Should I Sell One Category of Products or Hundreds of Categories?

What Works Best? Should I Sell One Category of Stuff On My Website Like Jewelery or Pet Products For Example Or Should I Have Hundreds of Categories?

(AKA "How To Compete With The "Big Boys")

Let me answer this question for you by asking you a question...

When people come online and type in a search term, do they type in hundreds of different things at once or just one thing?

Well, it's usually for a single thing. People typically are online searching for something specific.

Now, people don't want to buy from a "jack-of-all-trades" and a master of none. They want to buy from an expert in their field.

Let me prove it to with the following example:

Let's say you're online looking for fishing gear. And you come accross two sites:

One site has thousands of products and a generic name that has nothing to do with fishing.

They don't seem to know much about fishing, they just threw up a couple of fishing products with short descriptions in hopes to make a sale. They also sell jewelry, handbags and everything else under the sun.

The second site you come accross is devoted strictly to fishing gear. Their domain name contains the words fishing or fishing gear in it, they have a few articles about fishing and they have positioned themselves in your mind as experts in fishing gear just by doing these simple things.

So let me as you this question?

Which site are you going to buy from? The generic site that sells everything under the sun and they just threw in a couple fishing rods and stuff and you know they probably don't know anything about fishing, or...

the site that is devoted to fishing gear - fishing gear is all they do and they are experts at it. Plus maybe they've given you some free advice on their site about fishing and related topics and helped educate you further. They really care about the topic.

My guess is that you are much more likely to buy from the site that is totally devoted to fishing even if you have never heard of them before...
Because they have positioned themselves in your mind as "experts" in fishing and fishing stuff is all they do.

• So just that tip right there gives you a distinct advantage over the competition trying to compete with the "Big Boys."

And I know what you're thinking. But the "BIG BOYS" sell everything and they do just fine.

Yes, but they are in a class of their own, well-financed, and well-branded.

I'm giving you a strategy to stand out and give you a leg up on your competition right from the beginning even though nobody knows who you are.

And trying to compete with Wal-Mart and Amazon.com is not a good idea anyway. Sure, they've made that model work but they also have years of experience and have lots of money and have gone through great growing pains -and they have lots of employees.

In my experience, the way you compete in this type of environment is to specialize in one type of cateogory. Now, if you lots of interests and want to be in a lot of different categories, then start with your favorite and devote one website to that category only and then create another website and devote it to your next category of interest.
And that way you build up an online "portfolio" of websites and are well diversified. It's a great model for newbies and experienced sellers alike.

"Remember, you don't have to beat everybody, you just have to jump in and get your share."

(read that sentence three times because it's probably the best advice you'll ever get about selling online (or offline).

I look forward to sharing a lot more valuable marketing and wholesale insites inside

http://www.americaswholesalesupply.com/

Warmest Regards,

Jeff Yancey

admin@hiddenvaultEmail.com

How Do You Build An Opt-In List Of Customers?

I Hear People Saying I Should Build An Opt-In "List" Of Customers. HowDo You Do This Exactly And What Is The Best Way To Get Them To Opt-In?

All the pros and the internet millionaires know that the money is "In The List." It doesn't matter what your primary product or service is that you are trying to sell. Even if your business is offline such as a flea market, kiosk or gift store, you still should be building an opt-in email list of customers and prospects. If you are not, then you are losing money... maybe a LOT of money. You need to be building your own opt-in email mailing list.

THIS IS YOUR CUSTOMER BASE!

I'm not talking about "Spam" or Unsolicited bulk email. This is a list of people who have willingly given you their name and email address and requested that you send them information from time to time about your products or services.

If you've got an ONLINE business, you simply have a box that slides in on your website (I'll show you a cheap program that you can copy and paste right into your website easily that can do this for you) that allows customers to opt-in to your list. If you've targeted your traffic right, something we talk about in Americas Wholesale Supply Then you will be building a list of people interested in your products. This is priceless, because using the tool I'm going to show you below, you can send them all an email at the push of one button (for free) showing them your latest products and specials. This canbring you lots of extra traffic and vital repeat business without having to compete toe-to-toe with your competition.

If you have an OFFLINE business, you can ask for their email address at the time of puchase and enter it into the same software I'm going to show you below and contact them the same way and send them to your website. Or you can give them a flyer with each purchase offering them say for example: a 15% discount on their next purchase with you at your store or website. You could even include a discount coupon code.

Ok, on to what this means to you:What if you had 10,000 people on your list? Or even 20,000 that were interested in your products - you could send out a sales email offering something you know they are already interested in - Wow - do you see the potential power here? I know people who have well over 100,000 people on their opt-in lists. And they can punch one button and the email goes out to everybody. Sounds great right? But how do you go about getting that list in the first place?

