how do they do it??

[Keith Coppuck]

Hi Pisquee,

many thanks for the super fast post

I must admit I was taking a flyer on the "Mr Greedy Mug" and looking at the link you provided I think, to quote The Borg "resistance is futile" when it comes to competing with the mighty Tesco's. I will let it run its course but won't re-advertise it!

The MotoGP team/rider mugs have been heavily edited by me and original images are free of copyright, so will run the risk, if any?

Hmm, mock-ups. I agree with you but when I look at what sells many of them are mock-ups and mostly worse than mine. I tried a Marc Marquez mug with the real item but very little interest and the one for sale now also has the real ones showing but not the main picture. Perhaps I will try using real images again as I do agree I would prefer to buy something I can actually see and believe already exists.

As for the origin, yes this reads a little confusing and will improve. What was meant was the basic mug is from USA (honest) or at least the sublimation coating is "the RN sublimation coating from the US" and as the supplier and me (the printer) are based in the UK which the last time I checked was European

http://www.printerowners.co.uk/sublimat ... n-mugs.htm

But I will tidy this text up as it is confusing.

What I was hoping for by adding to this post was some recommendations regards the price, does it really make a difference? and if I am missing anything in the title or description. I am a great believer that markets are never saturated as there is always a niche left to be plugged and you need to find a USP (Unique Selling Point) but starting to doubt this belief with the amount of mugs for sale and then sold on eBay.

More comments very welcome...

Regards,

Keith

[socialgiraffe]

he MotoGP team/rider mugs have been heavily edited by me and original images are free of copyright, so will run the risk, if any?

Very few images are free of copyright, and even less when there is commercial gain. letting an item run that you know is in breech can/does imply you are aware of the breech but still hope to sell some.

What I was hoping for by adding to this post was some recommendations regards the price, does it really make a difference? and if I am missing anything in the title or description. I am a great believer that markets are never saturated as there is always a niche left to be plugged and you need to find a USP (Unique Selling Point) but starting to doubt this belief with the amount of mugs for sale and then sold on eBay.

Once I have made my second million I will be sure to tell you the USP

But on a more serious note I think that ebay is a saturated market and by the very nature that it is an auction site it will have price driven customers leading the way. As you say, you get more views by using social media, presumably Facebook. So why not set up a good, professional website and use FB (among others) to generate sales. You will see many websites (zazzle, moonpig) selling mugs for a lot more than £6.95 so why use Ebay who will take fees from you as well? Many people used to use ebay for a quick buck but it is not worth that anymore on certain items like mugs.

[Keith Coppuck]

Hi Socialgiraffe,

so we meet again Mr. Bond:-)

Your first statement is not entirely true as I would would say "there is a concern/risk" that it may be in breach.

With the MotoGP mugs I filtered on "labeled for reuse" before downloading so they are probably ok...

I will take your tip as I have reasonable website skills and can do the Facebook/Twitter stuff quite easily although this is also very competitive a quick Goolgle.com search of personalised mugs returns 2,720,000 results and for a niche marc marquez mug 75,600 results and both results returning some big brand name sites: Amazon, MotoGP.com and Cafepress ... and yes a lot more pricey

Lets see how I get on?

Many thanks...

Keith

[socialgiraffe]

"there is a concern/risk"

Fairpoint

Decent SEO is needed but I would say Social Media will generate sales because you build up a customer base and get to interact/up sell to them. Google is like a high street in that you have to wait until they come to you.

Good luck, would be interesting to see how you get on.

[pisquee]

As for the origin, yes this reads a little confusing and will improve. What was meant was the basic mug is from USA (honest) or at least the sublimation coating is "the RN sublimation coating from the US" and as the supplier and me (the printer) are based in the UK which the last time I checked was European

Rich Nealey are a US based company who devised and patented their coating, and have a US based coating company produce it for them. They also license the coating to be used by other companies worldwide. So a RN coated mug is not necessarily made or even just coated in the US in any sense, and could just as easily come from China, Thailand....

[GoonerGary]

Hi,

Your description including your relevant keywords all seem fine. Your entire listing needs to be SEO and Cassini friendly basically and I'll let you research all of that.

But as mentioned above I can't help commenting on the other aspects of your listing.

It is tempting to mention the words we don't sell Chinese tat, but it is rather xenophobic. They do manufacture extremely high quality goods also and you might be offending our Hong Kong friends/ potential customers.

When I googled Moto GP Gift Mug from your listing, a few things came up.

Someone on Amazon, claims that his MotoGP mug is official merchandise/ Moto GP approved and the rest of it. MotoGP is a trademark and they also sell mugs, so even that in your listing title could have it VeRo'd. They might not like you selling in competition with them. I don't know where you sourced the bike images, but they are clearly professional and just because they were found on some wallpaper site mentioning things like public domain, don't assume they are. You can't even use a silly clipart image from Shutterstock for print on demand products. Disclaimers like not official merchandise is not a get out of jail card. Same goes for Honda. Even the paragraphs about Finish Powerball is copyrighted text; now they might forgive you since you are a customer, but you should really rephrase that statement. Is the cassini search engine really interested in all that blurb?

[pisquee]

I must admit I was taking a flyer on the "Mr Greedy Mug" and looking at the link you provided I think, to quote The Borg "resistance is futile" when it comes to competing with the mighty Tesco's. I will let it run its course but won't re-advertise it!

It's not Tesco you are competing with - they are selling a product which has been produced by a company which has a license to use that image (and have paid for the privilege to do this) from which the creator of the original artwork will make his money ... by you stealing this image, you are essentially stealing that potential income from the creator of the image.

[Keith Coppuck]

... just as easily come from China, Thailand....

Ok, interesting but when a UK company take raw material (a mug) and add an image to it to make a "new product" then the final product is made in the UK. Well thats what I reckon!

[pisquee]

Ok, interesting but when a UK company take raw material (a mug) and add an image to it to make a "new product" then the final product is made in the UK. Well thats what I reckon!

In terms of the law, then yes, that is the case, but you advert was making claims as to the raw mug being made in USA and at the same time being European (I haven't checked back to see if you've updated it since)