roomy cabin, perfect for a live-a-board with the headroom and sleeps at least 5 comfortably. The interior is very clean and in very nice condition. Floors and wood work on the inside are in great shape. Two water holding tanks that hold about 50 gallons of water, a 35 gallon diesel tank, working head and fresh water shower.

To see the history of the vessel please visit the history page, you can also see the most recent survey as well. We had not completed the name change so it is still technically called the s/v LAUGHALOT. The boat is located at the Bear Point Marina in Orange Beach Alabama. You are more than welcome to visit the marina to see the boat. The current asking price is $19,500. The current NADA price is about $23,000 but we have discounted the header gasket work that needs to be done, which should only be about $1500 or so. The marina is VERY nice and the slip is very reasonable at $350 per month, which includes electric, water, phone, and cable.

Any questions at all please let us know through the contact page above and I will be happy to return your email. You can also ask your questions through the comment box below and I will post answers there publicly.

Here are some recent photos.

I am sure the new owner will enjoy it as much as we have. We spent many weekends on the boat and enjoyed each one.

Other Posts Related to this Topic

• Our 1979 Morgan Out Island 33 Sailboat has Sold
• Delivery Captain Sails From Tampa To Orange Beach
• Cold Day on the Beach in February is Empty and Fun
• Bought a Morgan Out Island 33 Sailboat Called LAUGHALOT
• History of Morgan Out Island 33 Sailboat, Hull Number MRY02337M79B

Today eBay announced the official opening of the eBay Partner Network (or EPN) which, in 30 days no less, will replace Commission Junction as the sole affiliate program for eBay.

For those casual users of the eBay affiliate program, the email this morning might come as a bit of a surprise but they have been working on this for some time, and promise to have a better reporting and functionality, although I have been very happy with Commission Junction for many years now.

The news didn’t go unnoticed by those in the blogging world where you could find several posts this morning like eBay Partner Network now live by Sue from Tamebay, eBay Dumps Commission Junction from Net Profits, a good discussion from Shoemoney in eBay Affiliate Program FINALLY Drops the CJ Dead Weight, and several others. For those working with the eBay affiliate program in one way or another, this is big news.

What is an Affiliate?

If you are unfamiliar with how affiliates work, it is a simple concept that has been around for quite some time. A company offers an affiliate partner (the user) an incentive of some kind, usually money, to promote their company. At this point almost all companies do this in one form or another, and even small ecommerce sites can setup affiliates for their customer. I am both an affiliate partner and an affiliate provider through one of our small ecommerce sites.

You can even see this on non-eccommerce site and large B&M companies. DirectTV has offered $50 to anyone who gets a friend to sign up for a new satellite TV account for a long time, this is just a simple affiliate offering that can be done by anyone who has a friend who needs their service.

How Much Does an Affiliate Pay?

This is always the question. How much can I actually make using something like this. The answer is just about as much as you are willing to put into building your affiliate network. For most of us, we don’t have a 40 hour work week we can devote to an affiliate program, so we use it where we can, when we can.

I have posted my most recent report below, so you can see it isn’t much. We current run about $100 a month on the eBay affiliate program but it doesn’t take much effort to produce results like that below. We have made as much as $500-$600 a month and as little as nothing. It all depends on how much work you want to put into the program.

If you have time, and minor programming skills, there are many people that make a nice living with all the various affiliate networks. Like anything else it can take quite a bit of time to initially set up, but once set up, it can run and produce some nice revenue without much effort or maintenance.

Using an Affiliate Program With eCommerce

It works very similar to an ad network like Google Adwords except without the ads. It can also be perceived by your customers and visitors as an unwelcome way to use them to receive a payment for something. So if you use it on an ecommerce site you should keep a few things in mind.

• Don’t let it take away from direct sales
• Don’t let it effect your customers perception of your good business practices
• Use it sparingly in areas of your website that need some filler
• Make sure you are familiar with the TOS of the network
• Have real expectations about revenue, and plan accordingly
• Know the effect on customer service and be willing to change

As with anything else you do on your website, make sure that the benefit you receive for using something is worth doing. I know many sites that use Google Adwords in various places and receive little or nothing in return. If you are making $1.00 a month on a banner ad on your header, perhaps a $25 ad sold to a supplier might be a better use of that space.

