April 14, 2008

Choosing Your Drop Shipper



So how do you go about finding a reputable drop shipper for your business? Well, here’s where doing your homework pays off. Whenever possible, you’ll want to set up drop shipping arrangements directly with the manufacturers of the products you want to sell. The fewer middlemen you have to go through, the bigger your profits will be.


If, after contacting the manufacturer, they agree to drop ship to you, great! You can be fairly confident they’ll offer you a competitive price. If they don’t agree to drop ship for you, you’ll have to look for snother alternative.


This ussualy means tracking down a distributor. A distributor is simply a company that maintains a large inventory of another company’s products and distributes those products to smaller companies. The best way to locate a distributor is to simply ask the manufacturer of the product to recommend one.


Another great way to find a distributor for the type of product you wish to sell is by looking through related trade magazines. You’ll frequently find manufacturers advertised in the backs of these publications. To find appropriate trade magazines, check out Yahoo’s listing of trade magazines. You may also be able to find distributors and manufacturers using Thomas Register. They provide listings for thousands of companies broken down byproduct, brand name and company name.


Most companies you contact will be more than happy tospeak with you-after all, you’re going to be selling their products for them. When you call, simply ask to speak with someone about becoming a vendor for their products. Once the switchboard puts you through to the right person, they’ll ba able to answer any questions you have, including:


  1. What is the wholesale price they can offer you on their products? You’ll need to make sure the wholesale price they offer is low enough that you’ll be able to generate a good profit based on what you will be able to sell their products for.
  2. Do they charge a handling fee for drop shipping? If so, how much? Most companies that drop ship will simply add the cost of UPS or FedEx shipping onto your wholesale price, but some will also charge you s handling fee (generally between $1 and $5). This is to offset their cost of picking,packing, and processing the order for you.
  3. How do they ship their products? Almost every company that drop ships products will use a major nationwide delivery service like UPS or FedEx. As them to include tracking numbers with the order confirmations they send. This will save you many potential problems when customers ask, “Where is my order?”
  4. How do they bill you? Most drop shippers will bill your credit card the wholesale price of the product plus shipping and handling as soon as they receive an order from you. With others, you may be able to set up a monthly billing cycle where you submit payment for all orders at the end of each month.
  5. How do they deal with product returns? Be sure to find out what their policy is regarding returns. Most reputable companies will offer some kind of guarantee or warranty on their products and will deal returns for you. This way, if a customer contacts you with a return, you cqn simply tell them the manufacturer will be happy to speak with them directly. If your manufacturer doesn’t accept returns, look out! You’ll be the one stuck replacing defective merchandise for your customers

Competition In Drop-Shipping

Have you notices there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of sites selling huge mish-mash selections of inexpensive gift items, things like plastic gnomes and porcelain figurines? That’s because there are a few very large drop shipping companies that import these items and then recruit Web sites to sell them on their behalf. These companies have massive product inventories and make it very easy for people to get started selling their product for them.


Unfortunately, this is not the way for you to go if you’re getting started with drop shipping. There are already a lot of giant gift sites out there-and fairly heated competition, making it difficult for amateurs to be successful at it.


Instead, spend some time researching specific kinds of products that you might want to sell. The products you choose should be in demand but not widely available online. As always, I highly recommend targeting a niche market rather han trying to find a product that everyone wants to buy.


A Drop-Shipping Narrative


Let me tell you a story. For too many years I squinted at a 14-inch monitor. Early this year I decided to get a 19-inch monitor that won PC Magazine Editor’s Choice regocnition. I went to an online store to secure my purchase. I found the monitor, and it indicated the ability to ship soon, so I ordered it. Immediately I got an e-mail that said the monitor was backordered L Why didn’t they tell me that before I oredered? I was ticked off, but decided to give them a while-after all, it could come any time. So I waited, visions of a shiny new 19-inch monitor dancing in my head. After a week with no word, I finally got tired of waiting and called customer service. I was connected to a polite customer service person who listened to my question:


“When will the monitor be available?”


“We don’t know Sir. The Manufacturer hasn’t told us.”


I was frustrated. I had looked around and knew it was in stock at another company.


