A unique eggshell design distributes pressure throughout the tow bar, making the Sterling All-Terrain the world’s strongest aluminum tow bar. Aircraft-grade aluminum, anodized for maximum durability Computer-designed and -tested for superior strength and styling Exceeds all competitive products in stress and fatigue testing EZ Hook safety cables — for quick connect and disconnect

Read what ROADMASTER customers say about this product…
“I’m writing to let you know what a fantastic and safe product you have. I was parked in a truck stop with my car attached to my RV by your Sterling tow bar. A semi-trailer backed up, apparently not realizing my car was behind him, and slowly pushed my car onto the back bumper of my motorhome. Your tow bar never bent, but held my car above the bumper of the motorhome. When I walked back to see my car, the front wheels were three feet off the ground and the tow bar was holding it up!
The tow truck slowly pulled my car backwards until the front end dropped. The integrity of the whole system stayed intact and I was able to tow my car (although the back end was pushed in) to a safer place to park. The police officer who took my statement couldn’t believe the strength of your system. Thanks for the great product! It certainly made a bad situation a whole lot better!”
—J. Miller, Cedarville, NJ

This Aluminum Tow Bar is barely used and in like new condition.

• Retail Price without our included storage case is $1259.95

• Our Price: $700.00

ALL REASONABLE CASH OFFERS CONSIDERED

Search our telephone number 727-596-6900 here or on Craigslist for other items.

Please call 727-596-6900 to discuss your purchase plans. We can deliver for free within Pinellas county or for a small fee outside of pinellas.

Shipping is available but only after payment in full is received and cleared.

Roadmaster to Blue OX BX Base Plate Kit

BX88178

This Like New item is for Roadmaster baseplates that do not completely go across on the frame of the vehicle. Currently includes bracket mounts for a Saturn L Series. It presents in As-New condition.

We also have two Roadmaster Tow bars available – One Aluminum and One Steel. Plus many other very nice – like new RV and towing accessories. Search our telephone number 727-596-6900 here on Craigslist for other items.

Please call 727-596-6900 to discuss your purchase plans. We can deliver for free within Pinellas county or for a small fee outside of pinellas.

Shipping is available but only after payment in full is received and cleared.

[phpbay]service, num, “11762″, “”[/phpbay]

Printing businesses for sale and associated tools and equipment for printing, screen printing etc…

Printing services are needed by all types of businesses. Businesses print ads, flyers, and other promotional paper. Companies that want to get their names out there, print their logo on pens, notepads, bags, and shirts. Logos are needed for business offices as well.

You will be providing a much needed service to small and large businesses. Depending on your target audience, you could be printing shirts or sales ads. The possibilities are endless with the right strategy. Advertising your service online could bring international clients on board with your business.

[phpbay]printing, num, “11759″, “39″[/phpbay]

Chrysler has reached a partnership with eBay to market over 15,000 of its dealers certified pre-owned vehicles.

Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge brands will be initially offered on the eBay Motors site. One could wonder how long it will be before dealers entire inventory of used cars will be included in the deal?

The announced agreement follows General Motors stunning coo last February to list all of its dealers inventory of certified pre-owned cars from over 3,900 GM dealers on eBay.

GM said on Thursday that its listings are now live on eBay.

As a small non-affiliated used car dealer competing in this Internet landscape has become more important than ever. Initially it was the small local dealers who utilized online selling through places like eBay. Now the big three are doing more than looking at these small local dealers successes, they are joining the fray in a big way.

Chrysler’s eBay showroom presents consumers a view of its used vehicles within their local area within a classified listings format. eBay motors is not just for bidding on used car auctions anymore.

Chrysler’s certified pre-owned vehicles cover models from 2003 to 2008 with less than 65,000 miles and are reconditioned to meet the automaker’s standards. They carry an eight-year, or 80,000-mile powertrain warranty, roadside assistance and rental car allowances. A great deal if your shopping for a used car…

Chrysler sold more than 122,000 certified used cars in 2007, up 5 percent from a year earlier. With this announcement and eBay affiliation the used car sales should grow at a higher rate. The auto company’s used car sales are up 8 percent so far this year, new vehicle sales have dropped more than 20 percent in the same time frame.

How will local non-affiliated dealers compete with the likes of GM & Chrysler?

The entire U.S. auto industry has been hit hard by reduced demand for gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. Finding new and innovative ways to market used vehicles is a key to economic survival. Check out All Business Auctions Auto Dealer programs on our main website, we have some very interesting programs designed to equip local dealerships with an eBay “storefront” which will engage the buying public more than simply listing a vehicle in the middle of hundreds of thousands of Chrysler or GM certified used cars.