This section could be expanded to pages and pages as there are several issues involved with using an affiliate program and an ecommerce site you earn a living from, so proceed with an ounce of caution when adjusting a shopping cart platform. The customers that buy from your site daily are far more important than an affiliate program, so make sure they are happy first.

eBay’s Affiliate Program

I have been a part of this program for probably 5-8 years now, and they have always used Commission Junction. Thank goodness for us, the migration over to eBay’s platform will not be a huge expenditure of time, but it will take some re-coding and apparently, it needs to be done by May 1st.

There is already someone in the forums who seems to have been denied an account but it does seem to be operating on an automatic basis as far as the sign up process goes. I simply filled out the forms on the sign up sheet, received an activation email, then you will have to go back to the site and enter your payment information to be paid. I did try to move a few of my applications over and they were not completed on eBay’s end yet, they said… coming soon… so hopefully they will be fixed quickly. Then comes the fun part, moving all your affiliate links over to eBay program instead of Commission Junction.

The Google Effect

I thought I would mention this in passing as well. I few weeks ago, Google also announced a change in the way their advertisers can use their URL structure for ads. This was, I think, an attempt to keep affiliates that mislead customers but it had to have a huge effect on the affiliate programs in total.

Important Change to URL Policy Enforcement
Starting in April, display URLs for new ads will be required to match their destination / landing page URLs, without exception. Please adjust your URLs accordingly when creating new ads. -google

You can now no longer display a url and have the link url go to a different place. This technique was used for good purposes by many people but also used to trick people into thinking they were an official advertiser for that particular display url company.

Conclusion

It does look like the new EPN will be good once all the work is completed on eBay’s end, and on the providers end. The report functionality looks great, and the process seems to be a little more straight forward than before. It was always a semi-confusing process to a newbie, but many things are until you learn the in’s and out’s.

Have you moved your links over yet or joined the new EPN?

Other Posts Related to this Topic

• eBay Opens the Neighborhoods
• eBay Admits Hacker Suspended Accounts
• eBay Buys Auction Management Company Afterbuy
• eBay PayPal and Yahoo Join Forces
• Prop 8 Proves Homosexual Lifestyle Acceptable to God

Are you tired of competing with a drop shipper or drop shipping company that does not ever touch the product, house, or package the product, seems to sell more, and make more money than your competing businesses? You probably are if you are a company that spends time finding wholesalers, buying inventory, cataloging, indexing, valuing, packaging, and all the normal business practices that go along with running a business that carries an inventory based product.

I received an email this week from a “buyer” on Amazon. He purchased one of our books and the subject of his email said, DON’T SEND PACKING SLIP OR INVOICE PLEASE, in all caps, but it was his email to me that told me the story:

Would you mind sending this package without a packing slip and/or invoice? I would really appreciate it. Also, please use delivery confirmation, if possible – I only make this suggestion, as the USPS is far less likely to lose the package.

[item sold and order number was inserted here]

If this item is a different condition (used/new/etc.), binding or media type softcover/hardcover/tape/disc/etc.), edition or version (international/etc.) or differs in any way from your listing, please refund this order immediately.

You don’t need to respond to this email unless there is a problem with the order.

Besides the fact that Amazon requires you to send a packing slip with each order, the shipping address was completely different than the email name or company, so it was obvious to me that this was a drop shipper and we were now the fulfillment company. This email was automatically generated and I had no choice at this point other than to just ship the order.

A little looking around and I could find a store with similar products and a name close to the email address where all the books were extremely high priced and “ready to ship” within 24 hours. The book we sold to this company sold for about $5.00, it was listed on their website for $35.00. You have to love that markup, I would, and if I could realistically sell this book on Amazon for $35.00 in a “reasonable” period of time, I would.

Even if you don’t know what I am talking about you are probably competing with them. Think about it for a minute. You can sell a product you don’t own, one you don’t have on hand, have someone else ship it (from anywhere in the world), not handle returns and customer service, and you spend your time collecting the money? Sound good? If you don’t like competing with these companies, you can always join them. Just do it using legitimate business methods.

