Cornerstone Commercial Supply Inc. is the proud new owner of an eBay Store designed by DesignLogic with Frooition and All Business Auctions.  

Our design work was completed over the holidays and installed on January 7, 2007.

Within hours of the installation of our custom eBay store design the client, Cornerstone Commercial Supply Inc., logged thier very first eBay store sale... Congratulations Cornerstone!

Richard Carpenter - Owner of Cornerstone is very pleased with the immediate and verifiable advertising exposure already generated by the site. "We have already had inquirys from professional carpet cleaners in other states asking about purchasing our best Truck Mount Carpet Cleaning machine packages and we do not even have any of them listed in the eBay store yet". "I am really excited about all of the exposure this eBay store".  Read More...

Call Scott Pooler at iBusinessLogic / All Business Auctions to learn about the benefits of an eBay store for your business.

727-596-6900

As a small business owner do you have an eBay plan for 2008?

Small business owners are bombarded by multiple ideas, emails and suggestions concerning how they should run, improve and increase business this time of year. Among these New Years Resolutions ideas is one which I consider to be the most likely to provide a return on investment for any business owner... I suggest any small business should research the viability of adding an eBay marketing plan, including the use of an eBay store, to the present marketing budget. If you have not already looked into the potential of eBay and eBay Stores, you should designate this as one of the top priorities for your company in 2008.

No matter if your business has an established eCommerce Internet website or not, adding an eBay business/marketing plan to your retail or wholesale operation is not only a revenue producing sales tool but also a promotional venue with an unlimited potential to increase your businesses bottom line and overall worldwide branding exposure and recognition. So lets make looking into eBay a primary New Years resolution for your company, here are 10 resolution ideas and the possible benefits of following our advice:

