If you sell products online, particularly on platforms such as eBay, then you are in an extremely competitive business. To consistently make a profit, it is necessary to establish a relationship with a number of reliable suppliers who are able to provide genuine wholesale products at the lowest price possible. However, a lot of time can be expended in using the search engines to find reliable wholesale suppliers and dropshippers .

To help overcome this problem, some time ago I joined SaleHoo, a global product sourcing community designed to give your business a distinct competitive advantage. The benefits of membership include:

• Over 8,000 up to date and verified product sources
• Over 50,000 registered members in forums
• Have your questions answered by expert eBay Powersellers
• Information of the latest auction trends
• Market research tools

Discover how joining the SaleHoo community can be of benefit to your business:

Now, I joined SaleHoo about 3 years ago and at that time there was a monthly membership fee; these days you can reap all the benefits of membership for a single lifetime joining fee. What’s even better is that SaleHoo offers an unconditional 56-day money-back guarantee. Click the link below for further information and read about the joining bonuses you will receive:

http://keith-blackburn.com/recommends/salehoo/

Do yourself and your business a favor and reap the benefits of the SaleHoo community now!

For me anyway, Masterclass Week 6 raised the stakes somewhat. John made the first webinar recording available which was very useful (I was ‘time zone challenged’ so could not participate in the live event). There was also the offer of free membership to Dave Nicholson’s Total Web Traffic, a great membership site designed to help drive traffic to your site(s) and is particularly aimed at newcomers to internet marketing.

However, the big deal about Week 6 was that each student was provided with links to all other student blogs. So what’s the big deal? Well I can only speak for myself, but apart from links to my blog in forum signatures, and my Facebook and Twitter accounts, I have not actively promoted my blog, and the chance of anyone coming across it and reading it are slim. Now all students are encouraged to view and comment on other blogs.

To me this essentially means that, since my postings are under some scrutiny now, I need to start thinking much more about content, providing value and, if possible, getting a ‘hook’ into my posts. I also need to be getting ‘outside’ traffic to my blog and will start using some of the ideas suggested by Dave in Total Web Traffic.

Week 7 has kicked off the product creation phase and this will no doubt be time consuming. Couple this with the launch of Mike Filsaime’s Butterfly Marketing 2.0 next Tuesday, and things are really starting to hot up now. So, there are plenty of different tasks to complete and I’m going to have to set up some kind of organizational and time management system – so that I do not miss anything nor spend too much time on any particular task.

I think I’ve just about got my head around Twitter now; I’ve made nearly 300 Tweets and have about 200 followers and am following about the same number. To make things easier I downloaded a free interface tool called TweetDeck which basically has automatic page refresh and allows you to view Tweets, @replies and Direct Messages in different columns. This is very useful when you are following a significant number of people, say more than 40 busy posters.

I generally don’t go looking for followers, but will almost always reciprocate when someone follows me. This is not some sort of high-handed attitude – I have adopted a philosophy based on this blog post which, as you can see, advocates providing value to other users and not just using search tools to  follow thousands of people or saturating Twitter with posts linking to your own product. People will find you if they want to. Obviously this is just a personal thing that I believe in and, of course, I do start following people I find particularly interesting who are internet marketing orientated.

So, what is value exactly. Well, I try to link to news items of interest (not breaking news generally) offbeat or humorous articles and videos (everybody needs to smile and laugh) and any marketing articles and tips I stumble on. I also ‘retweet’ posts which I think others will find interesting. Obviously there is a lot of information to be learned from other Tweets as well.

I was quite surprised by a number of ‘follows’ I received; from WaggyWoo (a dog loving Tweeter) to Jim DeMint (the US Senator from South Carolina) to HBK (who, as far as I can gather is Shawn Michaels of WWE fame) and plenty in between. I was particularly pleased to be followed by a few high-flying marketers, such as Mike Filsaime and Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos).

You’re bragging Blackburn, I hear you say; well not really – I am certainly not fooling myself into thinking that these guys saw a post of mine and went ‘Wow’! The follows were probably generated automatically. However, Twitter does allow me to interact with these major players. This shows the power Twitter has for networking but I also firmly believe in providing plenty of value for followers to read (or listen to) if they so choose.