There are many shady and just about unethical business practices that drop shippers and drop shipping companies will use, especially on the systems setup to amplify this type of service like Amazon and eBay. You can really apply this to just about any platform for selling like Amazon and eBay where you can setup and sell a product in a short period of time for almost no money up front.

What is a Drop Shipping Company

I have to say from the start, all drop shipping companies are not bad. Drop shippers do have a legitimate sales channel and do work with wholesalers and develop a relationship with their business partners and some times it works fine. That isn’t really what I am referring to in this article though. But lets look at the definition anyway.

Drop shippers are generally companies that specialize in one field or niche market that have setup wholesale or distribution channels to sell products (or services), most of the time to the end consumer, by doing the work of the sales person or sales company for the wholesale or distribution warehouse.

These drop shipping companies usually do not see the product, but they will setup a storefront with samples, a website with photos and generally information about the products with some type of eCommerce shopping cart system to sell the product. Once a product is sold, the sales data is sent over to the wholesaler or warehouse company and they ship it to the customer.

You as the dropshipper will most likely not pay for the inventory until it sells. So if Product A will cost you $5.00 to buy, you can setup your website to sell it for $10.00 and when you sell it, you have a net gain of $5.00. Probably the hardest part of this type of business is the website. You have to do the design, shopping cart system setup, marketing the product, in this case through Amazon and eBay.

Get Rich Quick Schemes?

Not all of these companies that are making loads of money are doing it in a manner that either Amazon or eBay would prefer, but they can easily just move from one login ID to the other without much trouble, so they can just continue their practices untouched, sometimes for a long time.

On Amazon, they do not care if your listings are for sale using a drop shipping company, as long as you don’t use listings from other sellers on Amazon and you still have to maintain the normal seller performance stats that they require of all media sellers on Amazon.

There are so many articles that have been posted on blogs about drop shipping that you can quickly see there are some schemes in this field, as there are in most fields these days, but one recent article, The Best and Worst Of Dropshipping, does show the pros and cons of drop shipping quite well.

If you are interested in a legitimate drop shipping business, just do your homework and go by a few quick rules of the trade.

• Pick your supplier or wholesaler very carefully.
• Develop a relationship with them so their shipping problems don’t ruin your reputation and cause you to loose your sales channel.
• A bad reputation on eBay or Amazon can quickly ruin sales regardless of your standing with either of those two companies.
• Consider the location of their warehouse and how long it will take for a package to arrive. A wholesale company in New York that is also an importer will probably deliver more quickly than a company located in China.
• Consider the quality of the product you are selling. Is it cheap for a reason? Lower quality items sell well, but they also have higher complaints and more returns to deal with.

How to Compete with a Drop Shipper

I always like to look at how the others do it so I know how I can adjust to compete, if possible, with those who choose less ethical business practices when selling online. If you are a company that does not drop ship then you carry a product, package, and ship the product. You have to buy shipping supplies, hire employees to package the products, AND you have to do all the website design and marketing as well.

Most likely you can’t compete with their costs. Just the fact that you have to buy your inventory gives you a cost they don’t have. COGS isn’t non-existent with the drop shipper, it just doesn’t take place until after the sale. Yours take place BEFORE the sale. If you can’t compete with the cost, don’t try, put your efforts in other areas.

Where you can compete is in the customer service and reputation. Many (legitimate) drop shippers will have to sell their products to a customer without knowing what it is that the customer is receiving. You know, you packaged the product. So provide the best customer service and your ranking or reputation will almost always be higher than that of a drop shipper just by the nature of the business. This will drastically increase the repeat buyer rates and the acquisition of new customers.

Have a superior product. Many drop shipping companies will ship products our of China. All you have to do lately is a search on “china lead recall” to see the results of low quality products. We competed with drop shippers on eBay for years by importing a superior product from Austria, into New York, then to our warehouse. Our competition would ship a “like product” out of China and the two products compared together were laughable.

How to Make a Fortune of Money Online, the Wrong Way

I said above that I always want to know at least “how” the other guys do it, so I can make adjustments, but sometimes you just can’t compete. If there is not a set of standard that people follow in business, you just can’t compete with it, and you shouldn’t try either.

