To all that has or would like to set up a free trading store.

Selling any type of product is retailing. And retailing is a tough competitive business. There are millions of others out there all trying to sell their product the same as you.

The reason I created Search The World Free Stores & Auctions was because it gave others and myself the chance to at least not have the burden of paying out any fees, commissions or wages to anyone, which is the biggest overhead in retailing.

When I was selling on various auctions, I found I made sales on some things but I always had to payout fees on everything, which in many cases outweighed the return from the overall sales and I was actually losing money. Many people selling on auctions sell at very low profit margins and there’s always the risk of loss.

It’s very hard getting consistent returns through any auction sites. The auctions get rich and the sellers are lucky to break even in most cases.
They operate a bit like a lottery. There are a few winners but most are losers and it’s a real gamble when you have to pay upfront fees.

On Search The World Free Stores & Auctions you have been handed a rent and cost free store to sell your products just like a regular store at buy now prices or by auction. I can’t pay for your advertising for your store as I receive no return from the stores other than my own.

This is why you pay no fees whatsoever. The site is advertised throughout the Internet but store holders need to list more product range to make sales for themselves . I’ll explain this further as you’ll read on.

If you have a shop be it in the street or on the Internet it then becomes your business venture and you have to do your best to stay in business and promote your own business just like everyone else in the retail industry. Hobby or business it’s still nice to get a return so you can continue with your interests!

Ideas On How To Promote Your Business

Based On Buy Now Selling Prices.

Lets get real here. You can’t expect someone else to promote your business can you? So lets look at some options. Once you have a store website Url and a Trading name you have something to promote so what next?

Remember your Store Url is now your Website business and you have to promote it just like everyone else does! If you have a store you need to have stock in it so how much stock is enough stock?
How long is a piece of string?

It doesn’t matter how you look at things all sales are usually based on percentages. You can’t expect to sell 100% of say 50 items listed in your store. If that were the case every shop would be empty every week.

In the real world you should most likely expect a selling range of up to 5% of what you have in stock, that is if you have what people want to start with. I think if you’re starting out in the real world your sales expectation should be around a few percent of what you stock.

And to be realistic if you want to have a store you need to have hundreds of items listed to number one have a great choice of product and number two increase your chance of sales and percentage of sales.

Listing only say 10 products in your store based on real world average percentage returns and choice of product for the public doesn’t leave you with much hope of real and continued sales does it?

If you were say selling cars the situation would be different because the profit margins and overall returns are much higher. But on smaller items like jewelry and other craft and retail items you have to sell a lot of products to get something worthwhile to hold in your hand as a dollar return. I would say to any person having or wanting a store. Build up your stock constantly till you get at least a few hundred products to sell.

And then don’t stop there. Most successful shops in the street would have a few hundred thousand dollars of retail goods in their stores minimum to get a realistic livable return on their outlay. I’m not saying you should spend that much, but to least get a return you have to have your best maximum choice with best possible percentage rate of returns to satisfy you.

Most successful Internet sellers in retail have as much choice as they can offer within their budget. It costs you nothing to list the products in your store because there are no fees on this site so this gives you the chance to list basically hundreds of products thereby increasing your sales percentage chances.

Places To Advertise Your Free Store

List your website url and description here in the most suitable category choice:
http://www.search-the-world.com/form/listing

Always advertise and list your store Business Name, Url and Small Description.

Business name.

Url.

Small catchy description.

Always add these above details to the end of all your emails as a signature.

Look through the Internet and start joining as many related message boards to what you’re selling and add your store details as above in the links section of every message board site.

Take a minimum participation in all these boards say once every two weeks and add your store details as your signature to each message your write. Don’t get too pushy on boards or they’ll treat you like a spammer. Offer constructive ideas and answers on each.

Advertise on free advertising Internet sites. There are thousands of them all around the world. Use either paid or free submission software to promote your store details.
Example: Blog Blast, Trafficseeker, Submitwolf, and there are many more. But be careful using submission software because if you use it too often search engines may ban your url for spamming.

