Ordinary product + Added value = Increased Profits

Ordinary product + Added value = Increased Profits!

by: Richard Grady

Ok, hereกs the thing….

Everyone that wants to get started buying and selling (either online or offline) is trying to find that กbargain buyก something whose wholesale price is 50% less than the standard retail price. It is possible to find such products but they are rare and as soon as one person starts selling the item, others will jump on the bandwagon and force the price down.

The fact is that there are few items nowadays with a huge retail markup and worldwide markets such as eBay do nothing to help this situation as there are so many sellers that there is only one way for prices to go and that is down.

So instead of taking the easy option and trying to simply purchase an item at one price and sell it on to someone else for double (which involves little skill, thus anyone can do it meaning the end result is that after a very short time you won’t be able to double your money because of competition), you need to try and find a way to ADD VALUE. In other words, buy a standard product and then modify/change it in some way to make it more attractive to buyers. This will enable you to make a larger profit margin and depending upon what you are doing to the product, may help reduce the level of competition you have to face.

Let me give you a couple of examples:

How about buying an ordinary, plain tshirt (wholesale cost for tshirts is as little as $1.80/£1.00 each) and then print something on it. If you are imaginative with what you print, you may well be able to sell the กnew improvedก tshirt for $25/£15. In fact, I have a friend that is doing this exact thing! He came up with a unique and original idea to print on tshirts and now prints his own tshirts using a homemade screen printing press (seriously, he got the instructions off the Internet and actually built a cheap press himself!) All of the tshirts he sells are either black or blue and he only prints in white a surprisingly simple idea but one that is proving to be fairly lucrative. Of course, it would be unfair to divulge exactly what he is printing on the tshirts but there must be thousands of possibilities that haven’t yet been thought of.

There are many other กartyก type things that you may be able to do if you have the necessary ability but even if you are not artistic, you shouldn’t let that hold you back….

I often get emails from people asking where they can buy blank CDRs to resell. Fact is that the profit margin on blank CDRs is tiny (in fact, unless you can sell thousands and thousands every week, I wouldn’t waste your time even looking at this market) HOWEVER, take a blank CDR and put something of value on it and suddenly that disc is worth a whole lot more than it was blank. Of course, I am not talking about putting pirated material on the discs but how about digital products that you have either produced yourself or that you have purchased resale rights to? To give you some idea of how far you can go with this idea, I recently purchased a training course that was supplied on five CDs. The value of the CDs and cases was less than $2.00 but I paid over $800 for the course!

Why? Because I wanted the content. I knew that the content was far more valuable than the CDs themselves and I knew that they were going to help me increase my own businesses profits (which they did and I recouped my investment within a week of studying and acting on the course material).

Once you have identified an opportunity such as those outlined above (and there must be thousands and thousands of them), start thinking about how you can get someone else to do the work for you. The goal of a true entrepreneur should be to free up his/her time and use it to come up with new ideas or to promote existing ones he/she shouldn’t be sitting in the garage printing tshirts!

Copyright 2004 Richard Grady

About The Author

Richard Grady has been helping people earn online since 1998. Find out more about Richard at: http://www.thetraderonline.com

eBay sellers: http://www.theuktrader.co.uk & http://www.theustrader.com

This article was posted on September 10, 2004

by Richard Grady

But This Is Just My Opinion

But This Is Just My Opinion

by: Charles Wheeler

Hi, Charles…here, Your Cap and tshirt guy From Texas. How are you doing today.

I have been doing that for the last 18 years. Taking care the needs of my customers and becoming Con fondant and friend.

Now I want to be your friend and take care of you.

But first I want to tell you a story.

I want to tell you a story about a customer of mine.

Keith lives in Florida he has been a customer of mine for 6 or 7 years. He always getกs tshirts for his crew, and has them printed with one print just small over the pocket. I always ask let me print them big on back because you will get more exposure, but he always sayกs no.

On his last order he bought hats. I put two free tshirts in with his order. He called me one month later. He said ok Charles because of you I need to hire more men. And I will need to double my order to.

He said, Do you know what has happened to me. Last weekend I was gassing my boat up and a man said to me do you do landscaping. I said yes, then I realized that I had on the shirt that you gave me yes the one that you printed big on the back. Anyway he said that he had a small apartment complex and was tired of trying to take care of it. He asked if I would come and look at it. I said yes I would. Yep I got the contract on his little apartment, 2 year annual contract on his 90 unite apartment complex.

I wanted to call and say that I wouldn’t have gotten that contract without that tshirt you printed big on the back.

Print them all bob from now on. Yes, this is what Tshirts can do for you.

These Tshirts are so good that I wished that I had a button that I could push after five years that would go poof then you would have to call me to get them again.

Tshirts are very good to advertise your company name or event.

The trend I have noticed, is the Manurefactures are not putting pockets on a lot of the colors. So more Tshirts are being sold without pockets. A badge of the smokers that have quite, I guess.

One of the things you need to be aware of is were you live or work. Hot climates go with 100% cotton just go with one size larger.

Taller person go with one size larger.

The Tshirt that I would like to poof is 50/50 wares like lron and last forever.

I ask. If thatกs is the tshirt that they usually get. I say is it time to change the oil in the shirts. I know that they haven’t worn them out.

