Tuesday 14 March 2017

Where else other than eBay and Amazon?



For online sellers the key to make or break is finding those customers. rather than limiting yourself to just eBay and Amazon there are lots of alternative market places out there. UK is a small island with limited number of customers but if you think world wide then your world becomes your oyster.

There are a number of other places to trade besides eBay and Amazon that harness the European market and North American Market adding millions of potential customers to your wish list including those corners of the UK Market that go largely ignored.

Besides the usual Facebook Marketplaces, Linnworks have put together a comprehensive guide to other Market places which is worth a peek at and gives you links to sites such as Fruugo, Flubit and Allegro. (find that here)

If you are thinking more on the used side of things then places like Pre-loved, Depop, eBid, Gumtree, Etsy, ASOS, Vinted, Shpock.

There are also lots of online auction houses you can list your items.

There is a whole world out there outside of eBay just waiting all you need is time to get to know what will work best for the items that you sell, there are a whole host more of selling places online that I have not even covered here that are specialist sites such as those that deal in handmade goods and antiques and collectables and I also forget to mention your own webstore.






How to spot a fake!..

We don't often come across fake goods, but it is always something that you have to be the lookout for, the general rule of thumb is that if it is too cheap then it is usually fake.

Of course we do not have that luxury to ascertain if something is fake by it's cost alone, as we are the ones who are having to price the goods we receive from our clients ourselves so we have to be constantly on the look out for anything that is fake.

The fakes that are in abundance on the market these days are usually pretty hard to tell from the genuine article so a keen eye is necessary.

Once only seen in flea markets and carboots, counterfeit products are now prevalent in the virtual world. Counterfeits are available through stand-alone websites, social media networks, and e-commerce platforms. 

While the Internet has provided unparalleled opportunities for legitimate businesses to grow and reach consumers all over the world, it has also increased counterfeiters ability to expand their operations. 

Even those looking for genuine products can now easily fall victim to counterfeit websites that use legitimate pictures and misleading pricing strategies to fool consumers.

Each brand you come across that are the target of fraudsters, have their own code for fraud spotting, and there are a lot of them.

Below I will highlight things you should look out for when dealing with Louis Vuitton.

1. Leather or not? Many Louis Vuitton bags are made of coated canvas, but the trim is leather. If the trim is supposed to be leather it should feel dry- not oily or slippery or sticky.
2. Is the stitching even? It should be perfect
3. Is there sloppy spots? There should be no back and forth stitching - that is a sign of sloppy construction that does not meet Louis Vuitton's high standards. Examine the bag carefully for this sign of possible counterfeit.
4. Does the pattern match? Look closely at the matching of the pattern in the outside seams. A company like Louis Vuitton which values it's logo, wouldn't divide the letters in a seam. And were the pattern appears on either side of the seam, it should match precisely.
 5. What colour is the lining? It should be precisely the same shade as the real thing - not a close approximation.
6. How does the hardware feel? It should be heavy - not hollow. If it's imprinted with the Louis Vuitton name make sure it is supposed to be.
7. Are there imperfections in the print?. Make sure that the LV’s are lined up and the material is not tilted. Monograms should be clearly printed gold letters with brown lines though the LV’s, not cut out, solid coloured, smudged, or have a greenish tint. The threading should look neat, thin and done with accuracy. If the LV’s are upright on both sides, it may be a fake. Many Louis Vuitton handbags have the logo’s upside down on the other side.
 8. Date stamps - Date stamp does not guaranteed authenticity. Whether your handbag has the stamp or not, does not prove that it is genuine. Louis Vuitton started to use date codes to mark their items in the early 1980′s. Counterfeiters are even copying these, so I would not recommend basing authenticity singularly on this. You may need to search for the date stamp, they are occasionally hidden and may be difficult to find in some models.
Examples of some Louis Vuitton date codes
FRANCE: AO, A1, A2, AN, AR, AS, BA, BJ, CT, DU, FL, LW, MB, MI, NO, RA, RI, SD (also USA), SL, SN, SP, SR, TH, VI
USA: FH, OS, SD (also France)
SPAIN: CA, LO, LB, LM

If you are dealing with brands make sure you know the brand you are dealing with, these brands have history and a certain way of doing things, that is what makes those brands so sought after and pricey, they are quality and have integrity.

