| Important News from TIAS - February 10, 2008 |
Important News from TIAS - February 10, 2008
Important News for TIAS, AntiqueArts, CollectorOnline
and Earthling Merchants
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1. TIAS merchandise is now on Amazon.com
2. Your Paypal account and TIAS
3. TIAS on TV
4. Some tips to improve your online sales
5. Contact Us!
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1. TIAS merchandise is now on Amazon.com
Effective tonight, TIAS.com will be uploading inventory every evening to to Amazon Shopping and, on behalf of our dealers, paying for clickthroughs to a certain daily maximum. Items will appear in Amazon search and on their own individual pages on the Amazon Web site as well. Please login to the dashboard of your members page at: http://www.tias.com/members to see an example and more details.
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2. Your Paypal account and TIAS
We've been evaluating what we can do to help our dealers improve their revenue. One thing that has become clear is that many dealers have much higher rate of collection failure on PayPal orders than on credit card orders. Dealers with the automated transfer processing are seeing about 1% failure on average (about the same as on credit cards), but those without it have failure rates as high as 30%. This is clearly a problem and we've done some work on the system that will improve your chances of collecting on a PayPal order. Please login to the dashboard of your members page at: http://www.tias.com/members to see read more details and top see if you need to take action to resolve this issue.
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3. TIAS on TV
We've been evaluating what we can do to help our dealers improve their revenue. We've developed a video commercial and will be buying time to display it in various markets in conjunction with shows that are likely to attract viewers who are interested in buying antiques and collectibles. The first showing will be on PBS in the New York metropolitan area; based on the success of the ad, we will decide where to show it for the balance of the year. To view the video, go to: http://www.tias.com/tiasAd.html
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4. Some tips to improve your online sales
The economy is bad. When people are concerned about money, they spend less and buy when they feel they are getting a bargain. To increase your sales in this tough market, you have to do two things.
1) Increase the visibility of your store and your merchandise online - In this market, if you don't do anything while every other store on the Internet is working hard to take your customers, your sales will just continue to decline. To avoid this fate, you need to get a calendar and setup a promotion schedule for your store. Here are some ideas for your calendar:
a) Twice each week, make sure you are using the TIAS press release system. Press release can be about a sale, new merchandise and special offers
b) Use the News-Antique.com press release system - This is a free service that allows you to publish press releases and articles that are 90% of the time picked up by Google News. Your article/release will also me included in an email that goes out to over 8000 writers, editors, clubs and collectors that cover the want info about the antiques and collectibles trade. This is the #1 site on the Web for "Antique News" and is viewed by over 60,000 people each month. If you need help writing a 200 word release, take a look at: http://www.bignews.biz/blog/?p=13
c) Write articles about antiques and collectibles that you are familiar with - Let the world know you are an expert by publishing articles related to your expertise. People find these articles than visit your Web site. More information about writing articles and where to publish them can be found here: http://www.bignews.biz/blog/?p=15
d) If you can't write, then find someone to do it for you - Need to find someone to write the press releases and articles for you? Check out the section titled "How to Hire a writer"
2) Evaluate your asking prices - Is your merchandise marked at the current market value? - The market value is what items are currently selling for, not book value or what the items sold for last year at auction. To determine what you merchandise is actually being sold for in this market, you have to do what your customers are doing and run a search on Google as well as an eBay advanced search for recently sold items.
People are shopping by price and it takes them just a few minutes to do a price comparison across the entire Internet, so if items in your store can be found for less at another online store, you are going to lose that sale.
TIAS gets thousands of shoppers a day. Many of them are ready to buy now. The hard part is converting those shoppers into buyers. If while browsing on TIAS a shopper finds an interesting item, then runs a search on Google and eBay for that item and finds 2-3 other sellers with that same item for less $, who do you think is going to get that sale?
Successful dealers have told me many times that they make their money when BUYING their merchandise. The less they pay for it means that they can then offer it for less and sell it quicker.
Starting today, get into your store and CHECK YOUR PRICES!
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5. Contact Us!
With your comments and questions. Send them to support@tias.com
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