“Cancel the order, then.” I told the lady, impatiently.


“You have to give 72 hours notice before cancelling,” she said.


“That’s just unacceptable,” I retorted. “If you don’t have the monitor ready to ship now, then cancel it.”


“The manufacturer may be ready to ship it.”


Aha! I thought. This is a drop-shipping operation!


“Then call the manufacturer and ask please,” I told her.


“I can’t do that, Sir.


“Then cancel the order. Now! ” I was disgusted.


She cancelled the order. The next day the monitor arrived by Next Day courier. It had been shipped, but the retailer’s level of communication with the manufacturer was such that they didn’t know exactly what was going on.


In the meantime, I had ordered the monitor from another dealer, and subsequently returned the monitor from the original company. I am sure that the return shipping costs ate up whatever profit there was in the sale. And why did that retailer’s site show the item in the stock when it actually wasn’t available? Probably bacause the inventory levels weren’t updated in real time, or often enough to be accurate. This situation is actually quite common, so be prepared for issues like this.


The lesson: Drop-shipping may well handicap your ability toprovide excellent customer service. And withoutexcellent customer service you’ll lose your bestcustomers to your competitors. If price doesn’t distinguish you from other onlne businesses then customer service most certainly must. Though I’ve had one occasion to return a book to Amazon,, I had a good experienece because they handled it so very well when I caled about the problem.


Finding Dropshippers


First and foremost, you must find a good supply of dropshippers. This is an imperative, as there are many seemingly innocent and reliable drop shipping companies, but you really have to shop around to make sure that they are as honest and reliable as they seem.


Two good places to start are www.dealdirect.com.au and www.overstockoutlet.com.au- both of which are incredibly limited, and their dropshipping arrangements are overpriced and not very useful. The brutal truth is the best dropshippers with the best prices come from countries like China and Thailand. These dropshippers aren’t impossible to reach on line, but you generally need some sort of directory to get an idea of which ones are reliable and which ones are not. These directories are normally online and require some sort of subscription fee. I use the Dropshippers Database occasionally, and they are really reliable and their feesare very reasonable. You can read them at www.thedropshipperdatabase.com. The real problem with these directories is that they can be out of date, which is why I only subscribe to this place on a monthly basis-that way I’m only 10 dollars out of pocket rather than a yearly subscription’s worth-the simple fact that they even offer a monthly subscription is good alone.


If you don’t want to pay for a dropshipper directory, you can also use www.wholesalecentral.com but the problem with these guys is their directory is fairly unregulated and unrated, so you have no idea how good or bad the people you are dealing with are. So it’s basically a case of pot luck.


Customer Service is another issue with dropshipping. To illustrate this issue, let me share with you a small story from a friend of mine.

Dropshipping


One of the easiest ways to make money via eBay through what I call ‘The Wholesale Route’ , is playing the dropship game. To dropship (or droshipping) is the act of selling wholesale items without them ending up in your house, cluttering up your space.You see, when you dropship, you advertise the product that you are sellling on eBay, with your version of the retailprice-and then someone bids or buys the item. You then send your order to the dropshippers, who will take their wholesale price cut, and then ship the item off to the seller. Of course, they will take their shipping cut, also-so you really want to make sure that the shipping is on top of the product. But in the end, you sel an item, the item never goes anywhere near your house, and you don’t end up paying a cent. And of course, another big advantage of this system is that you don’t have any unsold stock, off-site or otherwise.


In addition tothese advantages, following price and effectiveness-you also have the added bonus that the moment you realize you have a product available to you, you can list it on line. This means that you don’t have to sit around waiting for the product to be shipped to you so you can sell it. Be careful with this though, make sure that the dropshipper you choose definitely has the products you want to put up-but nine out of ten times your product should be available and you shouldn’t have to worry about putting it up on line.


There are of course, small problems with the drop shipping business model. First of all, you will probably find that this method of sale will only get you small amount of money. So, you will have to start putting your items in bulk on eBay-again, this costs you per item., so you have to be careful to pick your items to sell, making sure that your item will sell otherwise you have lost the money you put it up to eBay for in the first place. This is why I recommend selling high cost electrical goods, like mobile phones, computers, TV’s, etc-as you can ussually get these at good wholesale prices (ie.maybe a good 1/8 less than the average price), and using say an Plasma Screen TV as an example, you could get one on wholesale price for about $2500, which we’ll say is saving about $700 dollars off retail price. So, the retail price is $3200-we have to make it worth the customer’s while and worth our while.