Top 10 New Years eBay Store Resolutions for Small Business Owners

1. OPEN and eBay store and stock it with merchandise- This is the first step! Once you make this initial step, your business will be on its way towards gaining worldwide exposure for your brand and a robust and lively new customer base. All built in to the incredible and free built in SEO advantages of an eBay store. Question: Are you aware that more searches are initiated for products on eBay each day than on Google? In fact there are more searches completed each day on eBay than on Google's entire system and every search within eBay is initiated by a consumer looking for a product to buy. People search on Google for free information. Which place do you want your products found?
2. Build up your positive feedback number- By building the eBay account feedback through purchases and the sales of your store merchandise new and exciting features of your eBay account will become available. Once your feedback rating exceeds 100 all of your fixed price and store listings will be gaining even more Internet exposure on eBay express and you will qualify for many other programs within eBay. When your sales exceed $1000.00 per month, your business will be listed as a PowerSeller. Powerseller status indicates to the consumer that you are a steady and reliable resource and that they can have confidence buying from you. Additionally, when your sales surpass $3000.00 per month, your business will qualify for a reduction in PayPal fees.
3. Advertise your business locally via eBay - Create excitement and build confidence with your current customers by telling them about your new and exciting eBay store. Your customers will all know what eBay is and you will be amazed at how they will react to the news of your businesses move into eBay. Immediately you will gain a reputation for being cutting edge and Internet savvy.
4. Set up a Trade - In / Trade - Up Program for new equipment sales - With your company eBay store and feedback rating established you can now become a eBay "Trading Assistant". Establishing your business as a Trading Assistant will allow you to perform services for your present customers which were not available before to you or them. Example: Your business sells new and valuable products or merchandise and you have a loyal customer base. You are always working toward selling your customers the latest and greatest piece of equipment or new model of your merchandise. Possibly you have sold your customer a piece of equipment in the past and that customer would love to upgrade or trade in and up to your latest model. As a business owner you hesitate to directly accept trade ins and then sell used equipment for warranty reasons and financial reasons etc... As an eBay Trading Assistant you could offer to offer your customers older equipment on eBay for them if they will buy a new stock item from you. The customer agrees and you sell the item on eBay to a new buyer for your customer. As a Trading Assistant, you never take ownership of the item and therefore you never invest in the item nor are you liable for the item. The item is sold as is to a new customer and your loyal customer applies the value towards the sale of your new inventory. Win Win Win - Everyone is happy with your new service and you just sold a new piece of equipment by eliminating a financial objection from your present customer. - Smart Business!
5. Design Your eBay Store to fit your branding -An eBay store is a marvelous tool to attract traffic to your merchandise but once a potential customer lands on your site you want them to stick around and see all that you have to offer. A standard eBay store design is very basic and will only look like every one of the other thousands of eBay stores in the world. To stand out and be recognized, you need to invest in a professionaly designed eBay store. A store designed with your company look and feel and your branding will perform much better than the standard eBay store package of graphics.
6. Complete your eBay Store "About Me" Page - This is possibly the single most important step! The About Me page is the only place where you can, within the eBay rules and guidelines, re-direct eBay traffic to your own website. If you want a portion of the 225 million eBay users to see your company website, this is where you get it done! A professional eBay store designer should include a "me" page design.
7. Write an eBay guide, review, or blog -Give your muse a try and write a review or a guide to how to buy a product you feature. What should a consumer look for in products similar to what your store features? How would a consumer go about finding an honest dealer like you? What kind of treasures can be found in the marketplace and how does a consumer tell the good from the fake in your field? This is not a place for blatant merchandising but more of a place to write a common sense guide about how to buy your specific category of widgets. These guides and reviews and/or blog posts are all ways to gain worldwide exposure for your company and your brand and identify yourself as an expert - eBay provides them to you for free!
8. Import your eBay listings into your own website - Create excitement on your website and offer ever changing content to the search engines by importing your own eBay store listings into your off eBay traditional website. The advantages of this strategy are vast and the investment is minimal. If you sign up as an affiliate of eBay (also free) your company can even realize revenue from any click through to eBay from your website.
9. Sell Internationally - With an eBay store your company become an international exporter overnight. Make your products available to the world and offer them on all of eBays international websites. You will gain new customers, additional traffic and valuable bidders for any auction listings you post. Bring the world to you with the click of a mouse!
10. Stick with it! - There are many tools available to your company which will automate the process of listing and re-listing merchandise which reduces labor costs and the possibility of tedium causing you to abandon an eBay store plan. When you set up your eBay store, have an eBay plan in place with goals and milestones in mind and on paper. Stick with your plan, adjust your goals, and learn your marketplace. Each sale will propel your business along the pathway to success and each sale will be a learning experience. Your company and you can do it and you can do it now!

Have a marvelous, profitable and enjoyable New Year! Happy 2008!

Scott Pooler - All Business Auctions - iBusinessLogic -AuctionLogic - 727-596-6900 Skype - allbusinessauctions

In an article written by Ina Steiner of AuctionBytes.com this morning, it is reported that QuikDrop, one of America's largest drop off eBay store franchises, is closing up franchise sales and support operations by the end of this month. The current franchisees (store owners) are free to continue store operations but will do so without corporate franchise support or software.

...at least one storeowner was worried over QuikDrop's notice that it would cease offering the stores use of its proprietary software program on December 31. Bob Golub, owner of a Massachusetts QuikDrop franchise store, said he wasn't surprised at news of the closure, but is worried about finding replacement software and learning a new program in such a short period of time. "We're all scrambling," Golub said. Excerpt by: Ina Steiner AuctionBytes.com

If you own a QuickDrop franchise what will you do?

Will you move on and continue with operations with newer and even better software provided by a third party like AuctionLogic (powered by AuctionSound)? Or will you try to run your consignment operations with eBay's Turbo-Lister?

Services are available such as AccountingLogic which will help you convert your data from your existing software or bookkeeping software and import that data into your new listing software. Learning more modern web based consignment listing software suites is not nearly as difficult as QuickDrop store owners might imagine. Training is available through the software vendors or their consultants and in the end your costs will be much lower while your ease of use and efficiency will improve.