Eventually these sellers houses will come crumbling down and they will have to move on to other areas. You just have to survive the short term while they are taking sales away from everyone else and hope they do get caught. On eBay and Amazon that might not always happen very quickly. In my own experience, after selling full time on eBay for about 5 years, I gave up hope these guys would be removed.

How to Do it On eBay

What is the official word on eBay? Well, eBay says:

Sellers must accurately represent the location from which their item will be shipped in the item location field. False, inaccurate or misleading information about the shipping location of an item is not allowed on eBay.

That sounds pretty vague, but it is clear to me they do not want a big volume of dropshippers. That says you can not drop ship on eBay, right? Well according to the article, Ebay and Drop Shipping, 95% of eBay home businesses drop ship? I am not sure how accurate that statement is but even if it is half of that, does that mean half of the sellers on eBay are violating the Item Location Misrepresentation Policy?

The wording use to be more clear than that, and I think it is still in place. You can not ship an item that you do not hold in your possession.

So, on eBay, you can just scrape content from the listings and sell for just a slightly lower price or sometimes a much lower price and ship a fake. This practice has been raging in the DVD / CD area on eBay for years. You just buy a counterfeit product out of China (we all know that is where a majority of the fake products come from) and sell them as genuine products.

eBay has been fighting with this for years and found it almost impossible to stop. In my own case, we would have other “sellers” scrape our listings, reproduce the exact same titles, content, and shipping rates, and sell cheap knock-offs of what we were selling. What was interesting is they weren’t selling a “fake” product. It was a real product manufactured in the Czech Republic but it was sold as the exact same product we sold, manufactured only in Austria, and they would just drop ship the product from somewhere in Asia, many times out of Hong Kong.

How to Do it On Amazon

On Amazon you can I think it is a little easier to setup and make some real money, especially if you know how to program even in the slightest bit. Amazon makes their API code available where you can pull large amounts of data just by writing a program.

This is the one, two, three of how they do it, and you don’t have to be a programmer to do it, just anyone with half a brain can accomplish this. Go through and find some good books on the Amazon ranking. Try the best seller rankings and you will see a list of some of the fastest selling books, but you don’t have to use these, just anything with a high selling price and a ranking will do.

Once you find something that will sell, and for a good price, just list it on your own store, usually for a much higher price, and wait for it to sell. Once it sells, you go buy the book from the lowest Amazon Marketplace seller and use the shipping address of the order you just sold. Now multiple this by thousands, sometimes tens of thousands. Using an API or some other method to scrape entire databases of listings, you can you pull the data into one single database, raise all the prices by 20-50% (sometimes even 100%), and wait for these to sell. When they do, you just go buy it from another Amazon Marketplace seller.

There are so many things wrong with this method, and you might even ask why would it even work. Well, why does spam work, because people buy from spammers. You wouldn’t think anyone would buy from a seller that sells the exact same product as you for 100% higher, but they do. Maybe the drop shipper has changed the description to read that it is a “collectible” or perhaps the buyer is just not very bright. If it didn’t work, they wouldn’t use this unethical method.

Conclusion

The two ways mentioned above are by no means the ethical way to do business on the Internet, and there certainly are legitimate drop shipping companies that work hard and make a good living. If you are not a drop shipper, you should still know how to compete with them and know how they operate. Ignoring part of the marketplace that you compete with is probably not the best alternative. So educate yourself with the practices of the legit, and perhaps not-so-legit, and it will strengthen your business to survive and compete with the other eCommerce companies selling on the Internet.

If you are competing in an area with high online fraud, an ongoing evaluation of your competition might show you that there are other niche markets that might be more suitable for your skills and ethical business practices. We learned this, not so quickly, after years of competing with drop shipping companies selling Product A, by buying product B for $.10/package and selling it as Product A. We would buy Product A for $1.00/package and sell it for what it was, a genuine, high quality product, with a good demand for sales. Sometimes you just can’t compete with a 1000% markup on your cost of goods sold.

What do you think? Has your online business been effected by fraudulent competition? Have you even looked into to it yet?