So we take our item, and we find out how heavy it is, and how much it will cost to ship. One of the follies of drop shipping is that your product is invariably going to be in another country, so say your TV is being drop shipped from Hong Kong-and will cost $150 to ship. Using this example, we need to again still make it worth their time and money to buy your fabulous item instead of the one that they can get down at Harvey Norman for slightly less hassle. So the retail price is $3200, the shipping is $150, and the wholesale price of $2500. If we say set the price to $2900, we would be set to make a $300 profit off of the sale, but there’s a good chance that the customer won’t buy it bacause the savings the make, plus shipping, aren’t that great. So the folly here is that you have to balance your profit margin with your chance of sale. In my experience, if you dropped that price by a hundred dollars, abd say you sold 5 of these TV’s on eBay-you would sell all of them. Whereas you might sell 2 of them with the higher price, but you end up having to pay for the unsold TV’s eBay fees, and in the end you will make amuch better deal for yourself sacrificing abit of profit for a lot of it.


As you can see, with a bit of work, this is a wonderful and easy way to make profit on eBay, probably the easiest of the lot. But is it safe, and is it worth it? Like many get rich quick schemes, there are a number of traps that you can fall prey to if you are not careful.


Wholesaling



As your business grows, you may choose to start buying from wholesale sources and selling on eBay at retail. This can be very profitable, but only if you choose the wholesale wisely.


The Internet is full of opportunities to buy lists of wholesalers, often for just a few dollars. Save your money. You can get the same quality of information (or maybe even slightly better) for free by using any of popular search engines andplugging in keywords such as “wholesales,” “manufacturer”, or “drop ship.” But even that is not the best route to take.


Instead, be more specific in your approach. Think about the type of products you want to sell, and then look for manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors you can work with. Find companies whose products meet your quality expectations, that have prices and terms you can work with, and that deliver the service level you want to provide your customers. Get sample products so you can see the quality yourself. Some companies send free samples, while others charge a nominal fee-either way, don’t try to sell something you’ve never seen. Be sure it is truly worth what you expect to sell it for.


Be sure you’re dealing with a true manufacturer, wholesaler or distributor, and not another middleman who is markingup his prices and increasingyour costs. Ask for and check references. You want to talk with others who are buying from these sources. In addition, check with the Better Business Bureau, any industry associations, the consumer protection agancy of the state in which the supplier is located, and any other source that may be able to verify their claims.


Legitimate manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors will also want information about you, including proof that you’re a legitimate business and that you have any necessary licenses and tax identification numbers. A supplier who doen;t ask for this information is probably a middleman whose credentials won’t stand up to passing scrunty, never mind a thorough investigation.


You will find, that when you do find online wholesalers, that they will tend to have very specialized sets of stock. This is generally good, and going in your favour-try to find wholesalers who specialize in your niche. For instance, on AV Wholesale (www.avwholesale.com.au) they have ONE brand of Digital Set Top Box (and PVR) available, and while it isn’t a specifically name brand, it is a well respected PVR. There’s a lot of support for it on the internet, plus lots of positive reviews. Now, I won’t go into their wholesaling prices-but if you scan for the “Legend Digital standart definition Digital Set Top Box with twin Tuner & 160GB Personal Video Recorder” on eBay, you will find a few scattered instances of it, but it is on the whole pretty rare. So there is one niche to be filled right there-cheap, non-name brand Personal Video Recorder. It’s that easy-you pick a vague niche, and then compare those wholesalers’ products with their availability on eBay. You will often easily find a niche that is rare, even completely unfilled which you can then exploit wit great deal.


Finding Wholesalers is something that is entirely up to you-if I gave you a list of wholesalers it would be somewhat redundant. Look throughyour local yellow pages and find wholesalers there. Also try searching via googles with ‘use pages from (your home country)’ tagged.If you’re feeling really lost, start with www.dealsdirect.com.au and work your way along from other. What you really want, however, is to find wholesale directory. These are actualy harder to find than the dropship directories available. Ironically enough, the easiest to find is on eBay.


