In 2007, he divested his retail businesses, taking the plunge into affiliate marketing.

Along with his experience in operating a business, he’s also skilled at copywriting and has done a number of offline promotion campaigns to generate leads for his affiliate marketing efforts.

I invited Josh on the Friday Podcast to talk about his strategies in building up his retail business which sold products on eBay, Liquidation.com, Overstock, Amazon, and even flea markets.

Having to deal with physical inventory has taught him the importance of managing his cashflow and he shares a number of these techinques during the podcast.

He also talks about the business management aspects of starting and growing your online business, together with the related topics of his copywriting influences and various offline promotion campaigns he’s worked on (which he affectionately calls “Chaos Marketing”).

Check out the Friday Podcast:

Links:

• Josh on Twitter
• Josh’s AffiliateFamous blog

Talking to a couple of experienced affiliates, I got the sense that even they were somewhat jaded after years of doing Christmas and holiday promos.

Luckily eBay has released market research on toy ideas for the holiday season. (see the study here)

With the emphasis on tech toys like the xBox360, Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3, it’s easy to overlook perenial classics like Monopoly, Barbie, Winnie the Pooh which continue to be popular year after year.

While it’s easy to put up a page featuring these toys, it’s also important to figure out a compelling reason why visitors should buy from your site, and ultimately influence your sales conversions.

In most cases, though kids can influence the buying decision, it’s the parent’s who’ll have to pull out the credit card and complete the purchase.

Having a colorful and friendly looking site helps, but here are some tips to help your site shine:

• Information helps shape the buying decision: With many similar products in each category, whether it’s a doll, a computer or sports equipment, providing relevant information to help the decision maker (the parent) decide which toy from the wide range available is best.
• An educational spin doesn’t hurt: Toys which are tagged as being part of the Lamaze learning system or incorporating “brain development” features will outsell their plain-Jane counterparts. Double barrelling the entertainment with a dose of education will make the product seem more useful. A Lego brick is more than just a block of plastic. It helps develop “spatial awareness” and visualization skills.
• The scare of scarcity: Remember when Tickle Me Elmo dolls were going for a king’s ransom? With the clock ticking down and toys in short supply closer to Dec 25th, you can use the sense of urgency to your advantage. The merchant’s ability to provide overnight delivery can make a crucial difference in your marketing efforts.

CJ’s known as “the eBay” guy and after some research, I discovered he’s the top merchant/seller in his category, bathroom vanities.

Gathering nearly 5,000 feedback, CJ’s company Silkroad Exclusive has sold a couple of million dollars worth of products according to my estimate.

In our discussion, we talked about:

• How CJ got started as one of the earlier merchants on eBay
• His pricing and business model
• How to market effectively on eBay and close the sale
• Using the bidding format and “Buy It Now” auction formats effectively
• Strategies on getting started as an eBay seller

Check out the podcast below:

Resources:

• Silkroad Exclusive
• Kitchen and Bathroom Gallery eBay store
• eBidz

Obviously, an auction site (or “digital marketplace” if you prefer that term, publishing blog posts about content publishers generating affiliate income is going to draw some interest.

eBay, from my experience, has taken a fairly non-supporting position towards affiliate marketers on it’s network, so seeing them point to Brian “Copyblogger” Clark’s posts is refreshing.

Except, instead of pointing at Brian’s post “Why Affiliate Marketing Will Save Free Online Content“, the eBay blog post points at his feedburner feed, the pretty obscure “http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Copyblogger/~3/274785900/”

Which is one step forward by giving support for free online content, supported by affiliate marketing, but on the other hand, slaps this free online drive, by denying link juice so Brian’s blogpost will rank higher in the search engine results.

On the other hand, it could be an intern or uninformed blogger over at eBay who pulled the link off Brian’s RSS feed and simply published it on the blog. But really, if it was an oversight, shouldn’t a company which generated net income of $460 million on revenue of $2.2 billion for the 2nd quarter ended June 30, 2008, know better?

Some bloggers won’t care about search engine positions, while others (myself included) will use linkbuilding as part of our traffic generation strategy.

While it’s nice to get some referred traffic through the citation in a blog post, since bloggers are providing high quality content worth linking to, shouldn’t the aggregator give a direct, followed link to their source too?

In the journalism world, we’ve a standing practise to cite source and give credit and attribution when using an expert source. Although recent talks with Michael Gray AKA GrayWolf, seems to indicate that it’s a whole new ballgame when you’ll look at the online world.