If you have been surfing around the net looking for internet marketing products, you may noticed sales pitches with wording such as

• Buy now – only $7
• Limited time offer – only $17
• Get your copy now – $47
• I’m giving it away – $147 $97

and so on. It should not have escaped your attention that almost all internet marketing products are priced with 7 as the last digit. Why is this? Well, it is not a coincidence. And it’s certainly not the fact that some cultures consider 7 to be a lucky number! Research has shown that this method of product pricing is the most likely to convert your website visitors into paying customers.

I can recall reading an article on this subject but unfortunately cannot locate it now. Even a Google search generally only returns results relating to…$7 products!  Essentially, if memory serves, this ideal number was arrived at by a mixture of psycho-analytics and good old fashioned testing. In searching for further background to this post I have noticed that many products are selling right at the low end, exactly $7. Whatever the psychology behind $7 being such a converter it would now seem very strange if I saw a product being offered for $5 0r $6 or $96.

So there you have it – for best results use that magical number 7 as the last digit of your prices. Tune in to the next post, coming soon.

Masterclass Week 5 material was made available last Monday o2 February, and this particular week was handled by Daniel Sumner, John Thornhill’s support manager. I had just received my blogsite graphics from Planet Divinity and Week 5 was initially about adding these graphics to the site via the WordPress admin panel. This was followed by tasks designed to generally tidy up the site and upgrade to WP Version 2.7.1. Daniel continued the style of John’s previous presentations – brief and to the point videos which break the material down into a manageable workload.

Additional, but optional, Week 5 material included removing AdSense from posts, how to add YouTube and images to posts, using widgets and adding affiliate banners to posts and the blog sidebar. All interesting technical stuff which I managed to get through by Wednesday evening. I will probably have to review some of the videos until it all becomes second nature.

John has advised that the first webinar will be held tomorrow at 3.00 pm EST. As I mentioned in Update # 1, this is midnight my time and I won’t be able to participate – I need to be up at 5.00 am Monday for work so shall be well asleep by the time the webinar starts. I would have liked to have been involved, of course, and hopefully the next webinar date / time will suit me a bit better. Sunday’s event will be recorded so I won’t actually miss out on what is discussed.

Marketing Masterclass Week 2 material included some recommended reading – basically a list of eight blogs maintained by respected online marketers highly respected by John Thornhill . The idea is to, as John put it, learn how they operate, look at how they provide value and gain respect from their subscribers by providing free content. Good idea; I opened up each of the blogs, had a quick look, and added them as links to my own blog. You can see and access these links in the sidebar under ‘Experts’. I use these links to access the sites regularly myself.

I have also added links to a couple of other blogs in addition to those recommended by John. The first was John’s own PlanetSMS Blog which is full of great content. The next blog I added was Web Guy which is by Mark Murnahan and is also packed with good content.

It has been interesting checking out these blogs. It’s an ongoing learning experience but the main thing I have noticed is that, apart from the common factor of having very decent content, each of the bloggers have developed a unique personal style and blog theme; essentially you can see that these people have ‘branded’ themselves and this is a factor that I need to, and will, develop myself over time.

Do yourself a favour and check out all the links under ‘Experts’ in the sidebar; you will discover plenty of interesting and though provoking reading.

What’s your ideal vacation? A skiing holiday, diving in an exotic location, or just soaking up the sun somewhere warm? I generally head over to the UK to catch up with family members; necessary of course, but not particularly adventurous. Personally I like sunny places and beaches – and I’m a bit of an aviation nut as well. So what if you could combine these two and indulge in an ideal break? Perhaps somewhere like this place:

This video was shot from Maho Beach which can be found on the island of St Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles. The aircraft is landing at Princess Juliana International Airport which, as you can see, is located as close as you can get to the beach. There are plenty of videos and still photographs, of aircraft carrying out this spectacular approach, available on the WWW. There have also been many claims that the images have been Photoshopped or doctored some way, but these claims are false – the images are all genuine.

I showed this video, and others, to my wife and…she approves! Maho Beach is now officially on our list of places to visit. We won’t be going this summer, a UK trip has been planned, but hopefully in the next couple of years we will get to go there. I can’t wait!