Wholesaling, while being a highly profitable way of making an existence if used correctly, can also spell disaster if you haven’t chosen your avenue of product carefully. This is mainly due to the fact that you spend a large chunk of money buying many of the same item to get the wholesale price, and then you find yourself out of pocket when the item doesnot sell correctly. This can mean that if you are not careful, you could have lots of products and no money. And on topof this, even if you do find you can sell the items, where are you going to store them all? If you feel like you are willing to take the challenge and make the extra money that selling the wholesale items through eBay can give, go forth, and make your fortune! And if not, (or if you fall into the category I was just talking about-that is, you lack stirage space) you should consider drop-shipping.


General Issues To Consider


Wheter you have a specific product line in mind or are still trying to come up with some ideas for what you can sell on ebay, consider these issues:

  • Cost: How much willthe item cost you? There’s more to cost that simply the price on the item-do you have the cash required to make the purchase or are you going to borrow money (and therefore pay interest) to acquire the inventory? Will there be any additional expenses, such as shipping to you or repairs if the item is not in salesable condition?
  • Storage: Do yoy have room to adequately and safely store the item while you are waitn for it to sell?

  • Shipping: What are the labor and cost issues associated with shipping the item to your customer once it sells? It is very fragile, an unusual shape or extremely heavy? These rae issues that can make shipping a challenge.
  • Product life cycle: How long can you expect the demand for the item to continue? You may have something that is wildly successful today, but next year you won’t be able to pay people to take it away from you. Beanie Babies and other fad collectibles are a great example of this. Some high-tech items are also at risk of having a short life-cycle due to trchnology advances. If you pay attention toproduct life cycles, you can maximize your profits while the item is hot and avoid getting stuck with excess inventory when the demand declines.

  • Season: When you put an item up for sale on eBay, consider the time of the year. Heavy coats and sweaters don’t seel well in the spring and summer. Lawn and garden equipment is not going to move as well in the winter as it will in the summer. If you have room to store the items, you can make a nice profit buying off-season items and holding them until they sell.
  • Season: When you put an item up for sale on eBay, consider the time of the year. Heavy coats and sweaters don’t seel well in the spring and summer. Lawn and garden equipment is not going to move as well in the winter as it will in the summer. If you have room to store the items, you can make a nice profit buying off-season items and holding them until they sell.

Finding Your Niche On Ebay



A lot of eBay sellers start out sellinh odds and ends they have around the house- and for good reason. For items that are in good condition, you’ll probably get more money for them on ebay than at a garage sale. You probably have plenty of stuff that you’ll never miss and you really don’t need to store or dust anymore. And it’s a relatively risk-free way to test the waters of eBay selling.


If you can’t bear to part with anything you already have, start with products you know and hace experience with. Choose things that have demonstrable market demand (that is, you know people are buying them). Don’t make the mistake of selling only things you like, or the trendiest, coolest things you can find. If your goal is to make a profit- and it should be!- then you need to be selling things people will buy.


If you are considering selling an item, do a search on eBay and see if that product or similar ones are being offered for sale. If the market is saturated, you may want to reconsider trying to sell that product. At the same time, if absolutely no one else is offering the product for sale, you need to figure out if that’s because no one else has thought of it, or if it’s because no one will buy them.


Depending on the category, seeing a lot of similar items up for sale may work in your favor or againts you. For example, you may see a lot of the same item pop up in response to a search because people are buying. Or observes antiques seller Sue Rudolph, “It might also mean the market is flooded and no body wants it.” You have to do more than just count the listings, she says. Look at the individual auctions and see if people are bidding on the items-that will give you an indication of the strength of the market. Then check the completed auctions for the item you serached for. That will tell you what the item is selling for (if, in fact, it’s selling at all)


Writing A Description



Equally important, but less apparent, is the task of writing a good description. Here I’m going to have to sell the pair of shoes nicely, but not overdo it ( I don’t want to make it seem like they’re in mint condition in the box or anything)-and importantly not to spend too much time thinking about it. For instance, it’s not very productive to go into detail about a pair of socks. If the item is especially important, you can go to a lot more effort in adding details, perhaps extra photos, etcetera-but I have personally decided for this item it is just not necessary. Of course, it is also important to weigh what sort of details you should give-for instance, technology usually requires a much more lenghty description (if you don’t’t follow what I mean, in the example of a pair of headphones you would not only have to provide a visual description of the item, but the technical specifications like the frequency range they provide, power handling capacity and so on).


