It’s usually when auctions are about to end that they get half their bids – sometimes they even get their only bids. If you want your item to sell for a good price, then, it makes no sense to let it finish on a day and time when no-one’s going to be around to care.
Selling to Business:
If you’re selling business equipment and have mostly business customers, you should really aim to have your auctions finishing between 9am and 5pm on weekdays. It is worth, however, trying to avoid mornings and avoiding the ‘lead-in’ and ‘lead-out’ that takes place on Monday and Friday themselves.
Selling to Home:
If most of your sales are to private customers having it shipped to their own home, then you want your auctions to finish when these kind of customers will be around. Unfortunately, these times are the opposite of what they are for the business customers. The ideal time to catch a home customer is on a Sunday evening.
List for Durations:
In order to get your listings to end on a particular day, you can simply change the duration of your auctions depending on what day it is. For example, if you mostly sell to home customers and the day today is Thursday, then your auction needs to run for either 3 or 10 days to hit a Sunday. If you sell more to business and the day today is Friday, then:
1 day auction would be bad (finishing on Saturday),
3 days would be alright (Monday),
5 days would be good (Wednesday),
7 days would be good (another Friday), and
10 days would be alright (Monday again).
You could draw up a little timetable of when you should and shouldn’t be listing depending on the days of the week – make it red, amber and green, traffic light style, and stick it on your wall.
Schedule Listings:
Of course, if that all sounds like too much trouble then there is an easier – if more expensive – way of doing things. Simply use any of the many tools that let you schedule listings (almost all listing programs and sites do) – you can set the start date for any day and time you feel like.
Be aware that you might have to pay a few cents per listing for this if you do it through eBay. With some software, you may also need to leave your computer on all the time, so the software can start the auctions when it’s supposed to. The advantage of this method, however, is that there will be no per-listing fee, since the auctions were scheduled through your computer and not through eBay.
If it’s the home market you’re after, then you might not have realised what one of the most powerful things to sell on eBay is. I’ll give you a clue: it’s not consumer electronics, or media products. It’s what eBay is famous for. Check out the next post for more.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Find coupons anywhere from e-mail to eBay
One of the easiest ways to save money and live a more frugal lifestyle is to use coupons. To find the best deal on the things you buy, you'll need to know where to look for coupons. Here is a list of the 10 best places to find coupons.
Advertiser flier: Most large stores in your area will have a flier with coupons that can be found in the Sunday newspaper. It can be worth the price of a subscription for just the weekend newspapers.
Back of the receipt: Many grocery stores will have coupons for products in their store printed on the back of the receipt. One advantage of getting receipts as long as a roll of toilet paper are the coupons on the back.
Coupon Web sites: Literally hundreds if not thousands of coupon Web sites can help you save money on anything from clothing to electronics to ink cartridges. Most of the coupons found online are for purchases made at a merchant's Web site. Many manufacturers will also post coupons on their Web sites for discounts on their products.
Product packaging: You can often find manufacturers' coupons for discounts off your next purchase on the outside of the packaging or inside the box. This is how the manufacturer tries to keep us buying their products.
E-mail: Sign up for the newsletters of the merchants you shop most to get coupons e-mailed to you on a regular basis. You can do the same for restaurants. Most restaurants will send you a coupon for a free meal on or around your birthday just for being a subscriber.
Mailbox: One of the best places to find local coupons is by opening your mailbox. Companies like Valpak send out a plethora of coupons for savings in and around where you live.
eBay: A search on eBay.com for "coupons" yields more than than 25,000 results. That's right, a lot of people sell coupons on eBay. Do a search for the name of the store you want to shop at and the word "coupons" to see a list of auctions.
Coupon books: Buy a local coupon book like the Entertainment Book to save hundreds, if not thousands on dining, shopping and entertainment in your city. You can buy the Entertainment book online or through local community groups and schools.
Magazines: Magazines are a great source for coupons. You can find coupons in the advertising section, and sometimes they are inserted between pages..
iPhone: Technology is making it easier for us to save money with coupons. The application Coupon Sherpa has in-store coupons to more than 100 stores. Just show your iPhone at checkout to get a discount.
Advertiser flier: Most large stores in your area will have a flier with coupons that can be found in the Sunday newspaper. It can be worth the price of a subscription for just the weekend newspapers.
Back of the receipt: Many grocery stores will have coupons for products in their store printed on the back of the receipt. One advantage of getting receipts as long as a roll of toilet paper are the coupons on the back.
Coupon Web sites: Literally hundreds if not thousands of coupon Web sites can help you save money on anything from clothing to electronics to ink cartridges. Most of the coupons found online are for purchases made at a merchant's Web site. Many manufacturers will also post coupons on their Web sites for discounts on their products.
Product packaging: You can often find manufacturers' coupons for discounts off your next purchase on the outside of the packaging or inside the box. This is how the manufacturer tries to keep us buying their products.
E-mail: Sign up for the newsletters of the merchants you shop most to get coupons e-mailed to you on a regular basis. You can do the same for restaurants. Most restaurants will send you a coupon for a free meal on or around your birthday just for being a subscriber.
Mailbox: One of the best places to find local coupons is by opening your mailbox. Companies like Valpak send out a plethora of coupons for savings in and around where you live.
eBay: A search on eBay.com for "coupons" yields more than than 25,000 results. That's right, a lot of people sell coupons on eBay. Do a search for the name of the store you want to shop at and the word "coupons" to see a list of auctions.
Coupon books: Buy a local coupon book like the Entertainment Book to save hundreds, if not thousands on dining, shopping and entertainment in your city. You can buy the Entertainment book online or through local community groups and schools.
Magazines: Magazines are a great source for coupons. You can find coupons in the advertising section, and sometimes they are inserted between pages..
iPhone: Technology is making it easier for us to save money with coupons. The application Coupon Sherpa has in-store coupons to more than 100 stores. Just show your iPhone at checkout to get a discount.
Understanding eBay's VeRO Program
‘VeRO’? What on Earth is that? Well, it’s a very scary eBay program that can get your auctions shut down, that’s what it is.
VeRO stands for ‘Verified Rights Owner’. It is the eBay policy that deals with complaints about your auctions from companies who own copyrights, patents or trademarks on the items you are selling.
Unfortunately, it is often abused to remove items from eBay that are perfectly legitimate to resell, simply because the copyright owner doesn’t want people getting their hands on them.
If the copyright of something you’re selling is owned by one of eBay’s 5,000 verified rights owners, be prepared for trouble. eBay have given these companies the right to remove any auction from eBay that they see fit, and, say eBay, “eBay cannot require the rights owner to provide you with the exact reason of the request to remove your listing”. Worse, eBay may even suspend your account, or give your real-world contact details to the company in question.
Why Do eBay Do This?
Basically, they do it to avoid getting sued, or even getting threatened with being sued. There is a law called the DMCA (digital millennium copyright act) that means that eBay must either take these auctions down when it asked to or take full responsibility for them from that point on. eBay doesn’t want to take any responsibility for your auctions.
It’s not worth worrying too much about it – 99% of the VeRO program is aimed at stopping fake brand-name goods or pirated media being sold through eBay. Big companies also seem to get quite upset when eBay sellers take the company’s ad copy, logos or professional pictures and use them for selling on eBay.
If you’d like to take a slightly patronising quiz about copyright to help you understand eBay’s policy, go here:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/tutorial/verotutorial/intro2.html.
So Who Are These Companies?
There’s a complete list available here:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/vero-aboutme.html.
This list includes everything from the Microsoft and Adobe to Chanel and Nike, not to mention the RIAA (recording industry association) and MPAA (motion picture association). Most of the companies, understandably, deal in software, media or fashion.
eBay Say I Violated VeRO and I Want to Appeal.
Use the link at the bottom of this page:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/vero-removed-listing.html.
That’ll get you to eBay’s VeRO
Seller Appeal Form, where you can put your case to them directly. You are supposed to take it up with the company that complained about you first, however – and sometimes you might find that they just back down, which makes the whole thing a lot easier.
If you have no luck getting any response from eBay by email, it’s not really worth trying to phone them – you’ll find they’re most responsive if you use the ‘Live Chat’ feature or write them an actual, real-paper letter. You’re best off being nice to eBay: they have absolutely no obligation, after all, to ever let you sell anything at all.
On a happier note, have you ever heard of eBay Anything Points? No? Well, you’re not alone. The next post will explain what these little-used points can do for you.
VeRO stands for ‘Verified Rights Owner’. It is the eBay policy that deals with complaints about your auctions from companies who own copyrights, patents or trademarks on the items you are selling.
Unfortunately, it is often abused to remove items from eBay that are perfectly legitimate to resell, simply because the copyright owner doesn’t want people getting their hands on them.
If the copyright of something you’re selling is owned by one of eBay’s 5,000 verified rights owners, be prepared for trouble. eBay have given these companies the right to remove any auction from eBay that they see fit, and, say eBay, “eBay cannot require the rights owner to provide you with the exact reason of the request to remove your listing”. Worse, eBay may even suspend your account, or give your real-world contact details to the company in question.
Why Do eBay Do This?
Basically, they do it to avoid getting sued, or even getting threatened with being sued. There is a law called the DMCA (digital millennium copyright act) that means that eBay must either take these auctions down when it asked to or take full responsibility for them from that point on. eBay doesn’t want to take any responsibility for your auctions.
It’s not worth worrying too much about it – 99% of the VeRO program is aimed at stopping fake brand-name goods or pirated media being sold through eBay. Big companies also seem to get quite upset when eBay sellers take the company’s ad copy, logos or professional pictures and use them for selling on eBay.
If you’d like to take a slightly patronising quiz about copyright to help you understand eBay’s policy, go here:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/tutorial/verotutorial/intro2.html.
So Who Are These Companies?
There’s a complete list available here:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/vero-aboutme.html.
This list includes everything from the Microsoft and Adobe to Chanel and Nike, not to mention the RIAA (recording industry association) and MPAA (motion picture association). Most of the companies, understandably, deal in software, media or fashion.
eBay Say I Violated VeRO and I Want to Appeal.
