You may think that the ideal product for you to sell on eBay would be something that is in huge demand but no one else is selling on eBay. But you don’t need such a product to make a living on eBay. You needn’t be afraid of competition. Competition is good. It means there is a market for your product. If no one else is selling it, you may have found a winner. But the reason why no one else is selling it may be because there is no demand for it!

Think about this: how many shoe shops are there in your local high street or shopping centre? How many clothes shops? How many banks? How many solicitors? In fact banks are often next door to each other, as are solicitors’ offices! They are in competition with each other because there is a market for their products and services.

The fact is – it doesn’t matter if other people are already selling what you want to sell. If it’s a big market, you DON’T need to “corner the market”. If it’s a big pie, you don’t need the WHOLE pie – you only need a SLICE. And if you sell BETTER than your competition you will get the BIGGEST slice of the pie.

[Note that I said “sell BETTER”... I didn’t say “ sell CHEAPER”]

What do I mean by sell better? Well, you can use a better title, better photos, better sales copy, better terms, etc. All of these things will make your listing stand out from the competition and make your offer more attractive. But perhaps the best way to beat your competition is to ADD VALUE. Provide your customers with better value for money than your competitors provide.

To increase the perceived value of what you are offering so your customers get better value by buying from you, add FREE BONUSES. If two people are selling exactly the same item on eBay at the same price but one is offering a free bonus, who would you buy from?

For maximum impact, the bonus must be linked to your product, or at least be relevant to your niche, so that it will be of interest to your customers. There’s no point offering a free bonus that is not of interest to your customers as this won’t be an incentive for them to buy from you.

The free bonus should have a high perceived value for the customer but cost you little or nothing to provide so that it doesn’t reduce your profit.

Information products make ideal free bonuses. A guide on how to use the product that you are selling would be a good free bonus. Or you could just compile a list of useful websites related to your niche. Adding a brief summary about each website would increase its perceived value.

You can create the information product yourself, pay someone to create it for you or you might even find an existing one that you can reproduce. If you do a Google Search on “your niche + ebook + resell rights” you may be able to find a low cost, ready-made information product  that you can give away FREE with your item.

An information product can be stored on your computer and be cheaply and easily reproduced by printing it on to paper or burning it on a CD. So giving it away won’t cost you much. But if the information it contains is useful it will add a lot of value to the product you are selling on eBay.

You can then add “+ FREE Bonus” to your listing title, or as a sub-title, so people are more likely to click on your listing rather than your competitors’.

Martyn Boaden

This post is based on an extract taken from The Lazy Way To Wealth On eBay