According to Trevor Little at the Word Trademark Review the list of the most counterfeit brands in 2013 based on customs seizures reported through the WCO Customs Enforcement Network (CEN) database by its members, is an extensive one and includes the following

  1. Nike (1,123 cases)
  2. Apple (867 cases)
  3. Rolex (809 cases)
  4. Samsung (631 cases)
  5. Adidas (532 cases)
  6. Louis Vuitton (497 cases)
  7. Chanel  (464 cases)
  8. Cialis (425 cases)
  9. Viagra (365 cases)
  10. Gucci (307 cases)
  11. Michael Kors (285 cases)
  12. Otterbox (223 cases)
  13. Burberry (191 cases)
  14. Mac Cosmetics (182 cases)
  15. Walt Disney (182 cases)

People who use counterfeit trademarks to sell fakes can be penalized in two ways. First, the rightful owner can sue the person using her trademark falsely in order to obtain any ill-gotten profits. Second, a seller can be prosecuted under the Intellectual Property Rights Legislation. The Act makes it illegal for individuals to knowingly use a counterfeit trademark to sell goods or services.

So if you run a business dealing with designer brands, make sure you do not fall foul of the law. Get to know your brands and be on the outlook for fakes, ignorance is no excuse if you want to avoid either a hefty fine or lengthy prison sentence.



Sunday 12 March 2017

All Essential Trading Laws with returns

One thing that any seller has to know is the trading laws. These can be a minefield but the essential thing to know is that you have to make sure your customer is happy.

I hear a lot of people complaining of returns, lost and faulty or dmaged goods from both ends of the spectrum by both customers and sellers.

If a customer buys a product they expect that product to be exactly as described and work in exactly the way they expect, that is something that should never be in dispute and the laws in place are very effective at making sure that happens.

For a seller you have to ensure you factor in the cost of returns into your pricing and recover any loss you make if you encounter one of those occasions, so you do not have to be disputing a return or worrying about any potential loss.

If a customer tells you they are not happy with something they are usually genuinely not happy and are not a scammer trying to get a free return. The issue should be resolved by immediately offering a return on the item and paying for that return, once you get the item back you can check the item over and re-offer the item for sale with a correct description or dispose of the item.

The accounting treatment of these lost, faulty or damaged goods can also be a bit of a minefield but there are some good guides available online to give you a head start on how to correctly deal with the financial accounting in these situations.

If you are VAT registered this gets slightly more complicated, but here is a good guide for reference on how to treat the VAT element on damaged, lost or stolen items by HMRC.

The one thing to remember is that if you do encounter these situations is that you yourself are also covered, for example I had a bad experience with a drop ship supplier which ended up costing me over £5,000+.

The supplier was sending to my customers damaged and faulty items, this was a Christmas period so I would like to assume that through their bad business practices they took on more than they could handle and ended up loosing control of some of their stock, I would rather think this way instead of assuming they purposefully thought they could offload a load of junk onto my customers at my cost.

I ended up paying for the return plus giving customers refunds and then sitting on a pile of damaged stock that the supplier refused to either replace or return, these were not cheap items either, each one came in at a cost of £125 each and return for each one was in circa of £35 each. so you add this up, for each item damaged I paid the original cost for the product, the refund to the customer plus return postage so each item I purchased at £125 cost me double plus associated costs such as ebay and paypal fees, my losses ended up circa  £275+ for each one returned.

I used the power of Paypal in the end and recovered a huge majority of those costs and recovered further cost through selling on the damaged items, in an attempt to reduce my loss.

Of course the supplier was not very happy that I had broken the terms of their agreement which stipulates no refunds, only credits to the account, but not a chance did I want credits on my account that I would not used due to me deciding our trading partnership was irreparably damaged through their incompetence, therefore they broke their own contract by not providing the service they were contracted to do.by providing the return repair or replacement.

They assumed that they had all the power and that there was nothing I could do, so I was happy to find that the law was on my side and protected me from unscrupulous companies such as they were.

They sent me a threatening letter asking for the monies that I had managed to recover through Paypal, but as I had already been prepared due to their despicable treatment of me for the previous few months, I replied with a counter claim detailing my costs and figures for the restoration to the point of where I should have been if they had provided goods that were what the customer expected and I also updated them on their limited knowledge of the law.

For a number of months they had insisted the selling regulations did not apply to me and it only applied to the consumer, due to me being a sole trader, I was very happy to inform them that the law now applies to everyone, I was more than happy to see them in court with my counter claim.

The company in question I had worked with for a number of years and any issue that my customers had, were dealt with quickly and efficiently.

What I did not know was the law, and through not knowing these laws I made loses that I should not have made and the companies attitude was not one of being educated in anything so I would assume they have gone on to treat others in the same manner, so it is important to know the law to not get caught out like I did.

As the laws stands your supplier is obliged to send you or your customers goods that are fit for purpose.In the unlikely event this does not occur they are obliged to rectify that situation, for you as a seller, you ensure the customer you are dealing with gets a paid return and gets a replacement, repair or refund, for your supplier they should be giving you the same courtesy, if they do not and the situation ends up in court, the compensation is that you are restored back to the position that you should have been in, if the sale had gone well in the first place.The onus falls back onto your supplier.