Use the link at the bottom of this page:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/vero-removed-listing.html.
That’ll get you to eBay’s VeRO
Seller Appeal Form, where you can put your case to them directly. You are supposed to take it up with the company that complained about you first, however – and sometimes you might find that they just back down, which makes the whole thing a lot easier.
If you have no luck getting any response from eBay by email, it’s not really worth trying to phone them – you’ll find they’re most responsive if you use the ‘Live Chat’ feature or write them an actual, real-paper letter. You’re best off being nice to eBay: they have absolutely no obligation, after all, to ever let you sell anything at all.
On a happier note, have you ever heard of eBay Anything Points? No? Well, you’re not alone. The next post will explain what these little-used points can do for you.
Monday, April 27, 2009
eBay Launches Free Classified Ads Site 'Kijiji'
SAN JOSE eBay Inc. has launched a free classified advertising site in the United States, an experiment the online auction company says could lead to new sources of revenue.
How to Place Your eBay Store on “Vacation”
So you’re going away for a while, and you’re not going to be able to ship people’s orders from your eBay store? Imagine how you’d feel if you got home from a nice vacation, only to find that your feedback rating had been trashed!
Buyers can find your store, pay for items, and then complain about you for not shipping them or responding to emails – without you even being there to stop it. What’s more, no-one will accept the fact you were on vacation as an excuse: after all, what were you doing listing items on eBay if you were on vacation?
So what’s the solution to this little problem? Well, it’s easier than it sounds. Whenever you go on vacation, just make sure you don’t forget to send your eBay store on one of its own.
What Do You Mean?
eBay offer a facility to put your store on ‘vacation’, which basically means that it is temporarily suspended while you’re unavailable to ship items. This means that you don’t need to be available 365 days a year just in case someone orders from your eBay store.
How Do I Put the Store on Vacation, Then?
Go to My eBay and click ‘Manage Your Store’. Now click ‘Change vacation settings’ and choose ‘Turn vacation settings on’. Click the ‘Save Settings’ button, and it’s done. Once the settings are on, you have a few options about what you want your store to do while you’re away.
Hide your listings
You need to do this – your listings will be hidden from buyers, so they can’t bid on them. Be aware that it can take a few hours for your listings to disappear from the search results,
though.
Display messages. If you want, eBay can put a message in your listings and on your store to say that you’ve gone on vacation – just in case anyone wonders what happened to you. You will be asked to say when you expect to come back. You should always do this, as it’s quite inconsiderate to just disappear without telling your loyal customers where you went!
Will I Still be Charged for My Store While I’m Away?
Unfortunately you will – not only the subscription for the store, but also for any listings that expire while you were gone. This is quite cruel of eBay, but what can you do? To lessen the impact of this, make sure you don’t list any new items for a while before you put the store on vacation.
I’m Back! How Do I Turn the Store on Again?
Click: My eBay, Manage Your Store, Change vacation settings, Turn vacation settings off, Save Settings. Everything will now go back to normal. You might want to send out a newsletter at this point, to let your buyers know you’re back.
Here’s another little headache that could get you into some trouble: eBay’s ‘VeRO’ program for copyright holders. I’ll show you how to avoid falling foul of it in the next post.
Buyers can find your store, pay for items, and then complain about you for not shipping them or responding to emails – without you even being there to stop it. What’s more, no-one will accept the fact you were on vacation as an excuse: after all, what were you doing listing items on eBay if you were on vacation?
So what’s the solution to this little problem? Well, it’s easier than it sounds. Whenever you go on vacation, just make sure you don’t forget to send your eBay store on one of its own.
What Do You Mean?
eBay offer a facility to put your store on ‘vacation’, which basically means that it is temporarily suspended while you’re unavailable to ship items. This means that you don’t need to be available 365 days a year just in case someone orders from your eBay store.
How Do I Put the Store on Vacation, Then?
Go to My eBay and click ‘Manage Your Store’. Now click ‘Change vacation settings’ and choose ‘Turn vacation settings on’. Click the ‘Save Settings’ button, and it’s done. Once the settings are on, you have a few options about what you want your store to do while you’re away.
Hide your listings
You need to do this – your listings will be hidden from buyers, so they can’t bid on them. Be aware that it can take a few hours for your listings to disappear from the search results,
though.
Display messages. If you want, eBay can put a message in your listings and on your store to say that you’ve gone on vacation – just in case anyone wonders what happened to you. You will be asked to say when you expect to come back. You should always do this, as it’s quite inconsiderate to just disappear without telling your loyal customers where you went!
Will I Still be Charged for My Store While I’m Away?
Unfortunately you will – not only the subscription for the store, but also for any listings that expire while you were gone. This is quite cruel of eBay, but what can you do? To lessen the impact of this, make sure you don’t list any new items for a while before you put the store on vacation.
I’m Back! How Do I Turn the Store on Again?
Click: My eBay, Manage Your Store, Change vacation settings, Turn vacation settings off, Save Settings. Everything will now go back to normal. You might want to send out a newsletter at this point, to let your buyers know you’re back.
Here’s another little headache that could get you into some trouble: eBay’s ‘VeRO’ program for copyright holders. I’ll show you how to avoid falling foul of it in the next post.
Increase Your eBay Sales with A “SquareTrade” Seal
SquareTrade are eBay’s chosen provider of dispute resolution services. If you want your buyers to have a little more confidence in you, you can get a SquareTrade seal, and put it on each one of your auctions.
The chances are that you’ve seen these seals around. They show SquareTrade’s blue and green logo, along with the eBay user’s ID and the current date. This is followed by the text “SquareTrade Verified Seller, Click to Learn More”. SquareTrade is also used on sites other than eBay, for example Yahoo and eLance – it’s an Internet-wide trust system.
So why will this little seal increase your sales? Well, it signals a number of things to your buyers. Your identity has been verified. Before you can get a SquareTrade seal, you need to let them confirm your real name, address and phone number, which they can do in various ways. They can check you out with a credit reference agency, ask you to fax them a utility bill, or send you a letter in the real mail with a code you need to enter online.
You are committed to resolving disputes through SquareTrade. If you ever refuse to resolve any dispute with a buyer through SquareTrade, then they’ll take away your seal, and you’ll never get it back. This lets buyers know that there’s someone independent they can go to for help if you prove not to be trustworthy.
Real people will review their case. Buyers like that someone will actually take the time to read the emails, establish the facts and all the rest of it – they feel like eBay normally traps them in a chain of automatic responses.
You meet SquareTrade’s criteria. SquareTrade monitor your feedback, and if they feel you’re not up to scratch, they’ll take your seal away. They also operate an anti-fraud ‘early warning system’, which keeps track of the kinds of items you buy and sell, and takes action if your account starts doing unusual things.
Buyers are covered for an additional $250 against fraud. This is very important to buyers – eBay’s standard purchase protection isn’t very much, and this more than doubles it. If they get PayPal’s fraud protection as well, then they’re covered for quite a lot overall.
How Do I Sign Up?
If you want a seal of your very own, all you need to do is go to www.squaretrade.com, choose ‘eBay seller’ under the ‘eBay seal services’ heading, and click ‘Apply’. Enter your name, address, phone number and eBay details here.
You should note, though, that SquareTrade costs you $9.50 per month – it’s up to you to decide if it’s worth it. Ultimately, it is often worth signing up just to get the facility to effectively dispute and remove negative feedback. If you think you can maintain a good record alone then it might not be worth subscribing to yet another service to use with eBay.
Here’s a warning: there’s one thing that, if you don’t do it, could land you with an awful lot of negative feedback. Make sure you read all about it in the next post.
The chances are that you’ve seen these seals around. They show SquareTrade’s blue and green logo, along with the eBay user’s ID and the current date. This is followed by the text “SquareTrade Verified Seller, Click to Learn More”. SquareTrade is also used on sites other than eBay, for example Yahoo and eLance – it’s an Internet-wide trust system.
So why will this little seal increase your sales? Well, it signals a number of things to your buyers. Your identity has been verified. Before you can get a SquareTrade seal, you need to let them confirm your real name, address and phone number, which they can do in various ways. They can check you out with a credit reference agency, ask you to fax them a utility bill, or send you a letter in the real mail with a code you need to enter online.
You are committed to resolving disputes through SquareTrade. If you ever refuse to resolve any dispute with a buyer through SquareTrade, then they’ll take away your seal, and you’ll never get it back. This lets buyers know that there’s someone independent they can go to for help if you prove not to be trustworthy.
Real people will review their case. Buyers like that someone will actually take the time to read the emails, establish the facts and all the rest of it – they feel like eBay normally traps them in a chain of automatic responses.
You meet SquareTrade’s criteria. SquareTrade monitor your feedback, and if they feel you’re not up to scratch, they’ll take your seal away. They also operate an anti-fraud ‘early warning system’, which keeps track of the kinds of items you buy and sell, and takes action if your account starts doing unusual things.
Buyers are covered for an additional $250 against fraud. This is very important to buyers – eBay’s standard purchase protection isn’t very much, and this more than doubles it. If they get PayPal’s fraud protection as well, then they’re covered for quite a lot overall.
How Do I Sign Up?
If you want a seal of your very own, all you need to do is go to www.squaretrade.com, choose ‘eBay seller’ under the ‘eBay seal services’ heading, and click ‘Apply’. Enter your name, address, phone number and eBay details here.
You should note, though, that SquareTrade costs you $9.50 per month – it’s up to you to decide if it’s worth it. Ultimately, it is often worth signing up just to get the facility to effectively dispute and remove negative feedback. If you think you can maintain a good record alone then it might not be worth subscribing to yet another service to use with eBay.
Here’s a warning: there’s one thing that, if you don’t do it, could land you with an awful lot of negative feedback. Make sure you read all about it in the next post.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
eBay: Back To Basics
When John Donahoe became chief executive of eBay in March 2008, he said it would take him a year to asses the company's portfolio and figure out its next move. Now a little over a year later, recent moves suggests that he's found his stride: getting eBay back to basics.