About 43 million used vehicles were sold in the United States last year, well over double the 16.2 million new vehicles sold. Used car profit margins are also generally better than they are for new vehicles. eBay is a good place to be for small used car dealers. The big car makers are trying to help thier dealers survive with these eBay deals. Small dealers have an edge and if they want to keep that edge we suggest investing in online and eBay marketing programs.

Dealer Blogs Part of the future of used car marketing?

A dealer blog could be a very effective method of lead generation. Under utilized until now but certainly an area to explore for any dealer of used vehicles. A blog will outperform any web 1.0 static or flash website when it is measured head to head in terms of traffic generation. Enticing the buying consumers interest is the name of the game and on the Internet, pure content is king. Blogs are ideally suited to tell the story of a dealership.

Ideas for blog development at an auto dealership include:

• Meet the sales manager – Special articles from the sales manager about his job, his family, his time selling cars and why it is important to buy from an honest dealer.
• Owners Corner – the dealership owner is usually the face of the organization – give him a voice as well
• Service Managers Shop – Open up the world of service to the consumer, let them know the many reasons why the best service is found at the best equipped dealer service organizations.
• Car of the Day or Car of the Week – Pick a car of the day or week and completely describe the features of that car. Photos, video, and text… Attract buyers with information.

If your local dealership is
searching for innovative ways to compete in this new Internet sales
landscape give the good people at All Business Auctions and iBusinessLogic.com a call, new web 2.0 methods of lead generation like social media marketing blogs and websites are our specialty.

Scott Pooler – CEO iBusinessLogic Corporation

Tags: chrysler, ebay, car dealer, used cars, social media marketing, auto dealer ebay store, auto sales on the internet,

The eBay to go widgets were not very user friendly when first announced late in 2007. Now it seems the entire interface has improved. Using these widgets to promote eBay items on your blogs or websites can only help on eBay sales. And if you become a part of the eBay partner network, driving traffic to your own listings or (anyone else’s) can pay you back handsomely!
This is an example of an eBay Partner Network – eBay To Go widget… Get one for your website!

I received a call the other day from the son of a nearly lifelong (at least it seems like a long time) friend of mine.

My friends son, Keith Bloemendaal is the sales manager of a local fence building contractor company in Raleigh Durham, North Carolina.

Carolina Custom Fences builds high quality custom fences and they are proud of the fact that they have some of the best installers in the area.

Keith Bloemendaal called iBusinessLogic to ask our opinion of the current Carolina Custom Fences website (follow the link above).

As you can see, the current website is a bit bland and really does not engage the public. This is web 1.0 at its best and is about 6-8 years out of date for website design. The owner of the company, Scott, did the best job he could with the tools his web builder gave him, but the results just do not compare with the state of the art today.

Scott, the owner of the company has access to the website and can update it, but since this site does not have an easy to use content management system (CMS) the owner rarely makes any changes to the site. It is just too difficult to even change an employees name or add a photo, and he does not have the time to worry about these things. If it were a simple process, he might get more involved, but as it is… he would rather just stick with the basics.

In my conversation with Keith we discussed what they had done as a company to promote their current website.

• Web Address on Business Cards
• PPC advertising

What else? Well, nothing much really, The Pay Per Click expenditure is enough… They buy Google Adwords until the budget runs out each day, the hits these adwords bring only last a few hours per 24 hour period. This is why Google adwords may not be the best long term strategy for a small business. Content rich constantly updated websites perform better at the end of the day.

Most small businesses build a website in the following manner:

• They get a standard low cost package from one of the big providers (Yahoo, GoDaddy etc)
• Fill in basic information about the company, what they do, where they do it, add a couple of photos and a telephone number and wait for the calls to roll in…
• When the calls do not roll in, the next call is to the same provider who sold them a substandard website. They are advised to advertise… (Hint – who sells the advertising?)

My advise to Keith and his company was to not only start a blog but to actually base their entire website on WordPress as a CMS platform. Keith did not understand all of the advantages of WordPress as a content management system but he had heard of blogs before. I explained the built in advantages of blog platforms like WordPress.

• Built in SEO Optimization
• Tagging and Category Links
• Constantly updated content is king for organic web search engine results
• Easy to use interface – no HTML required for basic tasks like adding an article or image
  
• Thousands of available “Themes” Make your website look exactly as you like
• If the need arises to update the look – Lose no content information, just install a new theme
• Every page is generated with CSS so all of the pages are consistent
• Every CMS website ultimately includes unlimited pages
• Sidebar widgets – bring incredible functionality
• Easy to insert images, video, and links

During this conversation, Keith revealed Carolina Custom Fences largest fence contacting competitor in the Raleigh area consistently ranks number one in Google organic search, no matter what search terms are used. (Google Organic search = results on the left side of a Google search results page).