What do you think?

I found his site when he first launched his eBay-Amazon-Youtube mashup script, which lets you build an affiliate site easily. Mark has already done the API (application programming interface) work for you, so you can skip around the techie aspects and get round to the business of generating affiliate commissions.

He followed that up with his 19pages.com application, which lets you build a niche site easily, and the best thing about it doesn’t require a MySQL connection, so you can transport it from one webhosting account to another easily. If you’re into site development/site flipping, it can be a handy tool to add value to a site (and increase it’s monetization and asking price too).

He’s since gone on to launch his Top100 “make money online” blog rankings (he developed the code) and it’s generated a fair amount of buzz in the internet marketing blogosphere.

So naturally I had to have him on the Friday Podcast to pick his brains about developing software applications to boost your internet marketing efforts and to directly monetize.

We talked about the building blocks of application development, as well as monetizing your application once it’s good to go.

You can hear our thorough discussion (weighing in at more than an hour long) and hear about his latest project ShowYourAdHere.com in the latest edition of the Friday Podcast accessible below:

Incidentially, Mark is also Blog Captain for the upcoming Affiliate Summit and you can hear about the blog room facilities too.

I own a domain which contains the term “ebay” in it. Although I feel anyone looking at the domain probably wouldn’t mistake it for an eBay property that a name like eBayMarketing or eBaySupplies might convey.

Nonetheless, I received an email from enforcement@ebay.com from “Edith, eBay Legal Department” which however nicely written, amounts to a cease and desist notification, and I am supposed to “Please confirm in writing that you will agree to resolve this matter as requested. If we do not receive confirmation from you that you will comply with our request, we will have no choice but to pursue all available remedies against you.”

“Edith” further mentions that “We have filed several successful federal court actions in the United States against companies and individuals employing the famous eBay trademark in their domain names, as well as more than six proceedings before the United Nation’s World Intellectual Property Organization’s arbitration panel. eBay prevailed in each case and the domain names at issue were all ordered to be transferred to eBay.”

And “the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) has recently denied registration of the mark “ebaysecurities” by a third party. Like your domain name, “ebaysecurities” incorporated the entire eBay trademark, adding only a generic term to eBay’s famous mark. The USPTO recognized that eBay is a famous trademark and denied registration of ebaysecurities. eBay is concerned that any use of the domain name in question, will cause confusion as to whether you or your companyâ€s activities are authorized, endorsed or sponsored by eBay when, in fact, they are not. ”

The domain is one in my portfolio and I haven’t developed it yet, so letting it expire isn’t a major issue.

I would think that eBay would be more forward in replying to the email seeking clarificatons I’d sent about 2 weeks ago, to date I haven’t received a reply.

Having dealt with lawyers previously, I would guess that sending this notification gives them “just cause” should they proceed with legal action later, having taken the pre-requisite step of issuing a legal warning.

So whether you’re a product owner or even an eBay affiliate, registering a domain containing “eBayProfits” or “eBayInsider” could bring a flurry of legal letters.

Some copyright holders are more lax than others in enforcing their trademarks, especially if you’re an affiliate.

From the affiliate perspective however, how do you think an “eBayTips” domain would compare against an “AuctionTips” domain?

It really wouldn’t be any fight at all.

On another note, I’ve been watching a number of domain auctions, and have seen a domain containing “eBay” recently exchanged hands for a four figure sum.

Imagine buying such a domain and receiving a lawyer’s letter shortly after…

Not very fun at all.

Whatever you do, do be careful.

The second installment of Jo Han Mok and Matt Bacak’s Internet Millionaire Incubator hits Singapore this Friday.

It’s a 3-day event with some of the top Internet Marketers giving you their strategies and tips to succeed online.

In particular, these 2 guys alone are worth the ticket price:

eBay Specialist Adam Ginsburg and Internet Marketing guru Kirt Christensen

Adam Ginsburg: I travelled to Atlanta, Georgie earlier this year to listen to Adam speak and I’d rank him among the top 3 eBay experts around. He talked about how he’s sold $20 million worth of pianos on eBay and has now moved on to flipping properties (houses and buildings) on eBay.

Additionally he had one of his students who enrolled in his program a year ago, a single mother with 4 kids, talk about how she now generates more than $10,000 a month from her eBay business.

Adam has also appeared in master marketer Dan Kennedy’s programs, together with the likes of Yanik Silver, Bill Glazer and John Carlton.