The online commerce giant is scheduled to report its first-quarter earnings on Wednesday. Analysts expect earnings to be $0.33 per share, according to Thomson Reuters, with a revenue consensus pegged at $1.94 billion. Compared to last year's figures, both numbers are roughly flat but nowhere near the kind of growth that the company once enjoyed.
Though eBay's ( EBAY - news - people ) auction business is idling, its management is not. Earlier this month eBay sold StumbleUpon, a social recommendation tool for Web content, back to company founders. The company then announced that it would spin off Internet telephony service Skype via an initial public offering in the first half of next year.
The portrait management is now portraying suggests a radically different eBay, a company today best-characterized as a hodgepodge of loosely-knit Internet properties and services. The new picture is without Skype, and according to analysts, it could be one without PayPal, too.
Analysts took the recent shedding of Skype and StumbleUpon as positive signs for growth, since both were widely perceived as awkward additions to the company's portfolio. But more than just boosting shareholder value, they say the asset sales should allow management to focus its most pressing tasks at hand--growing eBay's Marketplaces and PayPal divisions.
For now, eBay's online marketplaces are shrinking. Over the last year, growth rates swung from 19% in the first quarter to a negative 16% in the latest one. That's likely indicative of a maturing auction business, says Jeffries analyst Youssef Squali, but could also indicate that the 10-year-old online auction business is entering a permanent decline.
Squali estimates that eBay's gross merchandise volume--that is, the amount of goods passing through eBay's various marketplace platforms--shrunk by 22% in the last quarter. "That's not good," he says, and could mean further restructuring for eBay's portfolio of online properties.
"The harder it is for them to turn around the marketplaces business--in particular the auction business--the more likely they will look to re-capitalize the company by shedding non-performing assets and focusing on growth areas," notes Squali.
Nevermind Rent.com, Shopping.com or Kijiji (all ancillary Web properties owned by eBay). If eBay's marketplace growth is flat or continues to deteriorate, Squali says investors should look to PayPal as eBay's next possible spinoff.
PayPal--the eBay-owned online payment platform--has become the second core business behind marketplaces. Revenues were up 25% to $2.4 billion in 2008, and the service now routes 9% of all global e-commerce. That growth makes PayPal a good target for a spinoff if management decides the company is worth more on its own than as part of eBay.
"If it becomes clear that more than half of the business is not doing anything and is in secular decline," Squali posits, "you could certainly see Donahoe and company looking to do something with the crown jewel."
Design Tips for eBay Templates
Templates are the design elements that you might have noticed some sellers using on their auctions, like the borders around the edge, and the different fonts. Many sellers who are new to eBay don’t bother using them, and you might not have either – generally, a descriptive listing and a good picture will do the job just fine.
If you want to really finish your auctions off and make a really good impression on your buyers though, it’s useful to have a good template. Here are a few tips on what to do and what not to do.
Choose something appropriate: The most important part of your template is what you choose in eBay’s listing designer (in step 3 of the Sell Your Item process), or the equivalent in whatever listing software you’re now using. You might prefer to use third-party software for this, as eBay’s designs can be somewhat… unimpressive.
Anyway, the different template designs will usually be themed, with names like ‘Computers’, ‘Toys’ or ‘Crafts’. Make sure what you choose is appropriate for what you’re selling – those flowers might be very pretty, but what exactly do they have to do with DVDs?
Put the photo at the top: The photo of your item is far more important than the text. Put your best photo at the top of the description, followed by the text, and then finally any extra pictures you have.
The full-size photo of the item is the first thing your buyers want to see when they click your auction – why leave it for last?
Add your logo: A well-designed logo gives a professional air to your auctions, especially if the colour scheme and look fits in with the rest of the template, and it also serves to create more recognition when people have seen your auctions before. Pay a logo designer a few dollars to do you a logo if you don’t have one already.
Don’t be afraid of large fonts: Fonts are supposed to be different sizes sometimes. When you have something important to say, don’t be afraid to put it in a bigger font, headline-style… just as long as you don’t get carried away, of course.
Learn a little HTML: It might sound scary, but there are plenty of books out there about learning HTML, and a little goes a long way. Once you know what you’re doing, you’ll find all sorts of ways to make your auction look better – you’ll be able to put complicated information in a table, Preview your listing. Remember to click that ‘Preview listing’ button to see what everything’s going to look like when it goes live. Good luck!
One of the best things you can put into your auction template to make it more appealing to buyers is something called a ‘SquareTrade seal’. This seal is a promise that you will handle any disputes using SquareTrade, an independent dispute resolution service. We’ll take a closer look at what it is and how to get one in the next post.
If you want to really finish your auctions off and make a really good impression on your buyers though, it’s useful to have a good template. Here are a few tips on what to do and what not to do.
Choose something appropriate: The most important part of your template is what you choose in eBay’s listing designer (in step 3 of the Sell Your Item process), or the equivalent in whatever listing software you’re now using. You might prefer to use third-party software for this, as eBay’s designs can be somewhat… unimpressive.
Anyway, the different template designs will usually be themed, with names like ‘Computers’, ‘Toys’ or ‘Crafts’. Make sure what you choose is appropriate for what you’re selling – those flowers might be very pretty, but what exactly do they have to do with DVDs?
Put the photo at the top: The photo of your item is far more important than the text. Put your best photo at the top of the description, followed by the text, and then finally any extra pictures you have.
The full-size photo of the item is the first thing your buyers want to see when they click your auction – why leave it for last?
Add your logo: A well-designed logo gives a professional air to your auctions, especially if the colour scheme and look fits in with the rest of the template, and it also serves to create more recognition when people have seen your auctions before. Pay a logo designer a few dollars to do you a logo if you don’t have one already.
Don’t be afraid of large fonts: Fonts are supposed to be different sizes sometimes. When you have something important to say, don’t be afraid to put it in a bigger font, headline-style… just as long as you don’t get carried away, of course.
Learn a little HTML: It might sound scary, but there are plenty of books out there about learning HTML, and a little goes a long way. Once you know what you’re doing, you’ll find all sorts of ways to make your auction look better – you’ll be able to put complicated information in a table, Preview your listing. Remember to click that ‘Preview listing’ button to see what everything’s going to look like when it goes live. Good luck!
One of the best things you can put into your auction template to make it more appealing to buyers is something called a ‘SquareTrade seal’. This seal is a promise that you will handle any disputes using SquareTrade, an independent dispute resolution service. We’ll take a closer look at what it is and how to get one in the next post.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
How to Use eBay’s “Pre-Approved Buyer” Function
For sellers who constantly have to put up with bid snipers, non-paying bidders and other anti-social, timewasting buyers, eBay’s ‘pre-approved buyer’ feature is a godsend.
Pre-approving buyers lets you choose in advance who you’re going to allow to bid: not by banning people you don’t want, but by explicitly allowing people you do want. Anyone who is not on the pre-approved list will have to email you and ask you to let them bid.
While that might sound great, it’s only really a good idea to do it on very, very high value items. After all, half the point of eBay is that it’s such an open marketplace – if you’re going to restrict bidding to a few people, why not just email them to offer the item?
Most buyers will be very upset if they come across an item that they need to be pre-approved to bid in. They almost certainly won’t have heard of the rule before, and they’ll think this ‘new feature’ (it must be new if they’ve never heard of it, right?) is absolutely terrible. The one time I required pre-approval for an item, someone actually wrote to eBay to complain about the auction’s format – as if eBay had nothing to do with letting me list that way! The chances are that almost no-one will ever email you asking to be included in the auction – they’ll go somewhere else instead.
Of course, it’d be better if you could just require that bidders have a minimum feedback level, but then that might overly restrict the choices of new buyers, and make them less likely to buy anything to begin with. There’s a delicate balance at play between trust and openness, and pre-approval tends to violate it. If one of your regular buyers wants to bid on your item only to find out they weren’t pre-approved, the chances are they’ll be more than a little offended at your lack of trust.
The only situations in which you might find an advantage in pre-approving bidders are if your auctions get consistently disrupted. Jokers sometimes bid millions because they think it’s funny, or people bid high and then don’t pay as a protest against whatever you’re selling – this is a pain to deal with. Requiring approval makes sense on very high-ticket items simply because it shows the buyer is serious about wanting to buy.
Before you can restrict an item to pre-approved buyers, you have to list it and get an item number.
You can then set up pre-approved bidding on this page:
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?PreApproveBidders
From there on, it’s a simple process – just type the usernames of the people whose bids you want to accept, and then keep checking your email.
Remember, though, that you don’t need to restrict your auction to pre-approved bidders to keep people you don’t like from bidding on your auctions. You can simply cancel these buyers’ bids when they appear, and then use eBay’s ‘block bidder’ function to ban them from bidding on any of your auctions again.
Edit your block list here:
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?bidderblocklogin
In the next post, we’ll take a look at whether your eBay design is as effective as it could be.
Pre-approving buyers lets you choose in advance who you’re going to allow to bid: not by banning people you don’t want, but by explicitly allowing people you do want. Anyone who is not on the pre-approved list will have to email you and ask you to let them bid.
While that might sound great, it’s only really a good idea to do it on very, very high value items. After all, half the point of eBay is that it’s such an open marketplace – if you’re going to restrict bidding to a few people, why not just email them to offer the item?
Most buyers will be very upset if they come across an item that they need to be pre-approved to bid in. They almost certainly won’t have heard of the rule before, and they’ll think this ‘new feature’ (it must be new if they’ve never heard of it, right?) is absolutely terrible. The one time I required pre-approval for an item, someone actually wrote to eBay to complain about the auction’s format – as if eBay had nothing to do with letting me list that way! The chances are that almost no-one will ever email you asking to be included in the auction – they’ll go somewhere else instead.
Of course, it’d be better if you could just require that bidders have a minimum feedback level, but then that might overly restrict the choices of new buyers, and make them less likely to buy anything to begin with. There’s a delicate balance at play between trust and openness, and pre-approval tends to violate it. If one of your regular buyers wants to bid on your item only to find out they weren’t pre-approved, the chances are they’ll be more than a little offended at your lack of trust.