I pointed out that this same competitor has a blog attached to his website and he updates that blog consistently with keyword rich content related to the local market and his specialty – fences. The interesting thing is in those same search results, very few of the other competitors in town were ranking on the first page of the Google organic search results. We determined that there was a great deal of room available for Carolina Custom Fences to find a way onto that same first page or organic results.

Helps Small Business build web relationships.

Part of what we do at iBusinessLogic.com is help companies develop content management system websites and blogs with systems like WordPress and Joomla. Of course my first instinct was to recommend a blog platform for Carolina Custom Fences…

Keith Bloemendaal & Carolina Custom Fences were impressed with our ideas and they gave us the contract.

Then Keith followed my advise and got his blogging feet wet by signing up for a WordPress.com account for his own personal use…

Keith started his own WordPress.com blog and I think he did a great job! (Click the photo to go to the site)

After Keith set up his account with WordPress.com we helped him with some of the basics of setting up the blog.

Some guidance was helpful so he could pick a good theme and I made a nice header image for the new Fence Post Blog he created.

After that we helped him with the basics of widgets and sidebars. Keith jumped right in with the writing though and has put together some really good blog posts right out of the gate!

This blog is meant as a trial, a form of training, a dry run… When we get the real hosted version of the new website installed all of the data Keith entered here will be easily imported into the new hosted company website.

Keith says that this simple blog is already outperforming the existing Carolina Custom Fence website for traffic and it is showing up better in organic search than the old website ever has… And this blog is only a few days old. (With some keyword searches, Keith has found the Raleigh Fence Post blog appearing on the first page of results in Google – in organic search).

The hosted website will provide an opportunity to add many features not available on WordPress.com blogs. The new site will look more like a standard Web 2.0 website but it will have the same content rich features of any WordPress blog. We know that Carolina Custom Fence will find a lot of value in the new installation and they will be more involved with their own website because they will have control over the content and they will not need an IT professional or a webmaster to insert a photo or change an employee’s name in the about section.

Stay tuned here to see the progress of Carolina Custom Fences new website/blog…

Or call us to get one of these marvelous content management websites for your company or organization!

“Learn to bear bravely changes of fortune”.

The following quote derived from a private forum post – The author granted permission for its use here.

It looks to me like further signs of the “Amazonation” of eBay.

Higher closing fees for items posted in a shopping format at lower listing fees driven by DSR performance. The happier the customers the more exposure you get and the more increased FVF eBay will reap.

I think eBay is also attracted to the way Amazon reigns supreme over their sellers and has a “at our pleasure” attitude about if you sell there or not. This is a reversal of the last 5 or 6 years of eBay’s campaign tactic of driving sellers to the platform, they took the buyer for granted and focused their marketing on “you to can make a living on eBay, everyone is welcome come sell here”. They were at trade shows and any event that had a large group of potential sellers pounding this message. Well look what they got, an unscrupulous unmanaged International den of thieves destroying their name and platform while we the sellers that made them who they are (and many who left along the way) took the brunt of the problem.

At the same time Amazon took another approach, the opposite approach, customer’s are gold and sellers offer goods here at our pleasure in a very regulated system. They pay little upfront and share a bigger piece on the back end and they will make buyers happy or they will be gone and no unhappy buyer will be left in the lurch, you will resolve. This is not the “we’re the asphalt at the swap meet and you buy and sell to each other and work it out if you’re screw each other” kind of a strategy.

Guess where I shop?

eBay knows whats wrong and they are desperately trying to fix and create a format buyers can use. I think I understand the strategy and direction of this new plan. To little to late? Executed ineffectively?

I have my concerns.

Louis Palafoutas – PeSA Member

and vintageroadshow.com, Louis also sells under the eBay names wjoutlet and vintageroadshow

]]> http://allbusinessauctions.com/amazonation-of-ebay-will-ebay-successfully-morph-into-an-amazon-clone/feed/ 0 http://allbusinessauctions.com/ebay-flea-market-closed-sellers-look-for-ebay-competition-where-to-sell-now/ http://allbusinessauctions.com/ebay-flea-market-closed-sellers-look-for-ebay-competition-where-to-sell-now/#comments Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:26:48 +0000 Scott Pooler http://allbusinessauctions.com/blog/2008/04/28/ebay-flea-market-closed-sellers-look-for-ebay-competition-where-to-sell-now/

eBay no longer wants certain types of sellers on their site… Where to Go?