This is the perfect opportunity to get tips from Adam on starting up your eBay marketing efforts or bringing it to the next level.

[Adam’s actually the reason why I’ve been focusing on eBay recently and have sold a number of items using his techniques]

–

Kirt Christensen: Kirt’s a very Internet Marketer having been in the industry for some time. If you’ve listen to Matt Bacak speak, you’d probably heard about the Internet marketer who runs his business from his swimming pool. Matt was refering to Kirt.

If there’s one marketer who’s just about done it all, it’s Kirt. Besides his info products, Kirt’s also been successful at PPC affiliate marketing, membership sites and video marketing and training.

I’ve had the opportunity to talk to Kirt a number of times because we’re in the same mastermind and he’s given me a number of techniques to enhance my video marketing efforts.

–

I guess one concern some might have about the event is: “Will it be a pitch fest?”

I attended the first Internet Millionaire Incubator last year, and the sessions were very content heavy, especially the ones by Keith Wellman and Warren Whitlock.

If you’re a newer Internet marketer or eBay auction specialist and your income is less than $5,000 a month, you should take advantage of this opportunity and attend the Internet Millionaire Incubator which runs this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 9 am to 7 pm at the Singapore Expo center.

The other speakers include:

• John Childers
• Frank Garon
• Chris Moreno
• Mark Anastasi
• Randy Charach
• Jarl Moe
• Patric Chan
• Debra Thompson
• David Cavanagh
• Matt Bacak
• Jo Han Mok.

Tickets are $288 and available at the Internet Millionaire Incubator site.

I have a limited number of tickets available which Jo Han offered my list at a substantial discount. I’d like to offer them to my list members and if there’re any remaining to my blog readers.

If you’re interested, drop me a mail at the contact form with your name, email and contact number, and we’ll contact you if you qualify.

“I’m a ebay powerseller and getting into the niche marketing vibe.

Judging by the number of high dollar earnings screenshots I’m seeing, I’m planning to go into the internet marketing niche.

I worked hard to build my ebay business and am sure I can replicate the same in internet marketing.

Can you give me any suggestions?”

—

My answer:

That’s the great thing about Internet Marketing, the ability to continually expand your focus and the ebay stats screenshots you sent me were pretty impressive too.

You might like to check out Super Affiliate Amit Mehta’s post “Selecting a niche is everything in affiliate marketing”

As an affiliate or a product creator, the biggest constraint you will face is time.

Like it or not, even outsourcing the bulk of your projects, you’ll need to closely monitor your ROI (return on investment) of your time which is limited to 24 hours a day.

This is what I mean:

If you’re working 12 hours day intially to build your business, you could be bringing in $20,000 – $50,000 a month as an affiliate marketer (leveraging on your previous experience as an eBay powerseller). Assuming you’re looking at a conservative 50% margin, that’s a $10,000 to $25,000 net profit off the bat.

Your hourly ROI is about $33.33 per hour (assuming the $10,000 is earned in 25 days a month, 12 hours a day) . At $25,000, your ROI works ou to about $83.88.
That’s the scenario for the “Internet Marketing niche”.

—

Now imagine you go into something with equally good potential, but with fewer competitiors (most new internet marketers inevitably choose the internet marketing or make money online niches…). A niche software product that most home users will benefit from – say a disk defragmentation software, an anti-virus software, or personal tax software.

[This is a theoretical scenario, so don’t take the numbers are concrete ones]

For the same 25 days a month, 12 hours a day, your profit could be $50,000 to $75,000 a month.

This could be due to fewer competitiors in your market, a higher degree of domain knowledge which keeps out “newbies” to this market, and lower marketing costs (eg. PPC bids costing much less than $5-10 a click found in ultra competitive niches).

What’s happened here?

For the same effort (time and resources), you’ve seen a quantum increase in your ROI (a minimum of 250%), so it has everything to do with profiling a niche and focusing on it.

–

If anything when it comes to niches, the ones nobody talks about are the ones that will have the greatest market potential.

A little research before heading into any niche can help you best direct your resources.

Somewhat ironic considering he had a promo with a British Sunday newspaper to give away copies of his “Planet Earth” CD free with a particular edition.

Already the Prince video clips are going up faster than older ones are being taken down at Youtube. Is this really a battle worth fighting for?

When products were physical – in the form of a CD, DVD, book, manual – it was easier to maintain copyright. When Prince distributes his CD free with the UK paper, were the CDs imprinted with “Promotional CD – Not for Sale”? Did they say “Resale Rights granted”?