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eBay just announced (see announcement) that it has opened the eBay Neighborhoods. From what I can tell this is eBay’s latest attempt to break into the social networking or bookmarking market area. It looks to be a combination of MyBlogLog, MySpace, and every other social networking site, while including links to their guides and listings. This sounds a little familiar. They keep trying these things that might bring more traffic to the site and enhance the users experience, can’t blame them for that. What I do see is a trend of adding features that are basically copied taken from other areas of the Internet.

Only eBay in his blog post, EBAY Launches Neighborhoods, mentions “It’ll be interesting to see if this initiative gets any traction”, well it will be interesting ok, but more likely, it will be much to do about nothing. I have watched as eBay added guides (uhmm amazon), blogs (uhmm google), bio (not confused with the aboutMe), guestbook, and added all this to “my world”, which includes all these goodies. With all that, I have to stop and mention the highly touted eBay Express, which seemed doomed from the start. At the height of our selling, over 5,000 items listed and 500 closing selling a day, we never once sold an item from eBay Express and I didn’t know of anyone else who did either?

Jennyhow on her blog post, eBay Embarks on Social Networking Called Neighborhood, also talks about the similarities to facebook and myspace but has a more favorable view in so much as it might bring “buyers and sellers with similar interests together”, and this is probably what eBay was trying for, after-all, they are trying to sell more auction listings by adding this feature, I would guess.

All of these new things have been added, and I guess they really should have been, but eBay was not an entrepreneurial inventor of these things, just a follower of what had already come to pass, and usually come to pass a long time ago in Internet time. We all do that to some extent, but we are also not the largest online auction site in the world, we use the tools that smart entrepreneurs have put out on the market with little or no money and make use of them to the best of our abilities. We do not have billions to throw at our million dollar ideas like eBay could or does.

eBay is different than MySpace or Facebook

They are an auction company, right? They are supposed to be the entrepreneurs (or at least they use to be) and lead the way. More and more they are just following and trying to play catch up with what was the cutting edge. This might be the latest and greatest for eBay, but it has been done before by far smaller companies eBay hasn’t gotten around to buying yet.

Perhaps they should try and stick with what they know best. Auctions. This is what they do best. This is what they pioneered and it is what the company should focus on, not all these other “features”. I do agree that there is a constant need to stay up to date and continue to develop the site, but to what extent. If it is something that brings in more traffic, great. The guides did this for a short time. They had a good relevancy on Google and were indexed quickly, and anyone that put up a guide received some good traffic, but that to has passed.

I know from a sellers perspective the new things they want to see are simple.

1. LOWER fees. Simple.

that means every times they raise their fees they loose more good sellers. This is becoming like a tax. Keep raising it and we have less to spend on other things, like more listings. Lower it and we will sell more. This doesn’t include the fee-sales that go on, that just brings up the listings for that one day or period and dilutes everything else.

2. Better control on fraud

in eBay listings, especially competition from China and Asian countries where obvious counterfeit products are in direct competition with the sellers who obtain their products from good channels. The costs associated with competing like this is incredible. No small company can compete with someone selling product A for $1.00 when good sellers pay $5.00 from their suppliers to buy the “same” product.

3. Better Trust and Safety

that understands the difference between a good seller and what actually is fraud. This is different than the item above. I am referring to eBay’s shoot first and ask questions later policy that has been in place for years.

4. Account Security

where sellers don’t have to fret every day about their account being shut down because it was just victimized by phishing or all the other pleasantries that go with this issue.

There are of course other bullet points to add here but you get the idea. I am sure the new eBay Neighborhoods are just the start of a great turnaround for the above mentioned bullet points. I haven’t checked the forum posts yet but I am just sure that is exactly what they are all saying.

On a more objective point of view, the eBay Neighborhoods do look like they have some good functionality. It ties in all the different aspects of eBay into this forum area by linking to their guides and other searches, although right now coffee lovers are beating out the iPod, go figure. Here is a little of what eBay says the Neighborhoods are or will be.

What are Neighborhoods?
Think of Neighborhoods as a gathering place for fans of a certain product, team, artist, and more. They’ve been created around popular items and searches and are designed for members with a very specific interest in mind.

