Where to Sell Your Hair Bows/ Marketing your Hair Bow Business

Where and How to Sell Your Hair Bows
Pros/Cons

The following is a list of various venues you can use to market/sell your hair bows, and
what I have learned through my experience as the pros and cons of each:

What “Window” Will we See your bows In?

When window shopping, will it be a window to a store off of a sidewalk, or a window on
our computer screen? Will you sell your bows online via auctions, in an actual store, or
neither? Yes… I said neither. There are many other ways to sell your bows rather than
just through online auctions. And, though auctions are a great, but competitive
marketplace, even better are those you can monopolize in your own town.

From my experience in the hair bow business, I have learned many pros and cons to all
the ways that I have marketed my bows. Where you market your bows can make a big
difference in how much money you bring in. In this chapter I outline the pros and cons of
each marketplace, and then go into thorough detail about each type of market.

Ebay
Pros
Very low fees/free rent!!
Awesome traffic
Pretty easy set up
Open 24/7 with no employees to pay
Selling Manager
Less likely to get returns

Cons
Very competitive-many others listing same product
Shipping can be a big hassle
Sometimes people can be hard to deal with
Fees can sometimes sneak up on you
Must be computer literate
Bidders often looking to pay less than what its worth
Shipping sometimes discourages bidders

Online auctions are very popular and where you will find the most exposure to your hair
bows. When selling hair bows on eBay, you will likely ship a bow to a customer in Hong
Kong, China and Dallas, Texas on the same day. The breadth of coverage is
unimaginable.

You list your hair bows on eBay by setting up an auction and waiting for it to end.
People who like your hair bows, bid on them, or can even buy it at a Buy It Now price
from you instantly, and you receive an email stating your item has sold. It’s a great
feeling when you are receiving up to 20 emails like this daily. You get to sell your bows
at prices that are reasonable, and pay no booth/building rent or property taxes.
And…the auctions run twenty four hours a day and seven days a week, automatically.
There are no employees for you to pay. How incredible! You’re making money, and
have very little overhead. That is always good for any business owner.

You may be wondering how to do all of this. Well… here’s your outline.

Register with eBay (this costs nothing)
Pick a userid that conveys something about your business
Open your store (optional) - this is not the only way to succeed with eBay.
List your bows (eBay provides a very simple step-by-step process for doing this.

About Ebay

Fees
EBay fees are minimal, but are subject to change so I do not want to give actual figures
in this book. However, I will tell you that the fees are very low, and you are still capable
of making a lot of profit off of either a set of bows or just one individual bow even after
paying eBay fees.

EBay charges a fee for listing the item. This is where you want to be careful. This is
where your fee can be hiked up the most if you do not do things efficiently.

The best way to list your item without incurring too many fees is to:

Use an auction template (you can get many free templates at www.auctiva.com) for your
description. These allow you to place as many photos of your item in the auction as you
want, and not incur any additional charges within your listing.
Give your listing a title that will be searched for. This means, when people go to eBay
search and they type in the search box what they are looking for, what will they type?
This needs to be what your title is focused on. If your item is a princess bottle cap hair
bow, don’t include unnecessary words in your title. (Example: Beautiful, colorful,
princess hair bow) This will not help you get search results. When people go to search
for what they are looking for, they will not type in “beautiful,” or “colorful.” Instead, if
they are searching for a Cinderella princess bow for their daughter’s Cinderella party,
they will type in “Cinderella princess hair bow.” You want to make sure your title
includes as many words that you can think of that your potential customers may type in
the search engine so they will be directed to your listing.
Be sure to include your one free picture in your listing. This will be the picture that is
displayed in the gallery.
In your item description, which you will do within your auction template, you should be
very specific about your item. You may want to include a little information about your
business (your mission,etc) and you will share how your bows are made. Anything that
will help sell your bow is good (hand-sewn from quality ribbon, fray-checked, etc…)
DO check the gallery option. At the time this page was written, the charge for this
option is only 35 cents, and it is worth it.
All other listing upgrade options are completely optional, and I have never found the
need for them. They will only incur additional, and in my opinion, unnecessary fees.

Ebay is an excellent place to market your bows. However, this mega exposure and
automated selling machine is not offered to you for free. There are costs, but they are
minimal. Dealing with trips to the post office, and the competition may make you think
about checking out my other ideas on where to sell your hair bows.
updated links coming soon... please check back - pages updated DAILY!

Here they are:
Local Catalogue Sales
Hair Bow Parties
Fundraising
School Cheerleading Teams
Youth Soccer/Softball Vendor
Craft Shows/Trade Days