Federal Contracts

This week Federal Contract Consultants, LLC signed up for web site maintenance through Budget Homepage. FCC has been on the web since 2007, but their web site has now been updated and moved to a new host. With all of the businesses out there looking for their share of the Federal stimulus money, FCC offers a service that can help small and medium size businesses find ways to sell their products to Uncle Sam.

FCC is a consulting company that searches government procurement sites to match products needed by the US government to your company. They can also assist you with getting registered as an approved supplier and advise you on how to navigate the paperwork. The owner of Federal Contract Consultants, LLC has also written an easy to read book on Federal procurement and quality control. The book is a good starting point if you have little or no experience with Federal contracts or quality control. Click on the image to visit their site.

Poetlady's Craft Store

Poetlady's Craft Store is on the web now. There are three people selling their handmade crafts right now. Designer Diaper Cakes, Mary's Dream Catchers, and Kara's Greeting Cards. The craft store is designed to be a place where people can list their crafts for sale. There are forms on each page that you can use to make initial contact and request more information from the sellers. At this time, the pages are fairly basic because I wanted to get the information up quickly to determine if there would be any interest. I figure that, if feedback is positive, I can always make the pages look better over time. Otherwise, these days I have to put my efforts into the ideas that are producing the best results. You can see the current handmade selections at Poetlady's Craft Store.

Selling on Ebay

I'm on Ebay again, but this time I'm selling, not buying. The company that I work for is testing the Ebay waters to see if there is a market for some of their older DVD products. So far, the effort has not produced any results. Several factors could be the cause. The first is that people are going to be reluctant to buy from someone who has no feedback. The second is that you don't know if your starting bid is too high. The third is that you have no way of knowing for sure why people are not bidding on your item. Is the description poorly written? Are people turned off if you have a no return policy? Is the product in the wrong category? And lastly, you can't add a "buy it now" option, if you have never sold anything on Ebay.

You can list your item for free, but after the second re-listing, Ebay starts charging a listing fee. Auctions typically last for 7 days, so the need to re-list your item can come up quickly. There are fees for enhancing your ad with things like extra photos and fancy backgrounds, plus Ebay takes a percentage of every sale. For my third attempt at selling an item, we have lowered the starting bid by 25%. Anything below that is not worth our time, since that price is almost 90% below the original price. It could always be that the item we are trying to sell is just not something the average person wants or needs. I figure this will give me some experience selling on Ebay. And who knows, maybe it will eventually give me the courage to start selling some of my own stuff on Ebay... or not.