You can manually add your store Url and details to search engines and directories. There are thousands of them. Advertise occasionally in Paid Newspapers that have a huge following both in print and online.

Like sales, advertising is based on percentages, and if you don’t advertise you cant expect to get any return. Always use your store Url and details!

Print yourself up some business cards and leaflets with all your details on them and put some up on notice boards in shopping centers near you and whenever you travel anywhere. People do read these boards! Also remember you can sell other items in your store as well. Sell at markets and place leaflets on your tables so others can buy from you online as well.

Place some leaflets in letterboxes occasionally so people can buy from you online. Make your leaflets very descriptive and even print a picture or logo on them if you want. Use a photocopier to reproduce them. Make say two leaflets on an A4 Sheet and cut them in half. This will give you a thousand leaflets per 500 sheet ream of photocopier paper.

This is a very low cost way to advertise and to let real people see your store Url and details. Try this say once per month with letterbox drops in different areas each time delivering say one thousand leaflets. Plus it gives you some exercise as well. Write good and descriptive advertising as this will attract lookers to your selling website!

Remember its all based on percentages.

Do this well before Christmas every year and remember if your products are at a reasonable cost and you have the choice and variety you have the same chance of selling as others. Many people buy on the Internet now and prefer it to shopping in stores.

Also remember that you pay no fees and your overheads are lower than that of most other sellers so keep your retail prices lower and it may increase your sale options.

Once you’ve set up your free selling store at:
Search The World Free Stores & Auctions
http://www.search-the-world.com/auctions/

Then Login In and get your store url at the top of the page.
Start using this Url to promote your own store now!

At Search The World Free Stores & Auctions we constantly and regularly advertise this site throughout the Internet and we do get thousands of visitors per week. But sellers need to do their part and must build up their stock levels into much bigger stores so these visitors will continue to come back and browse through the listings.

We promote the site extensively but the site content has to come from the sellers! If you want to make sales increase the quantity and range of your stock in your free store!

It wont matter if a million people visit the site daily if sellers don't bother to add more stock listings. It doesn't cost the seller anything to list stock on this site but this is the issue. Not enough listings means that there is not enough interest for buyers to stick around. We do our bit but as a seller you have to do the same.

So all you would be sellers out there you need to start building up your stock range to most likely a minimum of around a few hundred items per store. This will then eventually generate more interest from buyers.

There are hundreds of categories to list in so think about diversifying and adding different stock to your range.

Example: If you stock 100,000 pairs pink golf shoes and no one wants them you wont make any sales. But if they were white it could be a different matter. Jewelry and crafts are the same. Not everything we make might be appealing to others so it's necessary to make a very large range and variety.

When you go shopping you look for choice.

Take an honest look at your selling website and say to yourself do I have sufficient choice and variety as yet? If you buy in your stock from wholesalers the same applies. Don’t just deal in a few items and broaden your range of choice because this will increase your chances of regular sales. Always build up your store to a maximum size within your means.

Don’t expect regulars sales if your store only stocks a small quantity of items.

Your store should have around a few hundred items to at least give you a reasonable and regular chance at making sales. Most successful Internet sellers have many thousands of items in their stores and they usually have hundreds of different choice items.

Because you pay no fees and your selling website is free you should be able to afford to put more stock into your store because of much lower overheads than other sellers on the Internet.

Build up your store and then start promoting it!

It’s rarely an instant return. You need your site coming up relevant to what people "search for" on the Internet. It takes time to get placement in the right places within the Internet and if you're listed in the right category of searches you stand a better chance of returns. The following is one of the better ways.

For a small charge you can have a Permanent website advertisement placed in an index such as this in a choice of around 750 categories to target your business trade. This will raise your website profile and increase its chances of extra sales because this site is indexed by the search engines placing your site within public searches.