Cranking out muses but low volume sales...

[weinerschizel]

I feel SO close to finding the holy grail lol

About a week ago I came up with a new market testing process. It's working nicely. However, I cannot seem to get the data from it I need to build more lucrative muses.

Here's the process in a nutshell...

(1) I look at what has repeat sales.

(2) Create an ad for similar product (exact same if possible) and make the ad / offer more enticing with better guarantee and or added bonus.

(3) See if it get's a bid... If so go a head and make the product and send it out when auction is complete. Whola I have a muse.

Since this idea I've created one new muse and have a two or three more I want to test.

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Here's the trouble with this muse testing process...

Issue 1: eBay charges a small fortune to sell on their site. Between them and Paypal overhead runs as high as 20% for small ticket items. That's fine for testing but really puts a hamper on what you can do.

Issue 2: Not sure how to determine market cap using eBay. My end goal is to have a testing / research method that gives me an good idea of how many people are actively looking for a particular product on the internet.

Issue 3: eBay is great in the sense and you really do pay for high quality traffic which 20% might be reasonable in that regard compared to PPC. Are there any other good websites for testing muse ideas... Especially digital product ideas? I've been leaning towards Amazon / kindle... What else is there? I should know but at a loss of ideas. Ebook sites, digital video sites, etc.?

My end goal is to test a bunch of products that I know are potentially high volume until I find one that I really like and or has the highest profit margin. Then build a small website for that product and boost the living @#$ out of it with PPC and watch the $$ come in.

I feel CLOSE but ebay just isn't quite giving me all the data I need.

Any ideas / pearls of wisdom are GREATLY appreciated!

PS Feel free to ask questions but I prefer you don't serve up advice unless you've successfully created online products netting $1k + / month.

[officer_dibble]

One issue 1:
Is your product a repeat purchase or one off? Could you sell them something else later? If so - you ideally need to find a way of converting those purchasers to email list subscribers. Could be a note in the package or if you can customise any of the ebay communications eg despatch. That might make the 20% cut they take easier to swallow.

On issue 3:
I like Amazon (and esp. Kindle) a lot. Sales are likely to be a trickle though if it's a niche product eg 100 or so a month (so a portfolio of products might be necessary). And Amazon take a hefty cut if Kindle (70-30% ish depending on pricing) but considering it can be truly set up and forget business and the size of the audience I don't think you can complain too much. I've never considered using it for testing (better to think of it as another channel alongside your own site).

[weinerschizel]

Originally Posted by officer_dibble

One issue 1:
Is your product a repeat purchase or one off? Could you sell them something else later? If so - you ideally need to find a way of converting those purchasers to email list subscribers. Could be a note in the package or if you can customise any of the ebay communications eg despatch. That might make the 20% cut they take easier to swallow.

On issue 3:
I like Amazon (and esp. Kindle) a lot. Sales are likely to be a trickle though if it's a niche product eg 100 or so a month (so a portfolio of products might be necessary). And Amazon take a hefty cut if Kindle (70-30% ish depending on pricing) but considering it can be truly set up and forget business and the size of the audience I don't think you can complain too much. I've never considered using it for testing (better to think of it as another channel alongside your own site).

I like you're ideas. I'm beginning to see the true value in an "email" list. I've tried building social networking lists but they are terrible leads. Only good for perhaps softening the market.

I'm actually creating about one product a week now! It's insane. However, my goal is to focus on Corvette owners and make a whole set of products so they would be excellent repeat customers.

I'm also building a referral system for real estate where leads are worth thousands of dollars a piece! And I can set it up to be completely passive

My end goal is raise enough money to open my own shop and broker speed toys from sports cars to vintage fighter jets along with training programs to fly them. I'm starting to kick the ideas around with a few investors and flight trainers but ultimately the products are going to get me a leg up.

I'm quite sure I'll need to raise around 1/2 million dollars for shop + money for inventory. It's exciting and I'm starting to figure this stuff out... but like I said volume is a big issue for me. I'm only making a few bucks here and there.