My advice would be to weigh the options and evaluate this change as an opportunity. QuickDrop may have given the entire franchise the best Christmas present possible. But shutting down the bleeding and operations they have given the franchises an opportunity to control their own destiny and run their business as they want to. The reduction in overhead will give each franchise owner breathing room to implement new advertising, website development, and eBay store upgrade options which were not available to them as a franchise owner.

Beyond highlighting the numerous valid reasons for avoiding the purchase of a eBay drop store franchise, as previously detailed in this publication... This development also brings to the forefront a business practice which I believe every small entrepreneur should avoid...

The dependence upon one company or entity to supply your business with all of its required software and branding and ultimately, income... is fool hearty. Throwing all of your proverbial eggs in one basket is unwise in any venture, to depend upon one company for software and branding is risky.

While this lesson is demonstrated very plainly by this latest QuickDrop development. The same lesson can be applied to the practice of placing all of your product sales in one channel such as eBay.  It is unwise for any business owner to be so entirely dependent upon the stability, largess, or whims of another company. If you are only selling via eBay or if you have a franchise eBay drop store of any brand, you should take today's news as a wake up call. Look at your operation and analyze where your income is developed. If your stream is one river then you should diversify. Find a way to sell elsewhere, look for other support options, review other software vendors...

Always look for ways to spread out your dependence upon other entities and your business will be more healthy and better able to survive when one vendor has a bad situation develop. Your business is not unlike an investment portfolio, investing all of your cash in one stock is never well advised...

Everyone in the QuickDrop family should thank the corporate offices for this decision. There are other software suites available which are more user friendly and have better support and they are available at less cost than the price of a franchise and royalty fee.

Congratulations to all of the QuickDrop franchise owners - you have been set free.

The professionals at iBusinessLogic are bringing the world of Internet marketing to an established Brick and Mortar distributor of Carpet Cleaning supplies and equipment in the Tampa Bay area.

iBusinessLogic 's first task has been to set up the inventory of this commercial carpet cleaning distributor in electronic format and to enter it into the AuctionLogic business class ebay management software suite. We are proceeding with this project while we complete the design of the eBay stores templates with our DesignLogic and Frooition graphics and eBay stores certified designer teams. The eBay stores design and listing template is nearly complete but since we have all of this great product to promote, there is no reason to wait. We at All Business Auctions have begun the soft launch of this client onto eBay with a basic eBay stores design provided by eBay.

Once DesignLogic & Frooition has Cornerstone's new eBay store design completed they can simply do a quick install of the eBay store design without changing any of the items already running on eBay. One of the great features of our AuctionLogic software suite is that once the Cornerstone branded and customized eBay listing template is ready for use, we can simply choose to change the template of any store item from within our software without ever having to re-enter item description information or details. Once the Designlogic / Frooition template is installed our client will have the ultimate flexibility available for changing and editing both live eBay listings and thier own promotions within the eBay store. Featured items will be promoted / cross marketed on each and every listing with this eBay stores design and software solution.

Next on the agenda, after the eBay store is up and running and generating revenue, DesignLogic will formulate , design and implement a complete a full eCommerce website for this client. This will allow the client to direct traffic from eBay to the eCommerce website and sell his primary product which is Truck Mount Carpet Cleaning Machines.

In addition we plan on developing informational products for this client. Digitally delivered info products are a great way to get a company brand and company links into the hands of a focused and targeted audience. The informational products ideas we have for this client are extensive and we fully intend on helping Cornerstone Commercial Supply inform and educate its customer base with Commercial carpet & floor care e-books, e-reports, e-reviews on equipment and other video and audio based informational products.

We have been working for years to reach a level which would allow All Business Auctions / iBusinessLogic to create comprehensive and effective Internet marketing plans which start with the awesome power of eBay traffic generation. We believe we have found the right combination of tools, services and mentoring programs which will allow any brick and mortar business like Cornerstone to survive and thrive in the new world of Internet based marketing.