What should you include in your description? Well, the important elements are as follows:

  1. Repeat the name of the item.
  2. Details about the item. (This is your most important prerogative, make it the focus of your description).
  3. Any physical pros and consof the item. This includes general marks and scratches as well as accessories and extras.
  4. Finally, cover any other information that you feel needs to be mentioned. For example, if you feel that the photos don’t properly show a feature of the item, describe it.

Now that we’ve covered through the basic, so let’s go through putting up an item, step by step.

First, you give your auction a title. Simple enough. Next, you have the option of adding a ‘subtitle’ below your auction title. This can provide extra information-and while it’s useful, you probably won’t use it that much. In this instance, I haven’t. Here, I’m putting up a friend’s auction for a cocktail dress. It will customize the fields depending on what sort of itemyou are putting up-so in this instance you list the clothing style, size, colour, material-etcetera. Then, further down the page, you’ll add your description.


HTML code is your friend. If you don’t know anything about HTML code, you may want to learn. The description field allows you to type just regular text, but you can add HTML markup code to spruce up the description. I recommend it highly, as it makes your auction stand out and look more professional. If you can read HTML, you’ll notice that I have basically made the text look bolder, a reasonably simple task, even for beginners.


Here you name your price. On this item, I’ve started the bidding rather low. For a measly ten cents you can add a “buy it now” price. You also specify the length of the auction and the quantity of items (usually one). Scroll down further.


Now is the time to add your prize winning pictures. The first photo can be hosted on eBay for free, and each additional photo is 25 cents. When you’re putting up a large amount of items, it’s cheaper to host them on your personal webspace instead. You can add this by clicking’your web hosting’ and filling out the appropriate info. Scroll on, to the next area.


Customization is what this section is all about. Yes, you will get a lot of exposure by adding your item to the ‘featured item’ list, but is it really worth $29 to do this? Some of the cheaper but still fancy options that may be worth it are the ones that add ‘borders’ and such toyour item for three dollars. It might be worth it, it might not. Use your judgement, but still keep thinkin with your bank account in mind. After all, what if the item doesn’t sell? Finally, here you can add a ‘page counter’ to your page to tell you how many people have seen your item. It’s nice for your peace of mind, and it’s free-so why not? (after all, you can even customize it!)


Now we’re up to everybody’s favorite part-the part where you get paid. More specifically, the method of payment you choose. Choose your payment option and scroll on. I chose Bank Deposit, as there’s no fees attached to that perticular option.


Finally, we hit upon the shipping directions. This is all very self explanatory. You tick if you will delivery it only nationally or internationally, and then what countries you will send to IF internationally. Next up, you tell them how much your postage will cost (you should work this out with your local post office-you can get a rough estimate from their website as well (beware, it may not be perfectly accurate!), and what sort of shipping method this will use. You can add as many different ones as you like, like adding express shipping costs, and so on. After that, you have the option to add a returns policy-this is very rarely used on eBay unless the item you are selling in expensive. Finally, back to the payment instructions-you tell the bidder any extra information (or clear instructions on how to) on paying you. In this instance, I’ve added extra information pertaining to express shipping.


This is the end result. As you can see, it only takes a few moments to set up your auction item. Once you have done several, you will start to get into the routine of doing things on eBay, so the process won’t be as time-consuming or difficult.


Eventually, when you’ve set up many auctions, the process may become a little tedious. This is understandable, ad you’ll essentially be repeating the same actions over and over again-wouldn’t it be wonderful if youcould avoid most of that process altogether? Thankfully, this marvelous dream has come true with the help of Turbo Lister (see the Turbo Lister chapter, later). Unfortunately there’s no tool that will take good photos or write up descriptions in English, but many other functions can be straemlined and drieven by the computer.