The only situations in which you might find an advantage in pre-approving bidders are if your auctions get consistently disrupted. Jokers sometimes bid millions because they think it’s funny, or people bid high and then don’t pay as a protest against whatever you’re selling – this is a pain to deal with. Requiring approval makes sense on very high-ticket items simply because it shows the buyer is serious about wanting to buy.
Before you can restrict an item to pre-approved buyers, you have to list it and get an item number.
You can then set up pre-approved bidding on this page:
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?PreApproveBidders
From there on, it’s a simple process – just type the usernames of the people whose bids you want to accept, and then keep checking your email.
Remember, though, that you don’t need to restrict your auction to pre-approved bidders to keep people you don’t like from bidding on your auctions. You can simply cancel these buyers’ bids when they appear, and then use eBay’s ‘block bidder’ function to ban them from bidding on any of your auctions again.
Edit your block list here:
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?bidderblocklogin
In the next post, we’ll take a look at whether your eBay design is as effective as it could be.
Tips for “Knowing Your eBay Buyer” Before You Ship
Before you send anything to that buyer, you might want to get to know them, especially if you’re selling them a high-ticket item that you couldn’t afford to lose. Even if the buyer has paid, the PayPal transaction could still end up being reversed, leaving you out of pocket. So how do you figure out if you can trust your buyer?
Look at their feedback for others: Go to their feedback page and click ‘Left for Others’. If they leave a lot of negatives for their sellers, then you should try to get away from them as fast as you can – if you do deal with them, make sure not to leave your feedback first. You should consider a negative someone has left to be just as bad as a negative left for them.
Look at feedback from sellers: Click ‘From Sellers’. You might find that they have more complaints from sellers than from buyers – or, on the other hand, it might be the other way around. Some people really are just better at selling than buying, or vice versa.
Pay attention to bid retractions. If they have a high number of bid retractions, you should regard this as a red flag that something might be wrong.
See what else they’ve bought: When someone goes from buying items worth $1 to suddenly buying something worth $1,000, you might want to be a little suspicious of them.
See what they’re bidding on now: If they’ve never shown any interest in your kind of item before, and now suddenly they’re bidding on lots of them, then that’s cause for concern. You should also be suspicious of someone who seems to be spending a lot of money all at once – few buyers have thousands at a time to blow on eBay.
Check their ID history: People who’ve changed their ID are often trying to get away from someone who’s trying to find them. This is another warning sign – be especially wary of someone who changed their ID very recently.
Be nice to new buyers: Genuine new buyers will probably have a name ending in a number and a feedback score of 0 – don’t always think these people are fraudsters. Somewhat counter-intuitively, people trying to commit fraud will almost never do it when they have a feedback score of 0 – they’ll think it’s too obvious. New buyers often have problems with being inexperienced on eBay, however, and you might have to guide them through things like opening a PayPal account.
Email them: If you want to get to know your eBay buyer, why not have a little chat with them about the item, what they plan to do with it? Say that how you know they’re going to love it, and ask if there’s anything else you can do for them. Few buyers who seem chatty and nice will turn out not to be in the end.
If you keep having trouble with buyers you don’t want winning your high-value auctions at the last second, you might want to use eBay’s ‘pre-approved buyer’ function. The next post will show you how.
Look at their feedback for others: Go to their feedback page and click ‘Left for Others’. If they leave a lot of negatives for their sellers, then you should try to get away from them as fast as you can – if you do deal with them, make sure not to leave your feedback first. You should consider a negative someone has left to be just as bad as a negative left for them.
Look at feedback from sellers: Click ‘From Sellers’. You might find that they have more complaints from sellers than from buyers – or, on the other hand, it might be the other way around. Some people really are just better at selling than buying, or vice versa.
Pay attention to bid retractions. If they have a high number of bid retractions, you should regard this as a red flag that something might be wrong.
See what else they’ve bought: When someone goes from buying items worth $1 to suddenly buying something worth $1,000, you might want to be a little suspicious of them.
See what they’re bidding on now: If they’ve never shown any interest in your kind of item before, and now suddenly they’re bidding on lots of them, then that’s cause for concern. You should also be suspicious of someone who seems to be spending a lot of money all at once – few buyers have thousands at a time to blow on eBay.
Check their ID history: People who’ve changed their ID are often trying to get away from someone who’s trying to find them. This is another warning sign – be especially wary of someone who changed their ID very recently.
Be nice to new buyers: Genuine new buyers will probably have a name ending in a number and a feedback score of 0 – don’t always think these people are fraudsters. Somewhat counter-intuitively, people trying to commit fraud will almost never do it when they have a feedback score of 0 – they’ll think it’s too obvious. New buyers often have problems with being inexperienced on eBay, however, and you might have to guide them through things like opening a PayPal account.
Email them: If you want to get to know your eBay buyer, why not have a little chat with them about the item, what they plan to do with it? Say that how you know they’re going to love it, and ask if there’s anything else you can do for them. Few buyers who seem chatty and nice will turn out not to be in the end.
If you keep having trouble with buyers you don’t want winning your high-value auctions at the last second, you might want to use eBay’s ‘pre-approved buyer’ function. The next post will show you how.
Friday, April 24, 2009
E-Commerce Vs. the Economy
Amid a chilly climate for business and consumer spending, how are e-tailers and product manufacturers faring?
For more than a year, eBay has been rolling out incremental changes to it marketplace in an attempt to improve the experience for buyers. The company has tweaked its site's user interface, and enacted several policy changes aimed at promoting reliable, high-quality sellers, changes that have drawn considerable opposition from many of the merchants with stores on the platform.
"Buyers will continue to see improvements in trust, value and selection as we enter the holiday season later this year," Donahoe said.
But Mahaney warned that absent a major effort to shore up the company's marketplace business -- even something as drastic as abandoning the auction model that eBay was built on -- the company's "fundamentals could continue get a lot worse before they stabilize."
The quirks of eBay's e-commerce platform can at times put it at a competitive disadvantage against its principal rival Amazon, as well as traditional retailers that have established robust online stories, such as Wal-Mart and Target.
In the first quarter, sales of eBay's fixed-price listings increased 12 percent, while auction sales dropped 20 percent from last year.
"What I really want to sense is paranoia, frankly, out of the management team. I want to hear them address what's their core problem," Mahaney said.
On today's call, Donahoe was short on paranoia, but did acknowledge that eBay's e-commerce business would grow slower than the industry-wide sector throughout 2009. Next year, he said he expects eBay to perform in line with the industry, and outpace it in 2011.
"While we saw some signs of stabilization in the first quarter, we still have a lot of work to do," he said.
Shares of eBay were up 7.4 percent in after-hours trading.
For more than a year, eBay has been rolling out incremental changes to it marketplace in an attempt to improve the experience for buyers. The company has tweaked its site's user interface, and enacted several policy changes aimed at promoting reliable, high-quality sellers, changes that have drawn considerable opposition from many of the merchants with stores on the platform.
"Buyers will continue to see improvements in trust, value and selection as we enter the holiday season later this year," Donahoe said.
But Mahaney warned that absent a major effort to shore up the company's marketplace business -- even something as drastic as abandoning the auction model that eBay was built on -- the company's "fundamentals could continue get a lot worse before they stabilize."
The quirks of eBay's e-commerce platform can at times put it at a competitive disadvantage against its principal rival Amazon, as well as traditional retailers that have established robust online stories, such as Wal-Mart and Target.
In the first quarter, sales of eBay's fixed-price listings increased 12 percent, while auction sales dropped 20 percent from last year.
"What I really want to sense is paranoia, frankly, out of the management team. I want to hear them address what's their core problem," Mahaney said.
On today's call, Donahoe was short on paranoia, but did acknowledge that eBay's e-commerce business would grow slower than the industry-wide sector throughout 2009. Next year, he said he expects eBay to perform in line with the industry, and outpace it in 2011.
"While we saw some signs of stabilization in the first quarter, we still have a lot of work to do," he said.
Shares of eBay were up 7.4 percent in after-hours trading.
eBay Still Tops Expectations
E-commerce giant eBay saw its revenues slip in the first quarter, but nonetheless turned in financial results that beat analysts' modest expectations.
After the market closed Wednesday, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) reported earnings of 39 cents per share on $500 million in net income, excluding one-time items. That figure was down from 42 cents on $560 million in the same quarter last year, but ahead of the 33 cents analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had been expecting.
Overall, eBay posted revenues just over $2 billion, down from $2.2 billion last year, but a tick ahead of the $1.9 billion analysts were expecting.
eBay attributed the declining revenues to a weakened U.S. dollar and the continuing macroeconomic climate that sapped sales in the company's core marketplace business, where year-to-year revenues dropped 18 percent. Nevertheless, President and CEO John Donahoe touted the company's performance at a time of flux in both eBay's business and the broader economy.
"We delivered solid Q1 results, exceeding expectations in a tough economy," Donahoe said on a conference call with analysts. President and CEO John Donahoe said in a statement. "The bottom line is that we're seeing a marketplace business in transition," he said, emphasizing the company's plans to refocus itself on its core e-commerce and payments businesses it outlined at its analysts' day in March.
eBay's payment services division, driven by PayPal, posted net revenues of $643 million, an 11 percent increase over the prior-year quarter. PayPal now accounts for 32 percent of eBay's overall revenue. In the meantime, the company said it is moving swiftly to integrate the Bill Me Later service it acquired last year.
At its analysts' day, eBay said it aimed to double PayPal's revenue by 2011. The company also detailed plans to move into a secondary retail market, snapping up unwanted inventory from retailers to sell on the Internet.
eBay has been flush with news recently. The company recently announced plans to spin off Internet phone service Skype in an IPO sometime in the first half of 2010. Analysts welcomed eBay's plans to shed Skype, a firm it acquired in 2005 for $2.6 billion but has proven a clumsy fit for the e-commerce giant.
Additionally, StumbleUpon, a Digg-like social recommendation site eBay acquired in 2007, recently said it was breaking away from the company to resume life as a venture-backed startup.
Three days later, eBay announced plans to pony up $1.2 billion to acquire South Korean online auction leader Gmarket. At its analysts' day, eBay identified the Asian market as a key driver of its future growth.