I told you how to build a list briefly above more information is included in http://www.americaswholesalesupply.com/ - but what I want you to understand the power that this can give you - a list like this can be extrememly lucrative. Let me give you an example:
Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that you sell dolls online. Ok? Bear with me here. So you have targeted all the doll buyers and collectors that you can find and you are marketing to them. You've done your research and you know what your target market is looking for and you've created an offer that appeals to them. And when they come to your website they see a box that says:

"Free Report Reveals how to tell if your doll collection is worth a fortune. Enter your name and email address and the report will be sent instantly to you!"

So if you have properly targeted your market, many of those people at your website will be very interested in this. They want to know if they are sitting on a fortune, right?

So they are going to give you their name and email address and another person is added to your list. (Your autoresponder will automatically send them the free report right to their email and add them to your list) More on autoresponders in a minute. How fast your list grows depends on how attractive your offer is, how targeted the traffic is that is visitng your website and how many people you can get to your website.

If your primary business is offline, you should ask all your customers at the time of check out what their email address is and if they would like to receive special offers and/or discounts via email. Also, you could do a drawing and have them enter the drawing simply by giving you their email and requesting to be added to your list! You could also create a sales flier and have it placed throughout the store that tells them how to get a free report about doll collecting sent to their email. They take it home, go to your website online and BAM! they are added to your list. Does this get your brain thinking? I hope so!

A NOTE ABOUT TARGETING YOUR MARKET: If the people that are at your website are interested in fishing poles and you are selling dolls - don't be upset when they leave without buying - they're not interested! Find people that are already interested in what you have to offer (again I show you how to do this in http://www.americaswholesalesupply.com/

If people are not interested in the product or service you are offering, FIND SOMETHING THEY ARE INTERESTED IN AND SELL THAT TO THEM! Getting tons of traffic doesn't do you a bit of good if those people are not interested in what you have. Give me a little bit of highly targeted traffic over tons of generic traffic any day!

Power Tip: Don't pick out your product first. Don't make your mind up that "you are going to sell a specific product." Find a group of people that need a particular product, or information or whatever. Then find the product they need - the product they are looking for, and sell that to them.

Ok, imagine if you sell weight loss products and you have worked really hard and you now have a list of 15,000 subscribers to your opt-in email list. Now, lets say you just got your hands on the latest greatest weight loss product - What do you do with it? Well, if you haven't been building your own list, you have to try to market the product somehow...

But you've been building your list of people interested in diet products so you know exactly what to do - you send out a sales email with this special offer and then sit back and watch the sales roll in. That's the dream right? Well it happens all the time. In fact that is the model for online success. This is not something I came up with - this is the secret that the people making big money online use. And if done right, it works - BIG TIME.

List Management
Now, however you decide to manage your list is up to you. There are a lot of programs and software you can use. But I am going to show you what I use to manage my list. It's cheap, easy and automated.It doesn't get much better than that!

First of all, this can all be automated for you. Can you imagine if you had to send out 1000 emails? 5,000? 15,000? everytime you wanted to mail your list? This would take you forever. Of course you don't do it manually - you use a list management system. You simply create ONE email - then hit the send button and that email is sent to everyone on you list at the same time! Plus, you don't have to manually sign them up either, that's automated too.. you just get them to enter their name and email address in a form on your website and they are automatically added to your list!

There are several programs that will do this for you but one to me stands alone for usability, cheapprice and email deliverability.

It's economical and it's the best one I am aware of. It's called Aweber and it makes managing your email list easy. I suggest you get your mailing list started right away because I can pretty much guarantee that your competitors are already trying to get your customers on THEIR mailing list. Aweber also has lots of tutorials and helpful hints that make getting your list up and going a snap.

ONE LAST THOUGHT:
I highly recommend that you offer a free report or some free information that relates directly to what your customers are looking for. That will give you the highest chance of adding new people to your list. For example, if you sell security equipment and everyone coming to your site is looking for security equipment - offering a free ebook on how to collect beanie babies is NOT going to work! Make sure what you offer is targeted and relevant.

But if you can't think of anything, check out some of the ebooks in the America's Wholesale

Supply Marketing Tactics and Traffic Section - Most of those ebooks can be given away for free. Be sure to check each ebooks rules (usually at the start of the ebook).
To Learn More About Building Your Opt-In Email Mailing List, watch the Video Tutorials inside the http://www.americaswholesalesupply.com/ site.

Warmest Regards,

Jeff Yancey

admin@hiddenvaultEmail.com

Want To Guarantee You Fail In Your Wholesale and DropShip Business?

Want To Guarantee You Fail In Your Wholesale And DropShip Business?

Here's How To Fail Quick:
1) Get your information and sources from forums and "communities" where your competitiors can post false and misleading information to get you to use bad sources while they go use their secret sources.

Remember, your competition is NOT YOUR FRIEND! - They Want you OUT OF BUSINESS!

Here's How To Fail Quick Way #2:
2) Get a pre-stocked dropship site where the owners of the site are being a middle man between you and the real suppliers and have simply made deals with the real dropshippers and marked your prices up for the priveledge of using their system.

A) You are better off going directly the dropship source yourself as you will probably get much lower prices which could mean the difference between making a profit or just breaking even or possibly losing money.