It is surprising how many companies try to write of their own errors and you find in small print lots of fancy words that basically tell you that if you receive a faulty item from us then quite frankly it is tough cookies, but that is not the actual case in law.

Always make sure that you do read any small print within your contracts that you sign for any supplier that you choose, particularly when you are dealing with dropship items.

There should be no disputes along the chain as the manufacturer is ultimately responsible for any manufacturing defects and that is where the supplier needs to look towards if any defect are found, the middle men just need to treat each other with respect and ultimately a repair replacement or refund should trickle through the chain effectively, of course that is not reality but one can hope.

The important thing to remember is that if you are a sole trader, you too still have rights, just as much as your customers, so do not let your suppler tell you otherwise as they too have rights of protection from their rmanufacturer.

These laws are there to be used and are not as scary as you may think, the most common reason for a seller to have issues and be defensive of returns for damaged stock from a customer is not knowing the law also protects you in multiple ways including with the accounting treatment for tax purposes.

If a courier damages your item in transit then as long as you follow the required procedures then you can use their claims procedure, always check the claims procedure before you use them, Royal mail has the poorest of them all and you will find it difficult to get any compensation, avoid couriers like that and find one that meets your needs, otherwise ensure you factor in those possible costs into your sales price.

Overall returns refund and replacements are rare and if they are not you need to look at the problem and find out how to stem the tide as something is clearly wrong.

As with any business you live and learn but as long as you are learning how to make things better and go with the flow of changes in the whole system then you will get there in the end.











Wednesday 8 March 2017

VAT FRAUD


Currently there is an investigation into online marketplace VAT fraud by overseas (99% Chinese) sellers according to the Daily Mail. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4291934/Probe-launched-7bn-year-import-tax-dodge.html

 This will be discussed at a forthcoming UK Government Public Accounts Committee Meeting (May 3) https://www.nao.org.uk/work-in-progress/vat-evasion-by-overseas-online-retailers/

I have heard on the grapevine from China (their version of Tamebay) that eBay will be removing ALL accounts held by overseas sellers with no VAT number or their VAT number does not match the one on their seller profile (in Chinese):

http://www.cifnews.com/Tag/906

Looks like eBay are potentially finally solving this issue. Hopefully Amazon not far behind.

Monday 6 March 2017

Dispatch Day and how I track my stock

I thought I would share a typical days dispatch. Today I had 24 packages of clothing items, 3 different boxes of mixed job lots of children's toys, 1 faux fur jacket and a further 7 packages consisting of a garden hose pipe, a toy train, maths flash cards and an electronic hair remover.


This is a an easy day, some days I can have 50+ packages. The most I have done in one day is 145, I tend to stagger auctions now so I avoid that amount of packages in one day.

I manage my stock quite well, so picking for dispatch is an easier task, I usually package my items ready for dispatch as I list them, particularly clothing items.

They are all kept in their own boxes as below.


Each client has their own box, as does my own stock, when I list, I list in order of whatever is on the top and transfer it from the transport container to the listed container, with a reference number on each item which corresponds to the ebay stock listing reference or to be correct the Custom Label SKU. as can be seen below.

Which could be something like MT Box 1 - 24 - which would stand for Maine Trading Box 1, item number 24 in the box, see an example below.



So when it comes to dispatching items the job is straight forwards, I print a list of what needs to be dispatched from eBay and then create the labels for each one (size and weight is on each listing to save time) then I can just go and pick the items and attach the labels. 

Having reasonably small and not too large storage boxes means that the item in the box can be found quickly and easily and I try to keep them in order of number within the box so that I can instantly put my hand on the number I need, without having to rummage through trying to find the number I need.

It works well and takes little time to do, the only drawback to this is that if a customer asks a question about an item and it is all packaged up ready to go, then it means opening the package to answer the question, I usually ensure I enter as much information in the listing as possible, that way a customer does not need to answer any questions as it is all in the listing, as this wastes time, and time is money.






Saturday 4 March 2017

First things first.. What to sell on eBay?




Back in 2004 when I first started using eBay to sell items around the house I quickly realised that anything sells on eBay.

Over the years I have read many blogs and advice sites that recommend finding a niche item to sell and go with that, the trick is finding that niche market.

I have moved from, bags, clothing, jewellery, household items, toys and games and found that they each have their pitfalls, restricting to one niche product killed my sales.

I found that unless you have lots of money to invest in lots of that niche item, then going down that route did not work for me, and part of me is grateful for not having lots of money to spend as I would still be stuck with niche items that I could not shift or would have to shift at a loss.

The thing with eBay is that yes everything will eventually sell, especially now that you have a worldwide market, but sometimes it does take time to shift stock.

Early on in my eBay career I would do a test auction of an item and find it sells really quickly, then I go and buy more of that stock and find it doesn't sell and I am stuck with stock that I cannot shift.