But to Citibank analyst Mark Mahaney, those moves are a sideshow compared to the fundamental problems facing eBay's primary business.
"In the core marketplace business, which is still north of 60 percent of their overall profits we haven't had a lot of major news," Mahaney said in a recent interview.
"What they need there is a lot of product innovation, probably some really aggressive moves to entice buyers to come back to eBay, and those buyers seem to be shedding away.
Want to know how much your item is worth on eBay
There are a lot of beginning sellers out there, and some with quite a bit of feedback under their belt, that do not fully understand the power of the eBay search engine, or how to find out how much their item is worth on eBay.. Well, lucky for you, I am here to help!
There are several ways to search for things on eBay, but this approach will look at how to research profit potential for any given item you have. It is a good way to see how much your item sells for, and how high you should set your bid to get the best price.
After reading this, you will be able to more effectively see how much your item is worth, and what its average selling price is.
For the first simple starter example, I will use an item that I was researching to see if it would be worth it to buy in hopes of reselling on eBay. The item was the "Garmin Edge 305 GPS with Heartrate and Cadence Monitor." But if I searched for that whole string I would find very few results. So, instead I just searched for "Garmin edge 305."
This regular search just showed me regular results, but I am not interested in that, I want to see what it has sold for in the last two weeks. To see completed listings you have to scroll down and select the "completed listings" button. Simple enough.
This shows which items sold (Green numbers) and which items did not sell (red numbers). This gave me 209 results for items that sold in the last two weeks. This is good because it shows me that it is not really a saturated market.
To narrow this down further I narrowed down my results by clicking the button on the left which only shows the items that were GPS devices, and then was further narrowed by selecting "Personal GPS Devices." This gave me only 98 results.
That is a very easy number to work with. With those 98 results I sorted by price: highest first. These are the people that I want to emulate, and the prices that I am shooting for.
To see how much an item routinely sells for, it is a good idea to scroll down the page and look for the red numbers (usually the highest numbers) to start to get replaced by the green numbers. The red numbers go from a max of about $280 to about $260 before they start to get green. I know from this that I can not expect to make more than $260 on this item.
From there I keep scrolling down until I see a large section of just green numbers that have a lot of bids next to them. These prices show how much people are willing to spend on this item. The top third of the solid green numbers is a good place to judge how much you should try to sell your item for. This item sells heavily from the $240-$220 price range.
After I narrowed the prices I want to sell my item for down, I can look in that section and see how much I can charge for shipping to maximize my profit. It looks like I can charge from $10 to $17 to have this item shipped. Since this item only costs about 8.95 to ship in a priority box I know that I can make a couple extra bucks on the shipping increase.
With all of this information compiled I would probably do a fixed price, or auction for this item starting at about $230, and charge about $10-13 for shipping.
This is the basic way that I research all of the items that I want to sell, to see the kind of price I should expect, and see where I should set my minimum bid if I do not want to lose any money.
However, there are easier ways to research the popularity of your product, and how much sells for, and even the average sell-through rate. The time saving tool that I have been using, that works very well and I am very happy with, is Hammertap. It is a great little program that researches about a month back or more, and does some pretty in depth research. It also has a free trial right now, for like two weeks!
If you have a lot of items to sell, or plan on doing a lot of research in about a month period, it is worth it to pay the minimal fee. It will save you a lot of time. That is, unless you would like to do it my free and relatively easy way.
Research on eBay is fairly easy with practice. If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them in the comment section. Good luck!
There are several ways to search for things on eBay, but this approach will look at how to research profit potential for any given item you have. It is a good way to see how much your item sells for, and how high you should set your bid to get the best price.
After reading this, you will be able to more effectively see how much your item is worth, and what its average selling price is.
For the first simple starter example, I will use an item that I was researching to see if it would be worth it to buy in hopes of reselling on eBay. The item was the "Garmin Edge 305 GPS with Heartrate and Cadence Monitor." But if I searched for that whole string I would find very few results. So, instead I just searched for "Garmin edge 305."
This regular search just showed me regular results, but I am not interested in that, I want to see what it has sold for in the last two weeks. To see completed listings you have to scroll down and select the "completed listings" button. Simple enough.
This shows which items sold (Green numbers) and which items did not sell (red numbers). This gave me 209 results for items that sold in the last two weeks. This is good because it shows me that it is not really a saturated market.
To narrow this down further I narrowed down my results by clicking the button on the left which only shows the items that were GPS devices, and then was further narrowed by selecting "Personal GPS Devices." This gave me only 98 results.
That is a very easy number to work with. With those 98 results I sorted by price: highest first. These are the people that I want to emulate, and the prices that I am shooting for.
To see how much an item routinely sells for, it is a good idea to scroll down the page and look for the red numbers (usually the highest numbers) to start to get replaced by the green numbers. The red numbers go from a max of about $280 to about $260 before they start to get green. I know from this that I can not expect to make more than $260 on this item.
From there I keep scrolling down until I see a large section of just green numbers that have a lot of bids next to them. These prices show how much people are willing to spend on this item. The top third of the solid green numbers is a good place to judge how much you should try to sell your item for. This item sells heavily from the $240-$220 price range.
After I narrowed the prices I want to sell my item for down, I can look in that section and see how much I can charge for shipping to maximize my profit. It looks like I can charge from $10 to $17 to have this item shipped. Since this item only costs about 8.95 to ship in a priority box I know that I can make a couple extra bucks on the shipping increase.
With all of this information compiled I would probably do a fixed price, or auction for this item starting at about $230, and charge about $10-13 for shipping.
This is the basic way that I research all of the items that I want to sell, to see the kind of price I should expect, and see where I should set my minimum bid if I do not want to lose any money.
However, there are easier ways to research the popularity of your product, and how much sells for, and even the average sell-through rate. The time saving tool that I have been using, that works very well and I am very happy with, is Hammertap. It is a great little program that researches about a month back or more, and does some pretty in depth research. It also has a free trial right now, for like two weeks!
If you have a lot of items to sell, or plan on doing a lot of research in about a month period, it is worth it to pay the minimal fee. It will save you a lot of time. That is, unless you would like to do it my free and relatively easy way.
Research on eBay is fairly easy with practice. If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them in the comment section. Good luck!
Thursday, April 23, 2009
A Look at Third Party eBay Tools
There are plenty of companies out there offering third party eBay tools. Most of them are web-based instead of downloadable, so you pay a monthly fee instead of just buying the software. But do you know what these sites can do for you? It can be hard to get to grips with what’s out there using a search engine, so here’s a quick rundown of the key players.
Vendio (www.vendio.com):
Vendio offer two editions of their software, Sales Manager: a Merchandising edition and an Inventory edition. The difference between the two is that the Merchandising edition is designed to make it easier to list individual auctions, while the Inventory edition is for sellers who sell many of the same item. They offer a pay-as-you go price of 10c per auction.
They also offer software called Tickets Manager, special software for people who sell lots of tickets on eBay – an odd product to have, but useful if you happen to sell tickets. Other services offered by Vendio include web and image hosting, fancy Flash galleries of your products for your listings, and stores.
ChannelAdvisor (www.channeladvisor.com):
ChannelAdvisor offer their software in three versions: Enterprise, Merchant and Pro. Enterprise and Merchant are both designed for very big businesses, though, and the chances are that the Pro version does everything you’d want.
ChannelAdvisor is popular among sellers who want a solution that they know is used and trusted on a very large scale by enterprise-level customers. It offers all the standard bulk listing and inventory features, as well as the unique feature of being able to create auctions from an Excel spreadsheet of your inventory. The cost is high, though, at $29.95 per month.
And Many, Many More…
eBay maintain a comprehensive directory of third-party software, which you can browse through anytime you have a few days to kill. You can look either for complete solutions or for each part of what you want individually – the choice is so daunting that there’s bound to be something out there for you. You can look at their directory at http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?SolutionsDirectory.
Once your items have sold and you’re about to ship them, you might be a little nervous about whether you can trust your buyer. Our next post will give you a few tips for spotting problem buyers before you send them anything.
Vendio (www.vendio.com):
Vendio offer two editions of their software, Sales Manager: a Merchandising edition and an Inventory edition. The difference between the two is that the Merchandising edition is designed to make it easier to list individual auctions, while the Inventory edition is for sellers who sell many of the same item. They offer a pay-as-you go price of 10c per auction.
They also offer software called Tickets Manager, special software for people who sell lots of tickets on eBay – an odd product to have, but useful if you happen to sell tickets. Other services offered by Vendio include web and image hosting, fancy Flash galleries of your products for your listings, and stores.
ChannelAdvisor (www.channeladvisor.com):
ChannelAdvisor offer their software in three versions: Enterprise, Merchant and Pro. Enterprise and Merchant are both designed for very big businesses, though, and the chances are that the Pro version does everything you’d want.
ChannelAdvisor is popular among sellers who want a solution that they know is used and trusted on a very large scale by enterprise-level customers. It offers all the standard bulk listing and inventory features, as well as the unique feature of being able to create auctions from an Excel spreadsheet of your inventory. The cost is high, though, at $29.95 per month.
And Many, Many More…
eBay maintain a comprehensive directory of third-party software, which you can browse through anytime you have a few days to kill. You can look either for complete solutions or for each part of what you want individually – the choice is so daunting that there’s bound to be something out there for you. You can look at their directory at http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?SolutionsDirectory.
Once your items have sold and you’re about to ship them, you might be a little nervous about whether you can trust your buyer. Our next post will give you a few tips for spotting problem buyers before you send them anything.
10 Tips for Being a Better Seller
If you’ve got this far, you’ve got the basics of eBay. There are a few things left, though, that you might not have thought of trying. Quite a few of these tips go against the advice many give for eBay selling – some are a little risky and some are just odd. They’re all worth a try, though, and I’m sure you’ll find at least some you want to keep using.
Keep more records: It might sound time consuming, but you’ll actually find it easier in the long run – less time spent trying to figure out which item that cheque you got this morning is for.
