iOffer- the BETTER eBay

I know that I haven't been on my blog in a while but I decided to pay a visit to my readers. The topic today is iOffer. iOffer is a website that is exactly like eBay but it's more convenient like Bonanzle (if you don't know what Bonanzle is, read some of my earlier posts). Website: iOffer

As usual, I happened up on iOffer completely on random. I was looking for a TV series that had been out of production since the 2000's. I looked at what eBay had to offer and they only had one copy of the series that I wanted & for a larger price. So I did a Google search (I love Google!) and discovered that iOffer had the series for real cheap and there was many sellers of the series!

I was in heaven! I did do some more research within the site and I found a seller that sold me the complete series for $7.50 (and shipping was included!) I decided to try iOffer again. I had downloaded a free trial of Microsoft Office Professional 2007 but it did run out and I didn't have enough money ($300 +) to pay for the whole program. So I did a search and I found sellers that was selling the CD for under $50 but even better: there were sellers selling just the code for less than $10. $10! Now at first, some of the sellers had to stop selling it because their codes were illegal & fake but I did find a seller that actually worked with Microsoft and I purchased a code for $7.60 (no shipping). It did take me a while to download the program the way that he wanted me to but once I figured it out (which took me 4 days), I had the WHOLE program up & running. I can't say how much I was pleased that I got a program that is usually worth $300 for just $7.60! I was over the moon!

Now a bit of warning: a lot of the sellers on iOffer do sell replicated products from China & other places. You just have to make the decision if that is what you want or the real thing. Replicated things (like handbags, shoes, sunglasses, iPods, etc) are much  cheaper but you have to determine if you want that or not. I'm not saying it's a bad thing; I'm just issuing a word of caution.

The extra bonus that iOffer offers is that you can open up your own store free of charge! With eBay, you have to pay ridiculous fees and you lose money before you even get a chance to profit. Not with iOffer. They do remind me of Bonanzle because you only pay when the item sells. Plus, you can put as many payment options as you want (PayPal, Cash, Money Order, Credit card, etc) & you have unlimited pictures to upload! Yes, unlimited pictures!

Does iOffer have the buyer base of eBay? Not really but they are very close to over topping eBay. A lot of the buyers are looking for discount items & a lot of sellers are looking for cost-effective ways to promote their products. It's a win-win for everyone.

If you want to get good products (like Microsoft Office) for way below retail prices, head over to iOffer!

Till next time,
Miracle Reviews

Review about Dropshipping Wholesalers

In 2007, selling items on eBay was hot. I have always been interested in selling products on eBay but I wanted to do other things to generate money first and then come back to selling. I found this website on a random blog or Google search (can't remember) and once again, the website looked good. I printed out all of the testimonials and the long front page of what items could be bought for so cheap and then sold for high profits.

It took me 2 years to finally purchase the program. $47 is not easy to come by, but I had finally saved the money and found places to sell my products. Before I purchased the program, I talked to a guy named Ryan from Ryansreview.com. He had a list of top dropshipping programs and Dropshipping Wholesalers was listed. I e-mailed him constantly about the program and he said that it was good for a beginner but I should invest in Worldwide Brands. I couldn't invest in that because the membership fee is more than $200!

2 years passed by and I still didn't do anything. I had a choice of purchasing this program or buying some DVD's I really wanted. I should have bought the DVD's. Anyway, I listened to a crackpot psychic that told me that I would be profitable selling on eBay so I bought Dropshipping Wholesalers. I wish I didn't.

Once I purchased the program, I realized that the name brand products listed on their site is not the price that you would really pay. The honest truth is the products listed on the site are actually Chinese replicas that you can get at that price (I'll talk about that website in another post). Yes, they do have a directory for different categories of merchandise but you would have to spend more money on the genuine product than the profit you could make!

I've tried a few of the genuine sites that they listed but none of them made me money. The majority of the products I was trying to sell were in my Bonanzle booth. If you read my post about Bonanzle, you know what happened there: absolutely nothing.

My honest review is to not purchase this program. If you want to buy bootleg items and sell them for profit & go to jail, be my guest. But spending $47 on a program that you can do a basic Google search for the websites is not worth it. Now they do offer you a free website and ad credits if you purchase their platinum package (which is more than $100). I haven't tried it but I wouldn't want it if I couldn't make money with the regular membership. The testimonials are still the same; the only thing that's changed is the products they showcase to you. In future posts, I will tell you what sites I've tried to sell items from and see if you can fare any better.

The website is here: Dropshipping Wholesalers

Verdict: Don't buy; huge scam!