Pretty lame post title I know, but I did get that all important first sale back in December. I have had an account with eBay.com since August 2006 and made a few purchases over a two year period. Late last year I decided to give online marketing another go (for the third time – I’m an ‘old newbie’ if you like) and eBay was my chosen platform. I wasn’t overly bothered by making a profit first time out, I was more interested in the learning experience and getting positive feedback. I decided on buying a used ladies watch to sell in a ‘no brainer’ auction; $1.00 no reserve starting bid with free worldwide shipping. Sure enough I got sixteen bids with the winner residing in Australia. You can view the archived auction page here.

Although I lost money on the transaction, I felt it was worth it to gain experience in setting up the description / sales wording, fielding any buyer questions, packing and shipping in a timely manner and leaving feedback as a seller. I did get positive feedback, which was encouraging. What was not encouraging was that I did not get any bids from the USA. Placing the auction just before Christmas was probably poor timing, but I did expect some interest from the States bearing in mind it was on eBay.com and the auction terms were very buyer friendly. This again raised the fear I have about trying to establish an online marketing presence when you live in a ‘problematic’ region as I do; rightly or wrongly, maybe potential buyers are put off when they see where you live. I think I may address this paticular subject in a future post, but for now I can say that I did get that first eBay sale under my belt.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am enrolled on John Thornhill’s 2009 Masterclass and Week 4 material was made available last Monday evening. Week 4 entailed opening an AWeber account and then combining this with setting up a sign-up form at the top of the student’s blog. I managed to get through the material on Tuesday evening and I seem to have followed the instructions correctly - have a look at the top of this page. I’m a bit concerned that my blog has not yet been indexed by Google – I read that WordPress is very Google friendly and indexing normally occurs pretty quickly. Have to wait and see I guess. Update – got indexed on 28 February.

I have to say again how impressed I am with John’s tutoring style – short and succinct videos together with excellent narration makes for enjoyable learning. John has scheduled a webinar, the first for the 2009 Masterclass, for sometime in the next week or two (date to be confirmed as of writing). Unfortunately I don’t think I will be able to participate as the time is set for 3.00 pm EST on a Sunday and that’s midnight my time. I start early most mornings and will be well and truly asleep at that time. Hopefully, the next webinar will be on a Thursday or Friday which would suit me no problem. Meanwhile I’m looking forward to Week 5 next Monday – John has assured us that ‘things will get tougher’.

Dubai has a big traffic problem, no doubt about it. I’m not talking about the reckless driving, which deserves a post all on its own, but the congestion and endless traffic jams that have started to become commonplace in the last few years. Dubai is undergoing a massive development programme at the moment, largely driven by the government’s desire to rid itself of dependency on oil as a sole source of income, and this programme has to be seen as a good thing in the long term. The short term inconveniences caused by a multitude of road and construction projects just have to be tolerated as ‘growing pains’.

One by-product of the development programme is the increase in the number of people now working in Dubai and, since these folk need transport, the number of vehicles on the road. According to the last statistic I read, Dubai has a population of around 1 million, yet there are apparantly 1/2 million cars on the road! No wonder there are traffic problems; Dubai is not a large city by any means and there is a limit to how many congestion-reducing roads and bypasses you can build. So the Dubai government came up with a plan – the Metro.

The Metro idea was conceived in 2004 with actual construction commencing in early 2006. The US$ 4.2 billion first phase is due to open a little later this year. Basically, the Metro is an overhead light rail system with a subsurface section passing under the ‘creek’, a natural waterway that divides the city in two. If you have the money, it is even possible to purchase brand naming rights for some of the stations! But will it work? Will the Metro ease all the traffic congestion problems? In my opinion, I’m afraid, the answer is no. At least not as a stand alone solution. I just can’t see people giving up driving their Mercs, SUVs and Toyotas for this. Also, with summer time temperatures well over 40C in the day, it is not going to be much fun walking for 10-15 minutes to the nearest station. In my opinion, for the Metro to work it needs to be coupled with, at the very least, city congestion charges and, probably, increased fuel prices (petrol / gasoline is currently sold at below production cost). I hope the system does work in the long run though and I am sure the authorities have already thought of the various problems that could arise with encouraging people to use it. Will I use the Metro? Definitely, maybe!