Post without payment: Don’t even wait for payment to clear! That might sound risky, but it’ll mean that the buyers get their items more quickly – for small items, you might find it worth the occasional loss to give such quick service.
Post every day: Once you start shifting a high volume of items, go and post them every day – again, they’ll get there more quickly, making your customers very happy. The best way to do this is if you have items small enough to drop in a postbox.
Encourage an auction mentality: Don’t have a Buy it Now price, and make it very clear when it’s the last or only stock you’ll be getting in. Always refer to winning bidders as ‘winners’.
Mention every defect your item has: Now why would you do that, you might ask? The answer is that it builds credibility: the small hit you take from the slight flaws is nothing compared to the big boost in trust you get for admitting it. People bid more when they trust the seller.
Say how you got the item: Don’t be afraid to go off on a tangent and give all sorts of fun details of how you got hold of what you’re selling – it gives your auction character and, again, builds trust.
Accept odd payment methods: Sooner or later you’re going to get a buyer who wants to pay by sending cash in an envelope, or something equally unusual. Why not let them? Be flexible.
Don’t be afraid to sell low: Let the occasional item go for a really low price to a good buyer. You might only just break even on the item, but the person who got that bargain will be back again and again.
Give Perks: Give free shipping for a certain number of orders, or orders over a certain amount. People might buy something else they don’t want as much, just to get the free shipping. (Amazon use this strategy to great effect).
Ship worldwide: Take the time to investigate the prices, and be nice to international customers – imagine how much you’re expanding your market. That’s not to mention the effect of people bidding highly for items that are rare in their country.
Another way to make it easier is to be a better seller is to use some of the many third party eBay tools that are available. The next post will take a look at a selection of tools you might find useful.
Keep more records: It might sound time consuming, but you’ll actually find it easier in the long run – less time spent trying to figure out which item that cheque you got this morning is for.
Post without payment: Don’t even wait for payment to clear! That might sound risky, but it’ll mean that the buyers get their items more quickly – for small items, you might find it worth the occasional loss to give such quick service.
Post every day: Once you start shifting a high volume of items, go and post them every day – again, they’ll get there more quickly, making your customers very happy. The best way to do this is if you have items small enough to drop in a postbox.
Encourage an auction mentality: Don’t have a Buy it Now price, and make it very clear when it’s the last or only stock you’ll be getting in. Always refer to winning bidders as ‘winners’.
Mention every defect your item has: Now why would you do that, you might ask? The answer is that it builds credibility: the small hit you take from the slight flaws is nothing compared to the big boost in trust you get for admitting it. People bid more when they trust the seller.
Say how you got the item: Don’t be afraid to go off on a tangent and give all sorts of fun details of how you got hold of what you’re selling – it gives your auction character and, again, builds trust.
Accept odd payment methods: Sooner or later you’re going to get a buyer who wants to pay by sending cash in an envelope, or something equally unusual. Why not let them? Be flexible.
Don’t be afraid to sell low: Let the occasional item go for a really low price to a good buyer. You might only just break even on the item, but the person who got that bargain will be back again and again.
Give Perks: Give free shipping for a certain number of orders, or orders over a certain amount. People might buy something else they don’t want as much, just to get the free shipping. (Amazon use this strategy to great effect).
Ship worldwide: Take the time to investigate the prices, and be nice to international customers – imagine how much you’re expanding your market. That’s not to mention the effect of people bidding highly for items that are rare in their country.
Another way to make it easier is to be a better seller is to use some of the many third party eBay tools that are available. The next post will take a look at a selection of tools you might find useful.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
eBay Makes $1.2B Proposal for Korea's Gmarket
Korean online marketplace Gmarket has reacted warmly to eBay's $1.2 billion purchase offer. Pending the approval of all necessary parties, eBay will join Gmarket with its existing Korean site, Internet Auction Co. The two could make a good match -- Gmarket is directed mainly at a female audience, while IAC markets mostly to male buyers.
eBay Earnings Call: Low Expectations
eBay will issue first calendar quarter earnings tomorrow after the close of trading on Wall Street, and investors will be looking for quite a bit of information on how the online marketplace is faring, particularly after news of an Initial Public Offering for its Internet phone service Skype, the purchase of South Korea's Gmarket and changes to its e-commerce strategy.
Most investors won't have high expectations, and therefore, if the news is bleak, won't be unpleasantly surprised, Steve Weinstein, research analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, told InternetNews.com.
"It does appear that e-commerce had a solid Q1, or at least better than anyone thought it would, so that could help eBay's numbers," he said. "But for the stock to move, there has to be a major reacceleration of their core business, and there's no real expectation for that to happen anytime soon."
Meanwhile, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) has been busy on three fronts: trying to capitalize on Skype; expanding its overseas marketshare; and adjusting its e-commerce policies to improve sales in the online marketplace.
eBay said last week it plans to take its Skype Internet telephony unit public, with an IPO planned for the first half of 2010. The move could mark the final chapter in eBay's dealings with Skype, the Voice over IP (VoIP) service it purchased in 2005 for $2.6 billion -- and has been struggling to figure out what to do with it ever since.
While Skype has proven a rousing success -- the unit took in revenues of $551 million in 2008, up 44 percent from 2007 -- eBay never achieved a way to leverage the VoIP firm to help its core auction business.
The IPO developments came after eBay told analysts earlier in the year that it would no longer look at Skype as a complementary service for e-commerce, but rather as its own entity poised todouble revenues by 2011.
eBay also grabbed headlines last week with news that it is buying South Korean online auctioneer Gmarket for $1.2 billion in cash in an effort to tap overseas growth potential.
The online marketplace agreed to buy 67 percent of Gmarket from investors, including Yahoo, and will make a offer of $24 a share for the rest, according to eBay's statement.
eBay plans to combine Gmarket with its South Korean unit Internet Auction Co., which is anticipated to double its sales there while shoring up its position to continue expansion in Asian markets.
Righting the ship
These developments, along with recent changes designed to improve its e-commerce experience, come at a time when eBay's strategy is to steer away from its genesis as an auction platform to a more diversified online marketplace focusing on overstock sales and more fixed-price sales after losing market share to rival Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN).
In its report last week, Barclays Capital came out with a tepid reaction to eBay's recent marketplace policy changes and Skype IPO, stating that while the developments were "positive....we remain cautious on the stock given the continued structural challenges facing the core marketplace biz."
The report goes on to say "Given current market conditions, we believe that the IPO announcement may be more about posturing on the part of eBay before an outright sale. However, we believe that a Skype IPO/sale could provide upside to our overall valuation of eBay.
"Significant Marketplace changes include: a new dispute resolution process, smart FAQs, introduction of multi-quantity fixed price listings, new product and item pages, & a package tracking feature. We believe that these changes are steps in the right direction, but more measures may be needed to have a more significant effect on the platform."
As for tomorrow's news, investors are likely hoping they won't hear more grim financial reports. eBay reported its first year-to-year revenue drop in January, with fourth quarter earnings down 31 percent from the same period a year ago.
eBay's total revenue of $2.04 billion for that quarter was down six percent, or $145 million, from 2007. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters at the time were expecting revenue of $2.1 billion.Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Power of eBay “Store Newsletters”
eBay Stores come with a very powerful feature: store newsletters. When buyers add your store to their favourites, you can offer them the chance to join your mailing list. You can then send highly targeted emails to people who you know were at least interested enough in your products to add the store to their favourites.
How Do I Send Them?
First, you need to get some people to sign up for your newsletter – this will happen with time, as people buy from you and browse your store.
Once you’ve got a few subscribers, it’s worth sending out a newsletter. To send store newsletters, go to My eBay, click ‘Manage My Store’, and then click ‘Email Marketing’. Once you’ve done that, click the ‘Create Email’ button, and you’re away.
All you need to do now is write an email subject and a message, choose any items you want to include in the email, and specify who you want to receive it. The subject and message can be something relatively generic, like ‘here are my latest deals’ – it’s the targeting that’s important, and eBay’s is powerful. You can choose to only send an email to people who’ve bought from you in the past, or only to people who’ve opened your email before.
It is important to note, though, that you can only send one email per week to a mailing list.
The Ups and Downs:
The downside of store newsletters is this: they’re expensive. A basic, $15.95 per month store only comes with 100 emails, while $49.95 comes with 1000. Even the $499.95 anchor store only comes with 4000! Extra emails for all stores cost 1 cent each. That’s $1 per hundred extra emails. If your mailing list has a significant number of people on it, then that’ll get really expensive, really fast.
Surprisingly, though, it can often be worth it, despite the cost. It’s very rare to send out a newsletter to a mailing list of a hundred and not get at least one sale, and you’ll often get three or four, even to small lists.
Measure Your Success:
Each time you send an email, eBay produces a report telling you how well that email did. You can view these reports on the ‘Email Marketing’ page by clicking the subject line of an email you sent.
This report will show how many people received your email, how many opened it, the number of clicks it generated on your items and your store, and the number of bids and Buy it Now purchases that resulted from the email. Some of the numbers might be too low, though, as many people use email software that displays email in plain text format and so stops eBay from collecting statistics. Also, you will notice that you’ll have more success if you send out emails regularly, as people will start to expect them, and react in a more open way – don’t expect the Earth from your first email.
By now, you’re probably getting pretty good at selling on eBay – isn’t it nice to have all those satisfied customers? Not to mention the money… However well you’re doing, though, there’s always room for improvement. The next post will give you ten tips for being an even better seller.
How Do I Send Them?
First, you need to get some people to sign up for your newsletter – this will happen with time, as people buy from you and browse your store.
Once you’ve got a few subscribers, it’s worth sending out a newsletter. To send store newsletters, go to My eBay, click ‘Manage My Store’, and then click ‘Email Marketing’. Once you’ve done that, click the ‘Create Email’ button, and you’re away.
All you need to do now is write an email subject and a message, choose any items you want to include in the email, and specify who you want to receive it. The subject and message can be something relatively generic, like ‘here are my latest deals’ – it’s the targeting that’s important, and eBay’s is powerful. You can choose to only send an email to people who’ve bought from you in the past, or only to people who’ve opened your email before.
