Auctions: Sales Solutions with Marketing Potential - By Scott Lindsay

You have evaluated your stock and have discovered you have more of a certain product line than you feel you are able to sell. Upon further evaluation you discover you have a line of products you will be discontinuing.

This is a moment of decision. A moment when you decide how to dispose of the items you don’t feel you can reasonable sell in your normal online store.

Certainly you can offer the merchandise at a savings to existing customers, however there may be more marketing value in placing the items for sale at an online auction site.

Many online consumers will utilize an online auction site to seek out bargains. They will wade through page after page of similar items searching for something that connects with their pocketbook. Many times an online auction site is used because it has the greatest potential of housing the greatest number of items a consumer may be looking for.

As you begin to place items in an online auction directory you are tapping into a largely ignored and misunderstood marketing tool for your existing business.

If you sell your items on your site to existing customers with a reduced price tag, you will likely have some satisfied ‘existing’ customers. However if you take those same items and make them available for a bargain price on an online auction site those interested in the product have the ability to click through to your online store and take a look at other products you have available.

You may wind up with more income than you thought you could get from the product or you might wind up with less, but the chances are pretty strong that you will sell the item and you may find new customers frequenting your online store.

Some netrepreneurs may even provide a link to their auctioned items so their current customers can take advantage of a potential bargain – or point someone else to the link.

Many may consider online auction sites to be damaging to online retail stores, however a savvy netrepreneur can turn what may seem like a potential problem into a sales solution AND a marketing tool.

As with any service there will be fees or commissions associated with the sale of any item through an auction site, but when you consider the number of individuals who may be drawn to your site because of your auctioned items it may be a small price to pay for the marketing potential it can provide.

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web. No programming or design skill required. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with HighPowerSites.com at: www.highpowersites.com