Miracle Reviews

Bonanzle- the new eBay?

Today I wanted to talk about a growing alternative to eBay. The website is called Bonanzle (website: Bonanzle) and it was created in the summer of 2008. I discovered them last year out of an AARP article (the book was for my mother, not me!) when I was trying to sell things for profit. Everything looked good to try out so I made an account. I have been a member with them for a year and I wanted to let you know if you should use them or not compared to eBay. First off, I'll list some pros and cons about them and then give a detailed description of each bullet.

Pros:

• Free and easy to start up.
• No listing fees
• Can load up to 4 pictures per item
• If the item sells, they will only charge you $1-$3 as final selling fee.
• Awesome forum to meet new friends!
• It's like having your own online store!
• You can have a certain amount of percent taken off your merchandise!
• Your products will remain there until you take them down from your booth.
• More than one payment option (besides PayPal)

Cons:

• As with anything, you need to generate traffic to it in order to sell
• Sometimes if you're not selling, will probably do games on the forum to get someone to buy from you.
• There is more sellers there than buyers.
• It may take days, weeks, even months or years to sell something.

So, the pros first: It's wonderful to see that they don't charge you for selling your products with them plus it only takes about 10 minutes to set things up. I was excited to see that there was no listing fees. No listing fees! Hot dog! Plus, it was awesome to see that you could upload more than one picture and not get charged like eBay does. Another good plus is the final offer fee. If the item sells for less than $1,000, you hardly get charged anything! Plus you have the option of having the FOF taken immediately after the sale or at the end of the month (sort of an I.O.U).

Now Bonanzle lets you sell all of your items in one go. It's called a booth. It's similar to an online store. Everything is showcased to the customer at one time so if they find more than one item that they needed in your booth, you make more profit instead of a customer going somewhere else for the product. Neat, huh? It's very simple to take care of plus you can design your booth any way you want.

The forums are excellent places to meet new friends and find potential customers. To be honest, the majority of sellers on Bonanzle are people who used to sell on eBay but once eBay's prices got too high and/or eBay ticked them off, they left and found other places to sell, Bonanzle being one of them.

Another thing that got people to Bonanzle is the option of getting paid without necessarily using PayPal. Some of the sellers were scammed by PayPal so Bonanzle offers payments of credit card, check, cash, Google Checkout, and PayPal. Also, there is no time limit as to how long your products can remain in your booth. If it doesn't sell, the product is still there next week and so on. With eBay, if you listed a product, it had to sell otherwise you lost out on your listing fee. Not so with Bonanzle.

The last bonus is that you can host a "bonanza" in your booth. A Bonanza is a one day sale that can last between 1-3 hours. Basically the website promotes that you are having an upcoming sale (a bonanza) which leads traffic to your site. You can choose to have a 5 to 95% off sale in your booth. The more higher the percent off, the more sales you're more likely to have. The downside to this is you can only do this once a month.

On to the cons: With anything online, you have to market it to the best of your ability. Bonanzle does give you tools to do this. Blog about it, Twitter it, Facebook it, add lines at the end of your e-mails about it, etc. The biggest tool they offer is Google Base. It the place where you can upload your booth items and have them show up in Google Products searches. It can also tell you daily which products are getting the most clicks and impressions. Even with all this help, you still might not get a sale.

Another con is that there is too many sellers on the site and not enough buyers. With eBay, it's a global traffic house. You can list an item but it has a good chance of being sold without having to make friends with the customer. Not so at Bonanzle. Sure, you might luck out with a few sales but mostly everyone there is a seller. You won't make too much profit because everyone wants you to buy from them first! No customers purchasing = no profit.

That leads me to the games in the forums. Sometimes there is games in the forums that let you purchase a product from another booth with the promise of the other booth to buy from you. It's like tit-for-tat. I didn't like the idea of it because I wanted someone to buy products from me and not have to shell out my own money in return. That's a loss!

The last con is that you're not guaranteed to make huge sales from them. I have been with them for a long time and I have not made a sale. Not one at all. I would go to the forums, put my site in traffic exchanges, talk about it all day long, and still not a sale. You can check out my booth here: Cajun Shares.

My opinion: Try it at your own risk. I'm not saying that they are bad; it's just that eBay offers more traffic than what they can offer. Now in defense, Bonanzle has more and better features for their sellers. Try them and let me know what happens for you. Although I failed with their system, this just might be what you are looking for as an alternative to eBay. Bonne chance!

Until tomorrow,
Miracle Reviews