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Does your local gift store still seem to have the same old Webkinz sitting on the shelf? You just may want to take a closer look once you've read this story.

Retired Webkinz Cheap: I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who is an avid ebay seller and she told me the most incredible account of a recent Webkinz purchase she had made. A few months back she walked into a local store and noticed the shopkeeper marking down a bunch Webkinz toys. The strange thing was that most of them were identical and the shopkeeper was marking everything down to get rid of them as they had these in back of the store for quite some time.

The shopkeeper commented that they just weren't selling many (although the store wasn't even advertising that they carried Webkinz) and they wanted to just get rid of them. What the shopkeeper didn't realize was that these were the retired Webkinz Cheeky Cat and Cheeky Dog!

In fact, there were nine of them total, and being an astute shopper my friend generously offered to by all of them for an additional bulk discount and take them off the shopkeepers hands. Flash forward a few months that $80 purchase turned into over $2,000 in sales on ebay! And after sharing this story with a few close friends, I'm finding that this scenario commonly replays itself around the country every day, so make sure to keep you eyes open for what's hot and you just may find yourself at the right place at the right time.

Here's the List of Retired (and Rare) Webkinz to Watch for:

• Basset Hound
• Brown Horse
• Cheeky Cat
• Cheeky Dog
• Gold & White Cat
• Gorilla
• Gray & White Cat
• Love Puppy
• Pegasus
• Sherbet Bunny
• Unicorn

Tip: It's important to make sure that the code for the Webkinz you are buying has NOT been used. A Webkinz with a used tag code is not worth nearly as much! Plus, you need to be careful of flea market knock-off products too. Best bet is to buy from a legitimate trusted retailer, and if buying on ebay, someone with a solid level of good feedback selling Webkinz.

So next time you are at that little shop around the corner and you see that a bin full Webkinz, keep this list in mind, you just may find a diamond in the rough.

For more information check out Retired Webkinz for Sale or look them up on ebay.

Copyright Goldman Stone 2008. Please feel free to publish or redistribute this article as long as it is not modified and all URL's stay intact.

Here are 5 questions to flex your mental muscle to. The answers and explanations are at the end - no cheating now!

RULES:

There are no trick questions. You cannot ask the audience but I welcome you to 'Phone a Friend' (and forward this article onto them!).

*Question 1:

"What happens if you submit your website to Google more than once?"

A. Nothing.

B. You are at risk of being penalised for multiple submissions

C. Your submission is bumped to the back of the queue

*Question 2:

"According to a survey conducted by AC Nielsen in December 2004 what did people state as their primary reason for doing their Christmas shopping online?"

A. Saves time

B. Better prices

C. Ability to find a more personalized gift

*Question 3:

"In Internet terms, what is a 'spider'?"

A. It's a virus that spreads using loopholes in certain web technologies

B. It's a software tool that search engines use to retrieve information from websites

C. It's another word for a person that browses websites

*Question 4:

"What is the industry average click through rate for banner advertisements? I.e. what percentage of all banner ads are actually clicked on?"

A. 0.39%

B. 1.39%

C. 2.39%

*Question 5:

"According to the latest research from the Computer Industry Almanac what was the worldwide online population in 2004? I.e. how many of the people, worldwide, accessed the Internet at some point in 2004?"

A. 934 million

B. 714 million

C. 579 million

**THE ANSWERS

Q.1 - "What happens if you submit your website to Google more than once?"

A. Nothing.

Google doesn't mind how many times you submit your website. However there are search engines out there that will penalise you for submitting too often. This is what Google says about submitting to its site:

"You are free to submit as often as you wish. However, given the nature of our inclusion process your time is better spent improving the content and links of your site."

Q.2 - "According to a survey conducted by AC Nielsen in December 2004 what did people state as their primary reason for doing their Christmas shopping online?"

A. Saves time

78% of the 1007 people surveyed gave Saves time' as their answer when asked their reasons for shopping online. The survey findings:

Reasons for Shopping Online:

Saves time 78%

Better prices 51%

More selection 43%

Easier shipping 40%

Ability to find a more personalized gift 28%

More information available about the products 20%

What this tells us is that people no longer view the Internet as a low-cost option. So perhaps you need to take a look at your own website and focus more on making the buying process as quick and simple as possible rather than trying to cut prices to attract buyers..