With all of the recent turmoil in the eBay community, mainly derived from comments expressed by the “new” powers that be within eBay, it is no wonder some long-time sellers are expressing more than a little angst over the quick use of terms like “retail experience” and “buyer experience” in conjuction with new performance-based discounts tied in with detailed seller ratings and feedback. It is not as though they were minor adjustments which should be obvious to everyone involved with using the eBay site for the last 10 years or so.

Lorrie Norrington – President of eBay Global Marketplaces – recently stated in a keynote speech: “….However, if you cannot, or will not change business practices to provide a great customer experience, then eBay is not for you.”

Good sellers recognize the value of the bargain image that eBay nurtured for many years. In contrast, high volume sellers appreciate the retail experience language, while low volume or one-of-a-kind & consignment sellers have a harder time with this particular message. Is there a place for everyone to be comfortable? Apparently it is no longer going to be eBay.

Mr. Donahoe, who has been running the company since his appointment to the top spot was announced in January 2008, wants the company – the Internet’s largest eCommerce site – to operate less like an unruly flea market and more like a strip mall where buyers are guaranteed to have a comfortable and predictable shopping experience. See NY Times Article

If this message of change is affecting your online business plan or if you are unaware of other venues available to sell the types of goods you feel eBay was built upon (yet now seems to no longer want), we have assembled a short list of alternate venues for your to explore. Some of these marketplaces offer a venue for your online sales of unique and one-of-a-kind items and others could be more appropriate for the types of inventory no longer wanted on eBay.

1. Bonanzle.com – The easiest and fasted way to get stuff online – Also the fastest growing eCommerce venue around.
2. OnlineAuction.com – Fixed flat rate yearly or monthly price to sell , 13 million listings live on the site.
3. eBid – $49.95 lifetime price to sell, international sites. Less active listings than OLA but growing.
4. Etsy – Free to list, 3.5% transaction fee if items sell, dedicated to hand-crafted & arts merchandise. Etsy has 870,000 registered users with 160,000 individual artists listing 1.5 million hand-made creations.
5. Yahoo Stores – Not an auction venue, but a great place to set up an online store if you do not want to build your own website with a shopping cart. $39.95 a month + 1.5% transaction fee for the basic package.
6. BuyitSellit - Buy It Sell It is an Ink Frog product. Many eBay sellers will be familiar with the Ink Frog eBay listing software solution. The BuyItSellIt basic package is free, but there are upgrades available including a digital delivery option for $9.95 per month. BuyItSellIt offers to also feature eBay listings alongside the shoping cart listing created in a merchant’s BuyItSellIt Store.
7. Amazon Webstore – While the fees are higher here – $59.99 per month plus a 7% transaction fee – Amazon Webstores provide the Amazon experience to buyers and allows merchant specific branding. In addition, the merchant may operate multiple niche-specific Amazon Webstores all under one account for no additional fees.

Amazon Webstores Details All credit card processing and transaction fees. There are no other hidden fees such as hosting, payment gateways or merchant accounts. Payment Fraud Protection for you. WebStore by Amazon uses sophisticated fraud detection tools in use on Amazon.com. This allows you to benefit from Amazon’s world-class fraud protection services and experience. Purchase protection for your customers. Customers who shop on your WebStore will feel more confident buying from your site knowing they are protected by the same A-to-z Guarantee that protects shoppers on Amazon.com. Creating multiple WebStores within your account. Each WebStore can be a customized and independent Web presence for no additional monthly fee. The option of adding Amazon products to your WebStore. Offer items from Amazon.com through your WebStore and the Amazon Associates Program allows you to collect a referral fee when such items are sold!

Every merchant must make his or her own choices when it comes to multi-channel selling. Using a multi-channel listing service which can feed inventory to many venues is also an option. This option is often the most expensive way to get product online and many small businesses cannot take advantage of the services of a ChannelAdvisor or Infopia multi-channel management solution. But if convenience and automation are your goals these are the types of services you should look into. Merchant Advantage is another service worthy of investigation if you have a large inventory and are interested in placing it in multiple online venues. The point here is that there are multiple options to explore. eBay is not the only marketplace, yet it is also not a marketplace to be ignored or abandoned. Using eBay in a smart and informed way is the best solution. Doing that while exploring the other solutions mentioned above (or many more) is a smart business plan for the future. Diversify, reduce costs, raise efficiency. These are not just terms for large corporations – they will apply to any business. See what you can do to make them apply to your business.