Best Foot Forward



In creating an eBay auction, it’s very important to take time and care in your presentationon the goods on offer. After all, anything that looks shabby or messy is certainly going to seem less valuable to a critical public that are considering parting with their hard-earned dollars. In this chapter, we’ll go over anything you need to know to make the best possible impression and really tap into your customer’s desire for the product.


This is a shoe. It wasn’t always looking this pretty, it took some work to improve its appearance. This shoe is one of a pair, but this is the more damaged of the two ( the other being prestine) so I have chosen to use this photo-as it is the most honest first view the bidder is going to get. It is actually quite an old shoe, picked up at an opportunity shop for a grand total of $6 for the pair-I suspect that this pair is worth quite more than this, as it is from a well known company (Windsor Smith) and is over 30 years old, so if nothing more it is a well kept piece of history. My first task for selling this item was to make a nice cover photo for the page. What you see above is the end result. To take this photo, I arranged my shoe nicely on a piece of cow-skin rug (to make a good background) and angled my camera nicely. I’ll go into that later, but first I’ll ty and illustrate a point by showing you a few of my failures.


Failure number one is intentional, to illustrate a point. You get a lot of photos like this on eBay, and they’re often worse than this one. Not only does this photo show very little of the subject in question, but it has two other important problems with it. First of all, there are other bits and pieces in the background. This is messsy. Try and set your photo so that the background is one consistant background (like the rug in the photo) and nothing else unless it is related to the object being broadcast. Second, and I feel slightly more importantly, this shows off the worst qualities (those that exit, anyway, this is a fairly good quality item) of the item in question. It shows the slight wear and tear on the front of the shoe, and what looks to be a cut in the side of the shoe. Try and find an angle that shows off whatever problems the item has, but doesn’t make them look any worse than they are-but most importantly, makes the good qualities far outweigh the problems!


With failure number 2, I just took a very quick snap. A lot of people on eBay like to take this approach to selling their items, and very few will get a good price for their item, if they get money for their item at all. I could go on and on forever about the bad qualities of this photo, but I’ll keep it short and sweet-you should be seeing a pattern here-the background is not constant (part of the door and floor are showing), and there are assorted bits and pieces all around the item distracting it from being the subject of the photo. But another important point about this photo that the first failure didn’t have-it isn’t close to the item, which means you don’t get a good look at it. And because you can’t see the item very well, it doesn’t deliver the best impression.


The last failed photo experiment is getting similar to the end product photo, but there are again some important omissions. First of all, it is horizontally laid out, which doesn’t add a whole lot to the picture. If you turn the item a bit so that it takes up more of the photo from corner it corner (nicely taking the entire frame over, not just most of it), it adds depth and flavor to the photo. You’ll notice the way the light in the end photo climb the length of the shoe nicely, making the shoe look sparky-this is also due to the turn of the shoe. Amazing how much difference a little turn makes, isn’t it? Now, the other problem with this photo ( which I have more or less avoided because it is so blatantly obvious) is that the photo is blurry. Very blurry. A lot of eBay sellers don’t bother to a photo that is not blurry, and with modern photo cameras I’m not surprised-auto-focusing can be quite troublesome. Work on it, it’s certainly worth the bother.


Once you have your photo near perfect, pop it into Photoshop (or ‘The Gimp’ graphics editor) and play around with the levels. Particularly if you are using a flash, the image might look a little washed out. In Photoshop, you can do this quite easily by applying Auto Levels (found under Image>Adjustment) which ninety percent of the time will do a fairly good job making the photo look nicely balanced. If you are feeling experimental, you can try batch-applying an action to a large amount of photos, but we’ll get to that later. Other things you can do to your end product photo are fairly tedious if you want to be a perfectionist. It’s not worth that level of effort, unless you are doing one photo for a line of the same product. So a quick fiddle with the levels is just the right amount of post processing necessary. Once you’re done fiddling, adjust the image size so that it doesn’t end up too large (try to keep the image around a maximum resolution of 640 x 480 for a high detail eBay photo) and then save it in a JPEG file.If you like, you canpaly around with the JPEG “quality” settings (which refer to image compression) so that you might get a slight bit of artifacting but a much smaller file. The smaller the end file is, the faster it loads and the less worries you have about hosting it.