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Tags: CornerstoneCommercial Supply, Truck Mount Carpet Cleaning Machines, eCommerce website design, Brick and Mortar, Carpet Cleaning, Tampa Bay, All Business Auctions, iBusinessLogic, AuctionLogic, DesignLogic, Frooition,

We have have just created this new eBay stores design with our DesignLogic team in conjunction with Frooition in the U.K.

Cornerstone Supply is an established brick and mortar supplier of commercial carpet cleaning equipment and cleaning agents, specializing in heavy duty truck mounted carpet cleaning machines.

Our iBusinessLogic team of professionals and solutions will be bringing this company to eCommerce in a big way - starting with an eBay store designed by DesignLogic and powered by Frooition. Listing services provided by AuctionLogic will keep the inventory of this operation online via eBay with a minimal learning curve and maximizing uptime of inventory.

After our initial eBay stores setup and implementation we plan on designing and launching a eCommerce website and blog for this company.

Wish us luck as we hope to provide these types of services for brick and mortar businesses for the foreseeable future.

Frooition is the premier eBay stores design solution in the U.K. and Europe. Some of the U.K.'s largest retailers rely upon Frooition to implement and manage their online sales strategies. We are certainly proud and honored to be linked in business and in friendship with this outstanding company and we only hope that our DesignLogic services can benefit from and provide value to Frooition and our clients alike.

Features of Frooition eBay shop Design:

Dynamic Design that allows you to change content features within “Manage My Store”; this allows you to add new categories and edit them without changing your design html
Design hosted using dedicated servers
Specify list or gallery view and sort by preference
Easily change your eBay store description
Rename and re-order categories and automatically format the design
Change the location and content of the promotional boxes Create/edit your custom pages while keeping your standard design template intact
Full control of your about me page - Having a professional design will greatly enhance your eBay and Internet presence, making your eBay shop stand out from your competitors. It enables you to build a consistent and professional brand. It gives your customers confidence enabling you to get better margins on your products. It can make you look bigger than are giving you a competitive edge. Customers are encouraged to use “buy it now” increasing your trading velocity and profit. It encourages the use of the store front as a key part of the selling strategy encouraging cross sell and upsell while saving your money on eBay fees.

Features of a Frooition eBay Listing Template Design:

Dynamic store categories (meaning customers can easily track back to your store) The ability to search your store directly from the template
Add to favorites and watch item will be incorporated into the design and made more prominent – meaning higher close rates and repeat purchases.
Customers will be able to sign up for a store newsletter – meaning you can repeat market to drive sales
Add and save custom terms and conditions and update them from one place – meaning you don’t have so much repetition when formatting your listings
Save listing code as text files on your hard drive meaning you can easily re-list products and services, no matter what listing software you useYou can also add custom promotion boxes to drive sales and gain extra customers
You get a 10MB Image Storage where you can host product images thus saving picture fees to eBay
The system pulls in various data dynamically such as your contact information – if you change your contact details on eBay they will change automatically in the design.

The listing template solution will allow you to quickly and easily create professional templates that will carry across your existing branding giving you the ultimate branding package, increasing customer confidence even more than you get with your eBay store.

The listing template system has a web based console where you will create a new listings with your design, all you have to do is fill in the required fields specifying title, description and then either upload an image or point to its location. The software will then generate your listing in html pulling all the relevant fields into the correct places with the suitable layout. Once the listing has been generated you will see a preview of the listing and, once you are happy it is correct, it can be saved to your hard drive and copied and pasted into eBay, via “Sell My Item”, Turbolister or Selling Manager Pro or third party providers like AuctionLogic. DesignLogic  can even have your standard template code installed into the AuctionLogic Business Class eBay management software suite so you will only have to enter the standard information for a listing once and let the system manage your listings from that point forward.

If you have any questions or comments about Frooition, DesignLogic, AuctionLogic or All Business Auctions, we will be pleased to answer or reply at any time. Just give us a call 727-596-6900 or drop a comment into the box below.