It is important to note, though, that you can only send one email per week to a mailing list.
The Ups and Downs:
The downside of store newsletters is this: they’re expensive. A basic, $15.95 per month store only comes with 100 emails, while $49.95 comes with 1000. Even the $499.95 anchor store only comes with 4000! Extra emails for all stores cost 1 cent each. That’s $1 per hundred extra emails. If your mailing list has a significant number of people on it, then that’ll get really expensive, really fast.
Surprisingly, though, it can often be worth it, despite the cost. It’s very rare to send out a newsletter to a mailing list of a hundred and not get at least one sale, and you’ll often get three or four, even to small lists.
Measure Your Success:
Each time you send an email, eBay produces a report telling you how well that email did. You can view these reports on the ‘Email Marketing’ page by clicking the subject line of an email you sent.
This report will show how many people received your email, how many opened it, the number of clicks it generated on your items and your store, and the number of bids and Buy it Now purchases that resulted from the email. Some of the numbers might be too low, though, as many people use email software that displays email in plain text format and so stops eBay from collecting statistics. Also, you will notice that you’ll have more success if you send out emails regularly, as people will start to expect them, and react in a more open way – don’t expect the Earth from your first email.
By now, you’re probably getting pretty good at selling on eBay – isn’t it nice to have all those satisfied customers? Not to mention the money… However well you’re doing, though, there’s always room for improvement. The next post will give you ten tips for being an even better seller.
Special Rules for Selling Software on eBay
Computer software is one of the biggest sellers on eBay – after all, everyone using eBay has a computer, don’t they? There can be problems, however, if you try to sell certain kinds of software that eBay doesn’t allow. Used software is a minefield, and you could end up buying something dodgy to resell without even realising it.
Here are the various kinds of software that you’re not allowed to sell on eBay, and how to spot them. You should always try installing used software before you sell it, as this might give you a few clues.
Pirate Software:
This one is reasonably obvious, but pirate software can be hard to spot. The biggest things to look out for are auctions that don’t have pictures or only have pictures from catalogues, unrealistically low prices, and come with no manuals or documentation. Microsoft software comes with a ‘Certificate of Authenticity’, which you should check. Software that is on recordable media such as CD-RWs is usually pirated.
If you see software that offered for download only, it is often pirated – but not always. Some small software developers allow download licenses for their software to be resold on sites like eBay. Type the name of the software into a search engine, and go to the manufacturer’s site to check. Remember that software you download is very unlikely to come with resale rights, though.
Beta Software:
Beta software is pre-release software, issued by companies for testing purposes. Companies generally do not give permission for their beta software to be sold or redistributed, as it won’t be as good as the final product. Do not buy anything that says it is ‘beta’, and return anything you receive that says ‘beta’ or ‘not for resale or distribution’ anywhere on the CD or during the install.
Academic Software:
Some companies sell special ‘educational editions’ or ‘student licenses’ for their software, which are designed to make it affordable to students and teachers. You can only sell this software if you are a licensed educational reseller for the company, and your buyers are educational users. Academic software will usually say somewhere on its CD or in its installation what it is.
OEM Software:
OEM stands for ‘Original Equipment Manufacturer’ – this is software that is only supposed to be distributed with a new computer, as it came pre-installed on the computer. The licences for this software usually stop you from selling it without also selling any hardware. Look out for the message ‘for sale with a new computer only’, or similar. Note, though, that it’s usually fine to bundle any OEM software you come across with computers that you sell on eBay.
If you sell any kind of software that isn’t allowed, then eBay might shut down your auction, or your sellers might realise what they’ve bought and leave you bad feedback. It’s not really worth the risk.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, how about we try to get you a few more customers for the items you have that aren’t against the rules. In the next post, we’ll take a look at the real power of eBay store newsletters.
Here are the various kinds of software that you’re not allowed to sell on eBay, and how to spot them. You should always try installing used software before you sell it, as this might give you a few clues.
Pirate Software:
This one is reasonably obvious, but pirate software can be hard to spot. The biggest things to look out for are auctions that don’t have pictures or only have pictures from catalogues, unrealistically low prices, and come with no manuals or documentation. Microsoft software comes with a ‘Certificate of Authenticity’, which you should check. Software that is on recordable media such as CD-RWs is usually pirated.
If you see software that offered for download only, it is often pirated – but not always. Some small software developers allow download licenses for their software to be resold on sites like eBay. Type the name of the software into a search engine, and go to the manufacturer’s site to check. Remember that software you download is very unlikely to come with resale rights, though.
Beta Software:
Beta software is pre-release software, issued by companies for testing purposes. Companies generally do not give permission for their beta software to be sold or redistributed, as it won’t be as good as the final product. Do not buy anything that says it is ‘beta’, and return anything you receive that says ‘beta’ or ‘not for resale or distribution’ anywhere on the CD or during the install.
Academic Software:
Some companies sell special ‘educational editions’ or ‘student licenses’ for their software, which are designed to make it affordable to students and teachers. You can only sell this software if you are a licensed educational reseller for the company, and your buyers are educational users. Academic software will usually say somewhere on its CD or in its installation what it is.
OEM Software:
OEM stands for ‘Original Equipment Manufacturer’ – this is software that is only supposed to be distributed with a new computer, as it came pre-installed on the computer. The licences for this software usually stop you from selling it without also selling any hardware. Look out for the message ‘for sale with a new computer only’, or similar. Note, though, that it’s usually fine to bundle any OEM software you come across with computers that you sell on eBay.
If you sell any kind of software that isn’t allowed, then eBay might shut down your auction, or your sellers might realise what they’ve bought and leave you bad feedback. It’s not really worth the risk.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, how about we try to get you a few more customers for the items you have that aren’t against the rules. In the next post, we’ll take a look at the real power of eBay store newsletters.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Interesting eBay announcement
Earlier in the year, eBay announced that it would be making two big announcements per year regarding the eBay Marketplace. Each announcement would be made 60 days in advance of when the changes were scheduled.
eBay has now made the first announcement of the year, and it includes three groups of changes, each with components of their own. As highlighted by eBay the new changes are as follows:
1. Easier, more visual shopping-plus buyer incentives to drive more sales
For one, there is a new item page, that eBay says can impact how your listings are displayed.
There are new product pages. "When buyers search for popular items in some categories like Music or Electronics, they will be presented with a page that displays the products associated with their search terms," eBay explains. "eBay identifies listings for these product searches by looking at 'product details' in a listing (formerly called 'pre-filled item information') to see if there's a match to details stored in our master database (catalog) of products."
eBay tells sellers to make sure product details are listed whenever available to ensure inclusion on product pages.
There is also a new way to list items with multiple variations such as size and color for fixed price listings.
Last on the list for number one, is eBay's "big investments" in buyer incentives and loyalty. They're aggressively trying to drive more traffic to eBay through incentives and rewards for buyers.
2. Key information to set buyer expectations and help reduce your costs
eBay has developed a "Smart FAQ" section that draws "live" information from listings to answer the top 20 buyer questions before buyers reach sellers through "ask a question." You can review and customize questions, or you can simply have buyers go straight to you with their questions.
They have also introduced package tracking in My eBay. "Sellers are responsible for their items until they arrive safely in the buyer's hands. 'Where's my stuff?' is one of the most common buyer questions," says eBay. "When buyers can easily find out for themselves, they're more satisfied with transactions and leave sellers higher shipping DSRs."
Other items that fall into number 2 include:
- Return policy and handling time-deadline extended
- Customized Item Specifics
- Category and item specific changes
3. More updates to make selling on eBay "more efficient"
eBay Resolutions are a subject that should be of great interest to sellers. eBay says:
We are introducing a new, more efficient dispute resolution process for when buyers claim an item was not received or the item they received was different than described in the listing. The goals of the new process are to keep buyers on eBay by giving them a more familiar eCommerce resolution experience, and to reduce the time buyers and sellers spend resolving issues.
Direct communication between buyers and sellers will continue to be strongly encouraged. With the new process, buyers and sellers will also have an option to call eBay. We'll be taking a more active role, and in certain cases when we determine the seller was not at fault we may refund the buyer at our own expense.
eBay will also start directing buyers to resolve disputes on eBay instead of PayPal. This process will be "gradually transitioned," according to the company.
Other updates that fall into this last category include:
- Free Selling Manager with new applications
- Pay shipping, print labels right on eBay
- Tools to bulk edit your listings
There are many more details on every new feature mentioned here at eBay's site. The changes are expected to go into effect on June 15th (though possibly later in some places).
eBay has now made the first announcement of the year, and it includes three groups of changes, each with components of their own. As highlighted by eBay the new changes are as follows:
1. Easier, more visual shopping-plus buyer incentives to drive more sales
For one, there is a new item page, that eBay says can impact how your listings are displayed.
There are new product pages. "When buyers search for popular items in some categories like Music or Electronics, they will be presented with a page that displays the products associated with their search terms," eBay explains. "eBay identifies listings for these product searches by looking at 'product details' in a listing (formerly called 'pre-filled item information') to see if there's a match to details stored in our master database (catalog) of products."
eBay tells sellers to make sure product details are listed whenever available to ensure inclusion on product pages.
There is also a new way to list items with multiple variations such as size and color for fixed price listings.
Last on the list for number one, is eBay's "big investments" in buyer incentives and loyalty. They're aggressively trying to drive more traffic to eBay through incentives and rewards for buyers.
2. Key information to set buyer expectations and help reduce your costs
eBay has developed a "Smart FAQ" section that draws "live" information from listings to answer the top 20 buyer questions before buyers reach sellers through "ask a question." You can review and customize questions, or you can simply have buyers go straight to you with their questions.
They have also introduced package tracking in My eBay. "Sellers are responsible for their items until they arrive safely in the buyer's hands. 'Where's my stuff?' is one of the most common buyer questions," says eBay. "When buyers can easily find out for themselves, they're more satisfied with transactions and leave sellers higher shipping DSRs."