Digital Camera



Obviously, you will need to take pictures of your eBay goods so that online bidders can have a look at them before they buy. The easiest and most convenient way to do this is with a digital camera. If you already have one, you may be able to skip this chapter. Otherwise, read on: it contains invaluable advice for those setting out to purchase a digital camera.


Buying a camera is a lot simpler than buying a computer, but that doesn’t mean it’s terribly simple either. There are a lot of considerations you have to take into account. These considerations can more or less be simplified into three important categories: price, quality and versatility.


Camera Price


Do you want to spend a lot of money on a camera that you are going to use primarily to take photos of items for sale? There is a certain point where cameras go from being expensive because of the features they contain, to a higher plane of expensive because of the ability to manually adjust advanced settings. On average, a camera with a manual focus in the traditional sense of the word ( a camera with a manual focus wheel) will set you back ( at bare minimum) a cool $1000. Depending on where you shop, this point is usually somewhere around $600-700. Since you will be taking photos that are not going necessarily need to be of a particularly mega-high resolution, you probably won’t want to pay that much for one. Or do you? You may want to be able to supply a very high quality images to people who ask for more details in the items they are buying, in case you probably do want a more expensive and better quality camera. One thing to take into consideration here-this is a business expense. So if you want a very nice camera that you can take on holiday (or perhaps even use for artistic purposes) this would be a perfect time to claim it on tax.


Camera Quality


This is an area where two people will rarely agree on a given model. In fact, it is an odd area, because people’s opinions vary so radically. For instance, you could buy a Canon brand camera which is more expensive for a lower megapixel count, or you could buy a Konica for a cheaper price and higher megapixel count. You may wonder what the difference is here-and it’s all fairly relative. Some say that Canon put better lenses on their cameras, and that they are a more reputable brand. Others may argue this fiercely; and seeing this, you might tend to get the idea that it’s allabout territory defense-like sticking with your favorite football team, no matter how badly they’re doing this season. What I’m really trying to say here is that you should, as far as possible, form your own opinion. Because in the end, you may find that you’re unhappy with the camera you’ve purchased purely because you stuckwith the tastes of another person. You may feel that the extra money for the Canon is worth it, and that you feel safer using the more reputable brand-or you may think that Canon are trying to steal the money straight out your wallet and go for Konica. In the end, feel confident-differences between models in the same price range tend to be minor and it is your own decision after all.


Camera Versatility


How versatile do you need your camera to be? You may wonder exactly what I meant by this, so I’ll elaborate. Cameras these days have a lot of features that are built in almost by default. Here’s a little secret-a lot of these new ‘features’ are more for experiment’s sake to see if they can make it any better, maybe plunging toward a day where they will actually be useful. And then of course there are the features that are just plain useless, like the so called ‘effects’ that all digital cameras, photo or video, come stock standard with (like Quantel, Split Screen, Solarize). These are fairly useless to the average eBay seller, and someone who wanted to use them artistically would do them properly in Photoshop. Anyway, away from my ranting, there are actually some useful features that you should keep an eye out for.-these include advanced memory card support ( as in, the camera supports more than one type of memory card-this sort of versatility gives you plenty of choice and hence room to find the cheaper option), larger LCD screens,and even SLR lenses if you are a perfectionist like myself.


Technical Lexicon


Now we’ve got the basics covered, so let’s get into details. I’ll cover a couple of the more important aspects of the technical terms, with a short glossary at the end of this chapter to help you understand what the technical specifications you are reading actually mean.


Megapixels: How Many Do You Really Need?


Probably the most significant feature when choosing a digital camera is the number of megapixels, which determines the potential quality of your photos. Choose too few for your needs, and your images will suffer. Choose too many, and you might be spending more cash than necessary. Around the five megapixels mark is fine for most people. Below is a guide to help you choose, including what size prints you can expect to get and basic prices. (The price, however, can fluctuate wildly based on extra features, and the cost per megapixel is constantly getting lower and lower) :


  • 2 Megapixels or less

This level of detail is typically found in smaller, inexpensive cameras or cameras in combination with other devices ( such as cell phones or PDAs). Avoid it. It’s useless for almost anything except for grainy happy snaps-and hence fairly useless for eBay.


