If you are a small business on the internet or if you are selling on auctions, now is the time you had better take stock of your product, adv ertising, and shipping supplies. There is very little time for reflection for the next 11 weeks or so, You are either ready or you are not!<br> We sold on auctions for seven years and we know how hectic this time of the year can be. We have since moved over to an Ecommerce site, and we are waiting for the Christmas rush! 40% of our sales were International and they start buying NOW! International customers will buy until the end of November and then they will disappear as quickly as they appeared. They will reappear right after Christmas and start their buying binge again. They will pay a premium for their product. They can not purchase the product in their own country at a reasonable price. Or if they purchase it from a US retail outlet, they usually, pay an exorbitant amount for shipping and handling. This was one of our niche markets. We will send products overseas for a little more then the shipping charges. How can we do this? We calculate the real shipping charges and add some for packaging, paypal fees, etc. When we sold on auctions, we would add the listing price, and the final value fee. Now that we have an ecommerce site, we do not have to add these additional fees, making the ultimate price we sell our product for cheaper. This was part of our niche marketing - lower shipping fees - and every year the same Internation clientele would come and make their Christmas purchases!<br> Our North American customers would usually start surfing after the Thanksgiving holiday, up until December 24th. We get the same question asked in December - "can you get this here before Christmas!" We always get a laugh out of this question and ship the item within 24 hours. Even though our shipping policy states that we will ship within 48 hours, on December 1st, every year we will ship within 12 hours to 24 hours of receiving payment. Again we saw this as part of our niche marketing. Comments about "fast shipping or super-fast shipping" are abundant in our 99.8% feedback with over 10000 positives as Utradesports over at Ebay. We continue to follow this policy of fast superfast shipping for the Christmas rush over at <a href="http://www.funcoolcollectibles.info">Fun Cool Collectibles</a>