Scott Pooler

CEO

iBusinessLogic

All Business Auctions

Gold_Opal_Ring002.jpg

Originally uploaded by All Business Auctions
What a piece, a gem of Australia!

Would you Buy This ring?

Check out my eBay Store to see if it is right for you but the point here is that eBay photos across the board should be better than average to increase sales.

Better Photos = More Bids!
Try it!

Originally uploaded by All Business AuctionsContinued as Promised....

As discussed in my previous post, this is a very high quality item which has been entrusted to my company to list for sale.

This is a 2.0 ct Solitaire Near flawless and colorless round brilliant cut diamond mounted in a tested and stamped 18k solid white gold setting encrusted with over 80 secondary natural diamonds for a total carat weight of diamonds equalling 2.86 carats.
 

• Was my trading assistant company just given this opportunity because we have an eBay sign on our front door?
• Did we simply luck into this possible sale?
• Is there any reason why we were chosen over any one of the reputable jewelers in our community?

I like to think the answer to all of those questions is NO.

Now, why do I think this?

If you think someone will bring an item like this in off the street simply because you have an "We sell on eBay" sign on your store window... you have more faith in the eBay brand than I.  eBay is an incredible brand and it does generate enormous interest among consumers but does the brand or the sign in your window generate confidence in the store operator or does the store operator generate that interest through standard honest and innovative business practices?

I say that as a business person you can not be successful without the latter even with the power of an incredible brand in your window.

Did we simply luck into this possible sale?

I could say luck entered into it, but it would be under selling my business and I would be under evaluating my clients wisdom and business acumen, (and I would never do that).  This particular client came to us via word of mouth, (there is a bit of luck in that, I suppose).
Our client has sold numerous designer handbags through our trading assistant services on eBay. We have sold every Gucci, Coach, and Dooney & Bourke purse she has brought into our offices. One day recently, our client came in with a beautiful Ferla Brera Ostrich Shopper: and saw photos of a beautiful Diamond Tennis Bracelet on my 30"HD Cinema Display. I was editing these photos for a different clients Diamond Tennis Bracelet auction of a 4.2 carat natural diamond bracelet.

When our designer handbag client saw the photos of diamonds on my monitor she immediately asked if I could sell her diamond ring?  Of course we could list her diamond ring (I hesitate to promise an actual sale because without the proper research there is no reasonable way a trading assistant can offer absolutes. We offer a listing and then qualify the clients expectations).

Were we chosen over other possible sellers or jewelers through simple luck?

I really do not think so.

I think we were selected by this client because she was confident in our business practices. She had tested our services and she had experienced our level of customer service. Our eBay management & listing software (AuctionLogic) notifies the consignment client via email whenever an action is taken with their listing. When the item goes live on eBay, when the item sells, when the item ships and when their check is ready or mailed.  This simple value added service builds confidence in the client. When a client follows their item listed on eBay through our service they see the level of professionalism that we build into each and every listing. They see our custom listing templates, our high quality photogaphs and our additional slide shows. We believe seeing our eBay store design and the entireeBay online sales package builds confidence for our consignment seller, the seller is also confident that a potential buyer will be impressed with the same features of our online presence which impressed them when looking at their own item listed on eBay.
Confidence is king in the online sales arena and without the proper tools, the best photos, the right image editing and the best in listing software, stores design and listing template. We feel that to build confidence in our business we need to have confidence in our tools, our store, and our product.  Our product is how we present items for sale on eBay, if we do not do a great job then why should anyone ask us to do this work for them?  Listing on eBay is quickly becoming less of a unique skill, the way to stand out as a trading assistant is with the quality of your listings, the quality of your photos and the level of customer service you provide.  With the right tools, your trading assistant services can stand out, you simply have to invest is yourself and your tools.

We are continuing our quest for improvement and this is why we are feverishly working on an entire re-engineered version of the All Business Auctions eBay Store. Soon we will be the proud new owners of a dynamic cross selling eBay stores design powered by Frooition. I will post more information regarding this incredible new design for eBay stores in the near future.

Scott Pooler