Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Choosing A Product To Sell



I have three awesome websites. The only trouble is that selling guitar strings on two is much more difficult than I planned on. For one thing, the first thing I thought of when considering selling them was the fact that there are millions of guitar players world wide. I mean how many guitar players do think live in your city or town? Or how many do you think live in New York City or Houston, Texas? Or in Rome, Italy? More than a few.

The other factor is that my husband is a musician and plays the guitar. Now he is VERY critical of his strings. But since selling strings and learning about them, I have found that not all guitar players are like him. In fact, a family member who plays his guitar all the time, didn't even know about the different gauges or materials they are made with. Then I found out that many guitar players who buy a new guitar just use that set of strings that came on their guitar. They will replace them with the same brand and gauge instead of trying something else. Or they NEVER change them!



Plus, one of the best reasons I liked guitar strings was that they are small and easy to package up and ship. Shipping costs for most items is very high and eats into any profit you can make. Buyers don't understand why they have to pay for shipping. or especially why they should have to cover our cost of the bubble mailers, the labels, the ink and the transaction fees. But if the sale from them doesn't cover that and allow us to make some sort of profit.........what is the sense of selling to them? Just for the fun of it? Hardly!

So when you pick a product to sell on your site, eBay, Bonanza, etsy, or Amazon, what are the factors that help you decide what to sell? And how do you figure the shipping into your product? Then how do you price it? These are all questions I am pondering these days. Leave me a comment and tell me what you think.

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2011  Kathleen G. Lupole