No Nonsense Marketing From Doug Prentice

Last Sunday night I sat and talked to my wife! I know that sounds a bit odd but as we both work from home (separate ends of the house) the end of the day falls into a bit of a routine of evening meal, chat about the day’s happenings and a bit of telly. But do we really talk to each other? Not really.

That’s why we started eating out one night  a week. It provides a relaxing environment where neither of us is cooking or cleaning up and offers the chance to sit for an hour or two, have a meal and a drink and catch up and talk to each other with no distractions.

Now I know your first reaction might be how, in these straightened financial times can they afford to eat out at all. Well we’re not millionaires but you don’t have to be nowadays to enjoy a very economic night out. The pub/restaurant chains are throwing themselves at us for our business. While not exactly haute cuisine you can have 2 filling meals and a bottle of wine at Weatherspoons for under £11.00. I know quite a few restaurants where you’ll pay more than that for 1 starter.

Recently the fragrant Mrs P and I dined at Yates’s Wine Bar in Bournemouth. Two lovely meals for £5.95 plus a bottle of wine at £4.99 (Echo Falls – you’ll pay approx £5.00 in Tesco for the same) with staff more friendly and efficient than I’ve encountered at restaurants at 5 times the price.

Moving onwards and upwards you just won’t beleive the offers at some of the other chains Cafe Rouge, Zizzi, Ha Ha Bar & Grill, Dim T, Loch Fyne, Pizza Express, Pizza Hut, Prezzo and on and on. In fact it’s harder to find a chain that’s not offering big discounts than one that is. You can keep up to date with all the best discounts by signing up for Martyn Lewis weekly newsletter.

Must tell you, we went to Dexters last week and while the wine was a bit pricey we had two fantastic steaks (and believe me Mrs P knows how to cook a mean steak) with 50% off out total food bill! I didn’t believe her when she first told me how good the steaks were at Dexters but boy did I get a pleasant surprise. Lovely steak sauces and salad with a dressing you wouldn’t believe. Word has it that Dexters will soon be launching an online range for their salad dressings and other side dishes. If they do the caramelised onions as well there will be a big parcel heading towards our kithcen.

So do yourselves and your relationship a good turn. Go on out for the night and sit and talk to each other. You won’t need to break the bank (well other have already done that for us).

Everyone’s full of doom and gloom at present with the most extreme predicting the collapse of the capitalist system and the most optimistic saying “we’ll be through it by this time next year!”.

Yes, it’s going to be difficult but remember that despite the misfortune of unemployment that will undoubtedly befall many, there are still going to a LOT of people in work and spending money. But, even those still earning are not going to be as profligate with their money as they used to be. A friend of mine works if the wholesale seafood market supplying restaurants tells me his business is suffering because fewer people are eating out and I’m sure that’s true. But that doesn’t mean that people have stopped eating; it just means that they’re probably eating at home or maybe eating takeaway – both cheaper options.

The same logic applies to eBay. There are still many things people need to buy, but will now probably look for cheaper alternatives or maybe even buying more in different categories. Take my friend Keith (they say someone should). Keith takes the family to the movies – Mr Keith, Mrs Keith plus up to 5 kids – tickets plus popcorn, sweets, parking etc. He’s not going to see much change out of £90 – £100. Nowadays Keith is more likely to be seen down at Blockbuster and picking up some takeaway food and the family still has a good night at a fraction of the cost.

Examine your own eBay stock in light of this and try and sort out the Movie type stuff from the Blockbuster stuff. Clear out the Movie stuff that’s not selling even if you have to take a loss on it and get the money into Blockbuster stuff and get it making you money. This current situation is going to be with us for a while so the sooner you get started the sooner you’ll be in good shape again.

In my next blog I’ll outline why I believe that the current situation will present endless opportunities for digital products.

Back soon!

I spent most of the day with my friend Pat an eBay seller which made me reflect on John’s arguement about selling digital products. While Pat has a successful well organised business it does require an awful lot of time and energy to source product (especially clothing where it’s often about job lot buying), set up the eBay auctions/listings, pack, post not to mention all the associated admin to keep her DSR  and feedback ratings high.

Just watching and helping her drives home the didgital message in many ways – sell the same product time after time, once the product is made you can sell it for a while with updates, space to store stock and so on. Hence I remain excited at the prospect of developing this area with the benefit of John Thornhill’s Coaching Course.

I’ve also been doing some reading up on the importance of Keywords in eBay in leading customers to you not only from eBay but from other search engines as well. I found good info at Auctiva as well as starting to search for some powerseller fora (I know most people use “forums” but there is no escape from a classics education – it sits there correcting you all the time) which I hope will help unravel some of the secrets for improving listings visibility on the new eBay sytem.

I’ll keep you up to date with my progress