  • 3 Megapixels

This is actually a good compromise between picture quality and low price for most casual photographers. You probably won’t find any actual ‘cameras’ with a lower megapixel count than this, today.


  • 4 Megapixels

Thia is where the quality starts to shine. The photos these cameras will take are actually a decent size, so your prospective buyers will actually be able to make out detail in the snaps fairly well.


  • 5 Megapixels

Above five megapixels, you will see a continous (but gradual) improvement in image quality. If you are considering buying for more than just eBaying ( such as amateur photography or art purposes) I highly recommend you choose something at the five megapixels range or better. You should be able to get a good five megapixel camera for less than 400 dollars.


Optical Zoom Vs Digital Zoom


Generally speaking, digital zoom is nigh on useless. The digital zoom works by taking the optical image and increasing the size of one part of the picture, reducing the quality of it. It isn’t strictly “zooming” at all. The image will initially become horribly pixelated or blurry, and at the far range of the digital zoom it will become utterly ugly and useless. Photos taken without digital zoom, you’ll notice that it does not allow us to zoom in anywhere near as close, but the quality is infinetely better.


It is easier just to get the camera closer to the item, isn’t it? But if you really don’t feel you have the time and patience to get the camera closer and focus nicely, gointo your camera and use the maximum resolution. Then, you can manipulate the photo with Photoshop after you’ve taken it. At least (in comparison to the digital zoom) the buyer will be able to seethe item quite clearly. And you’ll have much more control over the details in the picture.


Digital Camera Glossary


CCD


In essence, this is the electronic version of film for a digital camera. Standing for charged coupled device, this refers to the chip used to record image information. Light hits the CCD when a photo is taken, and then the analog CCD converts the information to digital. This is one of the two main recording devices used in digital cameras.


Compact Flash


This is the memory card with the largest physical size and storage capacity. About the size of a matchbook and weighing about half an ounce, these cards come with a capacity as high as 2 GB. These cards are better for use with high-megapixel digital cameras. There are also versions that store at a high-speed rate, which is helpful for shooting several pictures in succession.


DPI


Standing for dots per inch, this refers to the resolution of an image. The higher the DPI, the better the detail of an image. It is a measurement of the number of dots found in a one-inch square of an image. For instance, if you wanted to print the image, you would want a DPI of at least 300. An image on a screen, however, is only 72 DPI-but you should rework this later or the image you originally take will turn out bad.


F-Stop


This is the number assigned to determine the aperture, or size of the lens opening. A high f-stop number means a small amount of light is allowed in, which would be used to avoid an overexposed image. A low f-stop number means a large amount of light is let in, as you might use to shoot at a high shutter speed without getting a dark image.


LCD Screen


This is a feature included on most cameras, which allows the user to preview images immediately after a photo is taken. It is this single feature that persuades many to switch the digital cameras. These preview windows, however, can be vulnerable to cracking or malfunctioning. So be careful with them. The size and quality of LCDs is usually one of the things you will find most debate about in digital cameras reviews.


Memory Stick


Long and slender, this memory card also can be found with a “select” feature which doubles its memory. The cards come in maximum capacity of 128 MB, but the select version stores 256 MB.


SLR


Standing for single-lens reflex, these are higher-end digital cameras revered by serious photographers. The digital versions of SLRs work in this manner: the shutter retracts so an image can be recorded. One of the prime benefits of using a digital SLR camera is that lenses are interchangeable.


xD Picture Card


This is the smallest of the common memory card formats, yet it has a large capacity (a maximum of 512 MB available)


Decide On Your Camera


Now you should have a basic idea of what to look for in a camera. When you start looking for one, scrutinize and cross examine the reviews you find, and if you can’t work it out from there, try the camera yourself. Only you can workout exactly what sort of camera you want and need for your business.


We’ve covered the hardware needed, so let’s get down to some more eBay related business. Let’s get down to actually making auction on eBay.