Q. 3 - "In Internet terms, what is a spider'?"

B. It's a software tool that search engines use to retrieve information from websites

When your website is submitted to a search engine the search engine sends out a spider' to visit your site and retrieve all the information from it. The spider then returns to the search engine with all the information that is then added to the search engine's database.

The results you see when you use a search engine are not live snapshots of websites. Instead, the results show the information that the spider collected the last time it visited each website. This is why it is sometimes possible to see a link that looks fine in the search engine results and then click on it to find it no longer exists.

This is because the search engine spider has yet to revisit this website and update the search engine's records.

Q.4 - "What is the industry average click through rate for banner advertisements? I.e. what percentage of all banner ads are actually clicked on?"

A. 0.39%

The latest studies indicate that only 0.39% of banners shown are actually clicked on. With powerful graphics and enticing offers this average clickthrough rate can be improved ten-fold or more. But the point remains that advertising by using banners alone no longer appears to be viable route unless, that is, the costs of using this method are exceptionally low.

Q.5 - "According to the latest research from the Computer Industry Almanac what was the worldwide online population in 2004? I.e. how many of the people, worldwide, accessed the Internet at some point in 2004?"

A. 934 million

It's predicted that this year the online population will hit 1 billion! Not all of these people will be your potential customers but no matter which way you look at - there has never been a better time to have a well-marketed website!

**SCORES - How Many Did You Get Right?

0 - 2: Don't forget - you learn more in this life from your mistakes than you do from anything else!

3 - 4: Well done! You obviously know your stuff or you're good at guessing!

5 out of 5: Outstanding! Top marks for you!

Michael Cheney is the Author of The Website Marketing BibleTM:
"High five Michael! Your bible is superb! The world needs to read it and learn from it." - Jay Conrad Levinson, Author of "Guerrilla Marketing"
http://www.websitemarketingbible.com

[You have my permission to use this article in your newsletter, on your website or anywhere else for that matter as long as it remains unedited and includes the resource box at the bottom.]

Website Marketer's Enemy No. 1

It's about an inch across by half an inch tall. It's quite innocuous and yet this silent killer reaps havoc every second of every day on your efforts to build your online empire.

What is it?

The DELETE key!

There comes a time in your efforts to market your website that you realise that it's no longer enough to tell your family and friends to visit your website - you need to get some people who will pay you in cash rather than compliments. You need to start approaching other website owners and start building an online network of contacts.

This is a crucial step to achieving online success. I once read a quote that applied at the time to conventional 'bricks and mortar' businesses but it just as pertinent if not more so for online businesses:

"You will not be successful by being a cave dweller."

Kind of obvious but there are so many business owners that are cave dwellers. Sitting in their offices staring at the phone day after day wondering why no new prospects ever phone them up. You have to stand up, open the door and get out into the world and shout from the rooftops about your business. If you're online you need to do the same for your website.

One of the best ways to do this is to establish reciprocal links with other relevant websites. But this is where Public Enemy No. 1 comes in - if you don't know how to bypass it all your efforts to contact the website owners and establish links with them will be in vain.

Those nasty spam monsters that roam the web harvesting email addresses from all web pages and then bombarding them with member enlargement hormones and get rich quick schemes have made it hard for you.

If you decide to try and email a website owner using the email address they make publicly available on their website you're already fighting an uphill battle. That email address is likely to be going through some form of spam filtering and if your email subject to this person has even a whiff of canned ham about it you'll be in that Trash Can quicker than you can say "$1million Ebay secrets".

So, what's the answer?

Well, for starters - don't be tempted to use software to do your links work for you. People like people. Not robots. Do your own dirty work. Also - try and find the name of the website owner and use that in your email to them.

One of the best ways to overcome the dreaded Delete Key when you are contacting website owners though is to use their online contact form. When they receive an email via the form they have on their website they know that a real, living, actual human being has filled it in and not some spam monster - hence - they're more likely to read it.

Good luck!

Michael Cheney is Author of The Website Marketing BibleTM. Take the Free 7-Part Course "Internet Marketing Made Easy" and get your free sampler of 'The Bible' here: http://www.websitemarketingbible.com/marketing/