I learnt that just because something sells quite quickly when you first list it, does not mean that it will continue to sell that way, as you come up against competition who research eBay relentlessly looking for those items that sell, once they cotton on to a good seller they get in there and undercut, eBay is a game of survival for most.

Many sellers buy huge amounts of stock of one thing because they can get it cheaper than they would in small quantities, this works well if the item is in demand, with any selling you want a quick turnover, you don't want stock sitting around eating up your cash flow.

If you get stuck in this situation a good thing to do is come up with novel ways to get the item noticed,  like bundling items or selling them in larger quantities at a discount, this shifts sock quicker than leaving it sitting in one big listing, unless they sell well anyway as a stand alone product.

The trick is to find wholesale suppliers that sell at a good cost, enough so that you can make a profit, I noticed early on that there are many people who purport to be wholesale suppliers but also sell at retail and are usually a middle man, these people also sell on eBay so you end up in direct competition with your supplier, not a good situation to be in.

I have turned into a 'Del boy' over the years and found that if I can get a good item at a good price that I  know I can make a profit from, then I will stock it.

It has taken me a long time to understand what a niche item is and I have found mine, I sell used items, used items are my niche.

A good way to think about items you want to sell is to look around your own home, your house is full of items that you purchased and many other homes have the same products, find one item and do some research on the availability and cost.

I do a lot of sourcing in conjunction with our lives, for example if I want to buy a new paper shredder then I will look at shredders to buy in bulk, sell and make a profit and also get mine free in the process.

Turning hobbies into money earners is also a good way to find stock for your eBay store, if you enjoy making jewellery or have a passion for revamping furniture or making cushions, all these hobbies can be turned into money earners on eBay.

Finding what you want to sell on eBay is probably the most difficult part about running any eBay store, as without stock you cannot sell. 

Taking some time out to think about it and do some test runs is time well spent.

The nature of my business means that companies approach me for help in selling their niche items which are overstocks or they just want another outlet for their products, and of course I sell a lot for people who do not have time in selling for themselves to raise some extra cash from household goods and clothing, so my days of having to think about what I could sell are rare these days, I generally buy as I go along, using my strategy of whatever I come across at a reasonable price, or if I am in the market for a particular product anyway, it seems to work well for me.

In the past I have sold some great niche products for clients, Ride-On-Cars, Maternity Pillows, Engraved items, all of which sold in amazing quantities.

Who would have thought you could sell 20 Maternity Pillows a day, on a slow day.

It is surprising what does sell on eBay, all I can say is find a product and test it out, if you hit lucky stick with it, if you don't, move on and find something else quickly.



Welcome to my blog

Hello and welcome to Maine Trading's new blog.

I just spent a couple of days revamping the webpage, so I thought it would be a good time to start a blog for Maine Trading. Take a look by clicking on the new logo below and tell me what you think?

http://www.maine-trading.co.uk/


The theme and tag line of the blog name 'The Essence of Time' is inspired by the concept of 'time' that runs right through the business.

For those who do not know Maine Trading, we sell on eBay, the items we sell are brand new or faulty returns and there are lots of items that have been pre-owned.

Our source for these items are from people who have items that are too good for landfill but don't have time to eBay the items themselves.

These people typically want to save towards a holiday or are wanting to do home improvements or just need some extra cash, and by de-cluttering they can get closer to their savings goal.

Some of the items we are lucky enough to get to sell, are very old and are full of history just holding them gives you a sense of 'time' gone by. If they could talk they would certainly have some good tales to tell, especially the items from the 60's and 70's, I always love the war memorabilia such as Gas masks that we recently sold.

The new or faulty items we sell are items I may source myself or are sold on behalf of a company that has overstock and some are sold on a dropship basis.

Maine Trading has evolved since 2004 where I started out selling a few bits around the house and eventually sourcing items myself to sell online and gradually moving into selling for others.

I think it fills a gap in my life where I love buying things but instead of hoarding them I sell them on. I dread to think what kind of a hoarder I would be if I did not have a greater bug for selling than I do for keeping items.

Some of my clients are hoarders who find it difficult to part with some items and it takes great patience and understanding from me to help them clear out their clutter and change their life for the better.

Our tag line of  'The essence of Time' I feel is very fitting for Maine Trading, we save people 'time' and we work with items that have plenty of 'time' left in them.

I hope you enjoy this blog and if you have anything you want me to cover please feel free to let me know, whether it be about eBay selling or de-cluttering or anything else like keeping accounts or best listing practices, sourcing stock or dealing with difficult customers or returns.

I will be using this blog to impart some eBay selling wisdom and show casing some of the wonderful items we get to sell along with sharing my general eBay adventure.

So don't be shy, pop by and say hello anytime.