You’ll be able to find links to Neighborhoods on applicable search results pages and the Community hub, or simply search for them at http://neighborhoods.ebay.com.

Within a Neighborhood, you’ll find a discussion board dedicated to that topic where you can ask and answer questions, brag about your latest auction win, or discuss what’s new. You can upload and share photos related to that topic – and vote on which are best – or check out related listings, reviews, guides and blogs. You can even use our tools to see who else is part of that Neighborhood, or to find other Neighborhoods that might interest you.

We will see. It is always interesting to see how these things play out, perhaps it will bring new traffic to the sellers stores and increase their ASP’s and everyone will love it.

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eBay on Friday announced that a known fraudster, Vladuz, managed to hack into an old administrative menu system on eBay and suspended several eBay accounts. Actually, they specificall said he DID NOT hack in to any of eBay’s systems, but rather “he did this by accessing externally visible servers” said eBay spokeswoman Sharpe. This was initially reported by AuctionBytes on Saturday in Hacker Vladuz Accesses eBay Servers, Suspends Accounts but I am SURE many of these sellers spent a long time trying to figure out what happened and then trying to recover from everything that does happen when your account goes NARU.

Of course when this happens (and it happened to us, twice, by mistake), the steps to take are many, and are for another post, but in short what not to do are all the items on eBay’s list of don’ts, even if you know for a fact that you are correct, it will only make things worse to go against the grain if you want your account restored eventually. Especially when eBay tells you they don’t make mistakes like this, like they did in our case, it still didn’t matter that, yes, they actually do (and did) make mistakes.

What never seems to take place is a financial resolution to the sellers when these mistakes happen. This is VERY hard on some of these small companies that did nothing wrong and they basically have to start over. Even just one hour of a suspended account closes all your listings which means your sales for a full week are over. I would like to see what would happen if eBay had to tell its stockholders that a weeks revenue did not exist any more. It wouldn’t go over well for them, but they would survive without much personal consequences, unlike their seller account holders.

It seems that this incident started in the normal way, a post to the forums, and off went the train wreck. As mentioned above, apparently this wasn’t the first time Vladuz had made it into the ebay systems. AuctionBytes reported in eBay Denies Security Breach after User Information Exposed when they asked eBay about it, but they denied he was the issue.

When asked if the “malicious fraudster,” as eBay called the person behind the incident, might have been Vladuz, Sharpe said, “At this stage we are not confirming the identity of the fraudster.” Last December, someone calling himself Vladuz began making claims that he had hacked into eBay, a claim eBay has denied. Some eBay users remain adamant in their belief that Vladuz has successfully hacked eBay.

Then, later a post to the Chatter called Trust & Safety forums issue this morning explained it in a little different detail.

Very early this morning, a malicious fraudster posted on the Trust & Safety forum on eBay.com posing as approximately 1,200 eBay users. The fraudster made these posts in a way that was intended to appear as though he logged in with their accounts. The posts contained name and contact information, which appears to be valid, and could have been secured as part of an account take over.

Well, now we finally have the “real” story of how it happened (uh-hu), when once again AuctionBytes reported this morning in eBay Explains Security Hole Used by Hacker where an appology from eBay on their forums said it was caused by an old administrative login area that is not corrected. The best quote I found on the topic of this security breach on eBay’s systems was from PC World, Hacker Breaks Into eBay Server, Locks Users Out, where they quoted eBay spokeswoman Nichola Sharpe where she said the issue was corrected before any permanent damage was done. I bet you she didn’t talk to the 1200 people that Vladuz actually shut down. When an eBay account is suspended, damage is done, let there by no mistake about that.

We were able to block the fraudster quickly before any permanent damage had been done. At no point did the fraudster get any access to financial information or other sensitive information,” eBay spokeswoman Nichola Sharpe said via e-mail.

EBay has “secured and restored” the affected accounts and is calling the affected users, she said, without specifying how many accounts the hacker accessed and tinkered with.

I wish all the best to the sellers who’s accounts were on the hit list. I know how you feel, and so do many others that for one reason or another have seen that NARU’d email with your name on it. The second time our account was “secured and restored” within about 12 hours. We lost $8,000 in potential revenue that week.

