Many people may not know what a consignment store is. You give products (toys, clothes, maternity, baby items, fur and leather coats, etc.) to a person to resell, but you still remain the owner of that product until sold.

They are also called thrift stores or second hand shops. You may even have a couple of these stores local to you and shop at them yourself.

Consignment selling

There are many stores you can drop your items off and have them sell it for you. You then receive a percentage of items sold OR you can start your own consignment business.

eBay consignment business

Many people have tons of things they would like to get rid of but don’t have the time to sell it on ebay, so they make it easy and take it to a donation center. This is where you come in.. open your own ebay consignment store.

If you don’t have a lot of money to advertise, find different ways that are inexpensive. Word of mouth, tell your family and friends about it, put up notices in a local laundry mat, grocery store or local recreation center. Check with your local Chamber of Commerce to see if they have places you can post a notice for your new venture. You will take peoples items, sell it on ebay and give them a percentage of the money remaining after all the fees have been taken out.

I have seen ads in my local newspaper for people that are doing this as a home based business. They don’t have fancy store fronts, but they do need to have the storage space available.

You can also set a price amount for the items that you will accept (example: nothing under US$20 resell price). It may not pay for you to sell items that do not have a very high resell value on ebay, but it may help bring in more potential customers. If the products that people bring you do not have a high resell it may help to group some products together and sell as a “Lot”.

Don’t be surprised by the items you can sell on ebay on consignment. If you are thinking of just the normal products to sell, do some research on ebay’s marketplace and see many of the items that people are buying. Leather coats, fur coats, used video games, etc.. Think world wide for selling of your products and not just within the country you reside in.

Where do I find more information on selling on consignment?

If you would like to find out if this is a business from home that you can use to make money, there are books at Amazon and of course on ebay to look at. Another really good place to see if they have any updated books would be at your local library.

If you do your research on the internet for the books and software packages needed to start this business, make sure you check out the website because as I am sure you know there are many scams out there.

Many new affiliates see all the ebooks, forums, blogs and websites stating they can make money within a short amount of time using affiliate programs, only to find out that effort (many times a lot) is needed to obtain the super affiliate status. Remember even the people who are super affiliates started out as beginners and had their share of mistakes. So if you want to become a high money making affiliate, you can’t quit. It just take time.

I recently saw a posting in a forum where affiliates go to share ideas, tips and ways to help make money online. Anyway this poster stated he had gotten into the affiliate marketing arena and was not making any money so he was going to throw in the towel.  After a few postings from other people trying to help this person, the original poster stated they have been working on an affiliate business for about 3 months.

3 months? That is still just a beginning.  There are people who have been doing it for years and still not making the kind of money that they thought they would be.

So what went wrong?

1. Internet marketing network – are you using all of the social areas to help bring targeted traffic to your site? Getting the word out about the products you are promoting?

2. Free stuff – On your blog or website are you giving away free information? No, not just the ebooks and such people can find all over the internet, but original helpful ways to help people solve the problems that they have, and then, of course, by using many of your products you are promoting.

3. Collecting e-mail address – are you compiling a list of e-mail addresses on your blog or website?  If you are, are you using these e-mail address to generate additional (or first time) sales for products you promote.   If I sign up for a newsletter at a website, I sure don’t want to receive an e-mail every day saying “Buy this, Buy that…ect” Give me a good reason to want to purchase from you and not one of your competitors.

4. Tracking your affiliate links – Many affiliate programs have the ability to let you track your affiliate links. You can even put the same link on different pages of your website, see which page is doing better after a time. If page A has more clicks than page B, try to figure out why? More relevant? Maybe your link need to be in a different place on page B or even though page A and B goes to the same product page, maybe you need to change the wording a little on the page B link.

5. Contact the affiliate manager of the merchant you are using – These managers (most of the time) will help you anyway they can. They can be a fountain of knowledge to help you figure out what may work on your product promotions. They know who the super affiliates are and what has worked for them. Don’t overlook contacting them for help.

6. Useful content – does your website have informational/useful/unique content on it to help people deal and/or solve their problems or is it just a web page with links going to all different types of products that you are promoting?

If you have a website and it just does not seem to work, maybe if needs a face lift?

Even though my create a website tutorial is geared towards beginners learning how to build a website, sections of it may help give your website a new beginning.