B) You won't be totally dependent on the "pre-stocked" dropship site and whatever products they "decide" to carry - plus you won't have to pay their markup. And when they go out of business, you're website will not disappear.

The question is . . .

Do you like being a failure or are you ready to battle you're way to the top?

Ask yourself this and take some time to see what that little voice in your gut tells you. You can listen to it and take action and believe in yourself. It's up to you, but if your time is now here is your how: http://www.americaswholesalesupply.com/

-Jeff Yancey
admin@hiddenvaultEmail.com

How To Have A Professional Website Up And Rolling In 5 Minutes With No Experience And No Out-Of-Pocket Expense.

How To Have A Website Up And Rolling In 5 Minutes With No Experience And No Out-Of-Pocket Expense!

I've been running my wholesale and retail business full-time online since Feb 2002 and one of the most common questions I get is "How Do I Get A Professional Website Up And Rolling Fast And For Cheap?"

Well, for a while, I didn't have an answer. In early 2002 there simply were not a lot of options.
So I collected all those questions over the years and found a solution that addressed them all.

It's called TKOSITES (And keep your credit card in your pocket) You'll see why in a minute. You even get a free domain and your website can be up and running literally 5 minutes from now "LIVE" on the internet. All you need to do is choose the wholesale or dropship
products you want to sell and easily add them in, choose the template that best fits your needs and your on your way.

And it's easy too. No experience necessary. If you can type into a word processor and have even average intelligence, this will be a breeze for you.

Plus there is a full service support team and tons of documentation in rare instance you do need help.

There is no shortage of site builders out on the web now these days, but most of them are very expensive or require contracts, and have hidden fees.

Or they force you to sell their pre-stocked, over-priced products that sound good at first but what you'll find out is that you will want to add your own products from your own suppliers so you deal directly with the supplier of YOUR CHOICE and don't have to pay the mark-up that every single pre-stocked dropship site I know of does to you. When they mark your prices up, it makes it harder to make a profit.

Also, you want a site that doesn't look like everybody else or carries a variety of generic products like everybody else. If you think you're going to make money that way, you've got another thing coming.

The key is dealing directly with a source you "hand-pick" that way you get the lowest price and cut out the middle-man pre-stocked dropship site guys and get full, easy customization. You can also change the look and feel of your site at any time at the click of a button - it doesn't get any better than that. See, I've listened to my clients over the years and so I know what you want and what you don't want and what really works best. And this is it: http://www.tkosites.com/

And if you need those direct dropshippers or wholesalers for the products you have in mind,
I've got over 100 categories for you (through my nearly decade of travel and research) at
http://www.americaswholesalesupply.com/

Warmest Regards and God Bless America,
Jeff Yancey
admin@hiddenvaultEmail.com

Get All America's Wholesale Supply Blog Updates!

How To Get Easy Fast, Quick Alerts To All Our Free Blog Post Articles. It's Not Hard, Read Below For Easy Instructions...

And it’s especially extra-special when it comes via America's Wholesale Supply official blog bringing you everything from previously un-talked-about-tiny-tidbits about wholesale, dropshipping, websites, traffic and marketing (for online and offline businesses) new wholesale research and getting new customers along with lots of other valuable information.

Blogging give me the chance to communicate those “wouldn’t you like to know” things in a unique way. And cyberspace seems like the appropriate place to do it.

Getting my new blog posts is very easy—it’s just like talking on the speaking telegraph…er, uh, make that, the “telephone.”Anyway, getting wired for America's Wholesale Supply blog is also simple. To sign up, just hook yourself up to a little thing called an RSS feed—it’ll automatically notify you when a new blog is posted—and it’ll be your link to the little birdie that tells you all
the cutting edge wholesale and dropship information coming down the pipes.

You can do this easily:

1. Log onto http://www.americaswholesalesupply.com/. Our home page contains several links to any
of our articles or just click on our “America's Wholesale Supply News Blog” at the bottom of the page. When that is clicked on, it will automatically take you to the America's Wholesale Supply blog page; or log directly onto this page at http://americaswholesalesupply.blogspot.com/

2. Once you’re on my blog page, scroll look up in the top left hand corner of the blog for a link for the words, “FOLLOW THIS BLOG” —click on it!

3. This will link you directly to Google’s blogger sign up—a Google Account is required, and it’s free. You’ll be prompted to provide your email address and to create a password for your account. You’ll also be asked whether you want to follow our blog publicly or anonymously (and that’s entirely up to you).

4. That’s it! You’re now a member of America's Wholesale Supply inner circle—and you’ll receive automatic updates through your email account whenever there’s something new from us on our blog. That way you know you can get real wholesale and dropship business information. If you read it on my official blog, it’s not hoax or hearsay, grapevine or gossip, invention or innuendo—it’s pure, unadulterated gospel truth—straight from the birdie’s beak.

-Jeff Yancey
http://www.americaswholesalesupply.com/