And if you give away media and content free in one channel, how do you enforce pricing in another channel, whether it’s a iTunes store or in a CD store?

The moment something can be digitized, whether it’s an MP3, PDF, DOC, JPG or other digital media file, you can have legislature like the DMCA (digital millenium copyright act) and DRM (digital rights management) infrastructure in place. You can even password protect your files, but eventually these protective measures will be overcome.

–

Don’t get me wrong, because I produce digital products too.

But where I see the opportunity is that most of these products are still linear in terms of information flow. It’s still very ol’ skool…

You buy a CD, you listen to it. You buy a book, you read it.

Where Web2.0 and community sites are coming into their own, is the ability to interact with the author or creator.

If a CD contain songs also contained a link to a forum or a blog, it’s add value to the process….You’re not just buying a song, you’re buying into the interactivity element too.

Many years ago, I had a chance to talk to the head honchos at Accenture, and they painted out the Internet’s 3 levels of development. (or levels of engagement if you prefer)

A blog/website/forum can be:

• Informational OR
• Conversational OR
• Transactional

In nature.

At the moment, most items are informational – information flows in one direction, from the creator to you, there’s no feedback loop, unless it’s conversational in nature like in a forum or on a blog with a comments section.

Why not evolve digital products to a conversational model?

Better yet, a transactional level (the highest) with the ability to upsell even more products – souvenirs, higher value items, collectibles, concert tickets, etc.

This is as applicable in the entertainment niche as it is in the Internet Marketing, business or any other vertical out there.

The bottomline line is that transactions are conducted on a value continuum – if we’re going to keep going back and forth and remain stagnant in the 1-way media, things will remain as they are.

If we move up the value chain to conversations/interactions and transactions, the profits will be higher and so will the market opportunity.

Rather than recycle subjective opinions from blogs and forums, I went to Nasdaq.com and pulled eBay’s financial stats.

San Jose-based eBay has certainly come a long way from its beginnings as a sole proprietorship in 1995.

In case you think it’s only holds sway as the dominant player in the auction space, think again. The addition of electronic payment provider PayPal and Internet telephony VOIP (voice over internet protocol) provider Skype, means that it is a force to be reckoned with in the e-payment and communications arena too.

The financials show that the 30% year-on-year growth to sales of $5.96 billion in sales last years and a $1.125 billion net profit, mean that it’s position as a digital exchange for products and services is pretty much cemented.

Especially when you look back and see two major initiatives in 2004:

• The $153 million purchase of Germany’s Mobile.de, the biggest auto classifieds Web site, which brought eBayers a choice of 800,000 used vehicles
• New York States choice to auction surplus items on eBay, rather than conduct its own auctions.

These and more recent intiatives have helped build up eBay’s standing.

In a recent IDC (International Data Corp) report “The State of the Consumer Digital Marketplace (Mar 2007)”, the “most important Internet companies” were analyzed, and the listing included:

• Amazon.com Inc
• eBay Inc
• Google Inc
• Time Warner Inc.’s AOL
• Yahoo! Inc
• Microsoft Inc.’s Online Services Business (OSB), the former MSN
• News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media (MySpace)

What turned the tide for me was hearing from eBay specialist Adam Ginsburg during Matt Bacak’s Marketing Madness in Atlanta.

Adam’s sold $20 million worth of pianos on eBay, and has gone on to buy and sell houses and properties on eBay.

Information marketers stand to gain leverage from listing and marketing their products on eBay, simply because it’ll continue to be an undeniable presence on the digital landscape. It could very well become the next search engine, offering goods and information for sale.

While there are a number of Internet Marketers on eBay at the moment, it hasn’t accumilated the awareness and mass of a Stompernet or CMS Infusion product launch yet.

The marketing techniques used on eBay seem fairly basic.

This only means that visionary Internet Marketers, the eBay playing field is largely untapped and could prove to be very lucrative.

Is it really as good as it seems?

I was looking for materials to build a business and to run a success auction.

A search for eBay training products shows more products dealing with dropshipping or “How I became an eBay powerseller in XYZ days” (powerseller being the designation for a high volume seller).

I wasn’t able to find a specific product to recommend, but Amazon has a good selection of eBay resources.

Alternatively, I found this offer to get an eBay Auction Success Kit free (you have to pay a nominal postage and handling fee). [Note: limited to US residents only]