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eBay announced today that they are buying Aftebuy, a German auction management company. It has been interesting to watch over the last few years what companies eBay has merged with, purchased, or taken over. One comes to mind, Skype, that really didn’t seem to take hold, but did cost a bundle, something like $2.6 BILLION if I remember right.

Afterbuy is another area of business that I don’t think eBay has ventured into yet. Auction management. There has been news in that area recently (see my previous post Channel Advisor to Acquire Marketworks) when one of the two largest U.S. companies bought the other, making Channel Advisor the auction management company to integrate with eBay. So why is eBay now buying an auction management company? Perhaps the same reason Google bought YouTube, who knows, but I am sure the Channel Advisor users would like to know.

Afterbuy is an all-in-one online sales tool and covers all processes of the selling workflow: goods and inventory management, item listing, cross-selling and transaction and pre-sale management. Afterbuy can be connected to external services and business processes such as accounting software or shipping solutions of logistic services.

Our company sold on ebay exclusively for almost 5 years. We were Powersellers and PESA members and bought in to just about everything eBay, but when eBay bought Skype we were given every opportunity to join and just didn’t see the use or need to. If eBay brings Afterbuy into the U.S. marketplace I wonder how many would want to jump ship from Channel Advisor and move to an eBay platform, unless maybe eBay buys Channel Advisor too!

German Announcement

Other Links to the story:

• http://rksmythe.blogspot.com/2007/10/ebay-buys-afterbuy-is-channeladvisor.html
• http://biz.yahoo.com/paidcontent/071004/1_315436_id.html?.v=1

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To fight phishing emails. It seems that the three companies came to an agreement (perhaps not quite as hard for ebay and paypal since they are both owned by eBay but who knows) to fight the phishing email problem that ebay users are constantly bombarded by from the moment they join. I use to get these emails and think I would never fall for that, but the emails have gotten so sophisticated in their attempts to scam you that it is hard for even seasoned people to tell the difference, and I even admit to clicking on one when I got lazy and didn’t read the email close enough.

There sounds more to it than just the normal press release this time, they are incorporating some anti-spamming techniques used by yahoo to remove the message before they are even delivered to your spam folder, so perhaps it will make a difference, that would be great.

It took me all of about 30 seconds to find a phishing email addressed from eBay, and that was because I actually had to sign into a different email account to check. The screen shot below is typical and I receive these every day. Perhaps this merger of sorts will help, but most likely they will find another way, that usually do. Part of the original post from eBay’s Chatter addressing the joint venture (so-to-speak) is below, here is the link to the Paypal press release post.

eBay, PayPal and Yahoo! are partnering to reduce dangerous Phishing emails
eBay, PayPal and Yahoo! have joined forces to reduce the number of phishing emails that eBay and PayPal members get. All emails from eBay and PayPal have a digital signature (a bit of code that spammers can’t replicate). Yahoo! Mail will now check all emails claiming to come from eBay or PayPal for this digital signature. If you use Yahoo! Mail for your eBay or PayPal activity, you will receive only genuine email from eBay and PayPal in your inbox, because authentic emails will have the correct digital signature. However, a phishing email that is pretending to be from eBay won’t have the digital signature, and so Yahoo! Mail will automatically prevent it from reaching your inbox. This is a huge victory in the ongoing battle against phishing.

For now, this effort will help only our members who use Yahoo! Mail, although we hope to form similar partnerships with additional ISPs in the future. (Read more about this project on PayPal’s blog. )

Speaking of phishing emails, remember these important safety tips:

Please — don’t get Phished! An email from your bank, PayPal, eBay or another institution that asks for you contact information or for your immediate response is fishy – or possibly PHISHY! Here are some steps to take:

1. Stop. Don’t rush to reply or take action – even if the request is really urgent sounding.
2. Look. Read the text several times, and ask yourself why this information or call to action is necessary.
3. Check. Check My Messages for an eBay email, or contact PayPal customer support.
4. Forward. Forward any suspicious emails to us at spoof@ebay.com and spoof@PayPal.com.

This image below shows a typical email received to me as being sent from ebay.

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