Don’t forget the women. We have a complete section of tees just for the girls and hey, they look better than us anyway.

You better get them girls some Tshirts to, or I will make them there own site. Do you want me to girls.

One other thing only put you logo on name brand Tshirts. Don’t listen to, itกs just as good. Bemis (blemished) 2nds, or off brands are not worth it, unless you are looking for a rag to wash your hands with.

But this is just my opinion.

About The Author

Charles Wheeler has been takeing care of his customers for 18 years. He has brought his business online

www.custominktexas.com

8174625348

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 04, 2004

by Charles Wheeler

Microsoftกs New Search Engine

Microsoftกs New Search Engine

by: Robert McCourty

I tried out Microsoftกs new search engine (beta version) the other day. They have been working on it quite secretly now for almost a year. It has been rumored to be a Google killer once in full public release. They say its accuracy and ability to return relevant results will far surpass any other search engine on the Internet. That remains to be seen. I tried various combinations of single, double, and triple word/phrased searches to inspect the results.
To the casual observer I suppose a certain percentage of the results would seem to be accurate, but upon closer inspection and with a trained eye, the results for the most part ranged from poor to outright terrible.
I then attempted a series of searches on the same combination of words. กcustom designed screen printed tshirtsก I was attempting to determine how much the results and rankings changed (or did not change) within the same set of query words. I searched with a variety of spellings on a particular keyword In this case, I selected the word ‘t shirtsก then tshirts (with a dash) and finally ‘tshirtsก (no dash, all one word)
One web site had very consistent results across all three spelling methods. This intrigued me so I clicked on the link to analyze the site. i.e. Why was this one so well optimized or more specifically why did this new Microsoft beta search engine find this web site so tasty.
The site was completely broken. None of the graphics loaded properly. (in Internet Explorer) It was devoid of any contextual content on the home page and scarcely little throughout the rest of the pages. Some scrolling Java script overlapped the button for a drop down menu. No outside links. Nothing. Excuse the pun but this was not a pretty site. How then could Microsoft possibly rank this site one, two and three for completely different keyword phrasings and spellings on a soon to be major release for a search engine?
The answer revealed itself as soon as I took a look at the web siteกs HTML source code.
Guess what folks, meta tags are back! At least as far as the Beta version of Microsoftกs new search engine is concerned, especially the keyword Meta Tag. Above all, this tag seemed to account for the heaviest weight in determining the aforementioned rankings. I will err on the side of caution here and assume that Microsoft has not finalized all their algorithm parameters yet, but the keyword tag was definitely what their spider had been eating.
The problem However, (beside the horrible site) was that this particular keyword tag, by all SEO standards, was an abomination! Nearly every rule and guideline weกve come to know and love ALL thrown out the window! It looked like a tag from 1995. Multiple repetition. Too many characters, way too many words, broken lines, poorly weighted keywords, bad spacing, and completely useless keywords. Whatกs a กrinsgerก anyway?
Have a look for yourself. Here it is. (Without formatting changes)
KEYWORDS CONTENT=’tshirts, tees, tee shirts, teeshirts, printed tshirts, blank tshirts, eshirts, ishirts, short sleeves, sweatshirts, long sleeve, vnecks, tank tops, jerseys, screenprintings, screenprintings, custom tshirts, custom designs, custom printing, custom embroidery, michigan, fraternitys, sororitys, sportswear, artwork, typesetting, imprints, engraves, emboss, stamps, pocket tís, ts, rinsger tiís, ringers, ladieís tís, designs,

designing, apparel, clothing, clothes, screens, printers, silkscree embroidery, embroidered, customs, fraternities, sororities, golf, towels, logos, promotional, fundraisers, personalized,

company, tailgates, formals, footballs, blocks, carnivals, circus, pledges, bid

day, rush, halloween, christmas, easter, thanksgiving, halloween tshirts,

christmas tshirts, easter tshirts, thanksgiving tshirts, floors, dormitory, churches, clubs, sports, sport teams, choirs, schools, businesses, fundraisers, intramural, hanes, jerseys, fruit of the looms, universities, michigan state university, MSU, msu, university of michigan, U of M, UofM, u of m, eastern

michigan university, EMU, emu, western michigan university, WMU, wmu, central

michigan university, CMU, cmu, colleges, universitys, universities, shrits,

tshrits, tshrits, desings, teshirts, teshirts, sirts, shits, shitts, custums,

screanก
Yup, pretty darn ugly, but the Microsoft Beta search engine seems to be eating it up. Granted this engine is still in beta version but letกs review. Broken, useless site. Broken useless tags. Number one ranking! Whatกs wrong with this picture?
Most search engine users will try a new search engine only a few times. When they do not get the search result accuracy and relevance they expect, they will soon dismiss it and move along. Beta version or no beta version, one thing is for certain. The Microsoft coders have plenty of additional work to do before releasing this search engine to the general public. Google coders, take the weekend off.

About The Author

Robert McCourty is a founding partner and the Marketing Director of Metamend Software and Design Ltd., a cutting edge search engine optimization (SEO) and web site promotion and marketing company.

http://www.metamend.com/

This article was posted on July 07, 2004

by Robert McCourty