Other items that fall into number 2 include:
- Return policy and handling time-deadline extended
- Customized Item Specifics
- Category and item specific changes
3. More updates to make selling on eBay "more efficient"
eBay Resolutions are a subject that should be of great interest to sellers. eBay says:
We are introducing a new, more efficient dispute resolution process for when buyers claim an item was not received or the item they received was different than described in the listing. The goals of the new process are to keep buyers on eBay by giving them a more familiar eCommerce resolution experience, and to reduce the time buyers and sellers spend resolving issues.
Direct communication between buyers and sellers will continue to be strongly encouraged. With the new process, buyers and sellers will also have an option to call eBay. We'll be taking a more active role, and in certain cases when we determine the seller was not at fault we may refund the buyer at our own expense.
eBay will also start directing buyers to resolve disputes on eBay instead of PayPal. This process will be "gradually transitioned," according to the company.
Other updates that fall into this last category include:
- Free Selling Manager with new applications
- Pay shipping, print labels right on eBay
- Tools to bulk edit your listings
There are many more details on every new feature mentioned here at eBay's site. The changes are expected to go into effect on June 15th (though possibly later in some places).
When and How to Cancel an eBay Auction Early
One day, you might decide that you want to end an auction early. Before you do, though, you should consider why you want to do it: cancelling auctions upsets buyers and upsets eBay, and there might be a better to way to get what you want.
I Want to Change my Listing:
If you just want to revise your listing, you don’t always need to end it. For listings that have more than 12 hours left to run and haven’t received any bids, you can revise almost everything. You can remove the Buy it Now price or reserve price, change the duration of the listing, or add listing upgrades.
If the listing already has one or more bids, then you can still add upgrades, or add to the description.
You add more pictures too, if you want to. Once the listing gets into its last 12 hours, however, what you can do becomes far more limited, even if it has no bids: you can only really add to the description.
It’s a very bad idea, by the way, to cancel one listing and ask bidders to bid on another listing for the same item instead. The chances are they’ll be annoyed with you, and won’t bother.
The Item is No Longer for Sale:
Perhaps you sold the item to someone else, you lost it or it got broken. Whatever happened, if you no longer have the item to sell, you should remove your listing – in fact, this is just about the only situation when eBay allow you to.
However, you need to make sure you get the listing removed quickly – if you leave it to the last 12 hours, eBay will refuse to let you remove it, whatever has happened. This might seem cruel, but it’s there to stop people from backing out in the last few hours because they want to try again for a better price.
So How Do I End My Listing Early?
You can do it at this page: http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?EndingMyAuction. Just type in the item number and hit ‘Continue’.
Now, be very careful. The option you almost certainly want to choose is ‘Cancel bids and end listing early’, NOT ‘Sell item to high bidder and end listing early’. You’ll be asked to choose a reason why you ended the listing, and then it will end. Your bidders will be emailed to let them know what happened.
Note that ending a listing early because it looked like it wasn’t going to get a good price is against the rules, and eBay could come after you and get upset.
Speaking of breaking the rules, if you’re selling software on eBay, did you know that there are special rules that apply to you? Plenty of sellers have no idea, and are being caught out every day – that’s why our next post will explain the rules clearly for you, just in case you need to know.
I Want to Change my Listing:
If you just want to revise your listing, you don’t always need to end it. For listings that have more than 12 hours left to run and haven’t received any bids, you can revise almost everything. You can remove the Buy it Now price or reserve price, change the duration of the listing, or add listing upgrades.
If the listing already has one or more bids, then you can still add upgrades, or add to the description.
You add more pictures too, if you want to. Once the listing gets into its last 12 hours, however, what you can do becomes far more limited, even if it has no bids: you can only really add to the description.
It’s a very bad idea, by the way, to cancel one listing and ask bidders to bid on another listing for the same item instead. The chances are they’ll be annoyed with you, and won’t bother.
The Item is No Longer for Sale:
Perhaps you sold the item to someone else, you lost it or it got broken. Whatever happened, if you no longer have the item to sell, you should remove your listing – in fact, this is just about the only situation when eBay allow you to.
However, you need to make sure you get the listing removed quickly – if you leave it to the last 12 hours, eBay will refuse to let you remove it, whatever has happened. This might seem cruel, but it’s there to stop people from backing out in the last few hours because they want to try again for a better price.
So How Do I End My Listing Early?
You can do it at this page: http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?EndingMyAuction. Just type in the item number and hit ‘Continue’.
Now, be very careful. The option you almost certainly want to choose is ‘Cancel bids and end listing early’, NOT ‘Sell item to high bidder and end listing early’. You’ll be asked to choose a reason why you ended the listing, and then it will end. Your bidders will be emailed to let them know what happened.
Note that ending a listing early because it looked like it wasn’t going to get a good price is against the rules, and eBay could come after you and get upset.
Speaking of breaking the rules, if you’re selling software on eBay, did you know that there are special rules that apply to you? Plenty of sellers have no idea, and are being caught out every day – that’s why our next post will explain the rules clearly for you, just in case you need to know.
Streamline process design changed by eBay
More changes are coming to eBay Inc. The online marketplace operator said Tuesday that sellers will have new ways of listing items on the site.
eBay, which had 86.3 million active users at the end of 2008, said the tweaks are to become effective in mid-June.
Among the changes: Sellers will be able to charge various prices for similar products that are sold under one listing - such as different-size shirts. And now June 15 is the deadline for sellers to add a return policy and handling time to their listings. That rule was originally supposed to take effect last month.
eBay also is adding a feature called Smart FAQ, which will automatically take information from site listings to give buyers answers to a number of top questions - such as whether a seller will ship items internationally. A seller wouldn't have to respond personally.
The San Jose company added that starting in the second quarter it will handle disputes between buyers and sellers through eBay itself, rather than on the dispute-resolution section of its online payments service, PayPal, as it had in the past.
eBay said the change is meant in part to cut down the time spent settling problems between buyers and sellers. It expects to handle all disputes on eBay before the start of the 2009 holiday season.
eBay spokesman Usher Lieberman said the company decided to announce all the changes at once, about two months before they will be implemented, in response to sellers' requests for more predictability about site adjustments.
The changes are the latest in a long line of alterations the company has made as it has struggled to improve its online marketplace. They are being announced a month after eBay acknowledged it still has a long way to go.
At the time, chief executive John Donahoe echoed what many on Wall Street have long believed - that eBay's marketplace business has not kept pace with the changing competitive landscape and customers' needs. Donahoe pledged to pick up eBay's pace of innovation.
Customer disputes will be handled by eBay
eBay today announced it will take a more active role in resolving transaction disputes between buyers and sellers and start directing buyers to eBay directly, rather than sending complaints to PayPal, the company's online payment unit.
The news comes during a time when eBay is currently shifting its marketplace focus from online auctions to more fixed-price sales, in attempt to keep pace with rival Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), and recently opened up a new seller system called Large Merchant Services for high-volume catalog sellers.
Policy changes employed last year prompted unprecedented seller boycotts and mainstream media coverage while industry watchers speculated that a significant amount of sellers would leave eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) for alternative sites.
Starting in mid-June, the auction giant will "in some cases" issue refunds at its own expense to customers claiming they either didn't receive the item they purchased, or got a different item altogether -- even if the seller wasn't at fault.
However, in what may become yet another battle ground between eBay management and its member e-tailers, the policy also states eBay may reimburse buyers and seek compensation from sellers "when appropriate."
eBay will also be transitioning buyer-seller disputes from PayPal to eBay, which is a radical change in the way the company previously operated. Some sellers travel to the annual eBay Live tradeshow each year just to get answers to questions, as the online marketplace company is notorious for being hard to contact with buyer issues.
"The goals of the new process are to keep buyers on eBay by giving them a more familiar eCommerce resolution experience, and to reduce the time buyers and sellers spend resolving issues," wrote Stephanie Tilenius, senior vice president and general manager of eBay North America, in eBay's spring news announcement today.
"Direct communication between buyers and sellers will continue to be strongly encouraged. With the new process, buyers and sellers will also have an option to call eBay. We'll be taking a more active role, and in certain cases when we determine the seller was not at fault we may refund the buyer at our own expense," she added.
The company also will make its merchant tool "Selling Manager" free for all online vendors, and will move online shipping services from PayPal to eBay to make it faster and easier to pay for shipping and print labels.
The new rules
According to the new dispute policy, "Once complete, the new on-eBay resolution process, backed by eBay customer support, will serve as the primary entry point for buyers who are unable to resolve disputes with eBay sellers."
If a buyer has been unsuccessful in working directly with a seller, the buyer can contact eBay via a toll-free number or via Web-form. Customer Support representatives review the case, examining transaction details such as item description, buyer and seller track record, seller location, payment and shipping details.
If the buyer's claim warrants further investigation, eBay will contact the seller. The new system will be rolled out gradually and be in place for all sellers by the holiday selling season, according to eBay.
eBay grouped the announcements into three categories: Easier, more visual shopping, plus buyer incentives to drive more sales; key information including key information to set buyer expectations and help reduce your costs, which includes things like a "Smart FAQ" to address common buyer concerns; and "other updates to make selling on eBay more efficient," which encompassed the new dispute resolution policy.
Many of the other changes have already been announced, previewed or are expansions of existing features on the site, and sellers will be relieved to see no mentions of fee increases after last year's pricing changes.
Still, a vague part of the new dispute policy is likely to come under attack from sellers. Though eBay said in its statement in cases where "both buyer and seller may be right," it will absorb the cost to reimburse the buyer on behalf of merchant, it also states "If five business days elapse without a response or a refund to the buyer, eBay will refund the cost of the item and shipping to the buyer and, when appropriate, seek to recover transaction funds from the seller."eBay makes changes to site
More changes are coming to eBay. The online marketplace operator announced Tuesday that sellers will have new ways of listing items on the site.
San Jose, Calif.-based eBay Inc., which had 86.3 million active users at the end of 2008, said the tweaks are to become effective in mid-June.
Among the changes: Sellers will be able to charge various prices for similar products that are sold under one listing — such as different-sized shirts. And now June 15 is the deadline for sellers to add a return policy and handling time to their listings. That rule was originally supposed to take effect last month.
EBay also is adding a feature called "Smart FAQ," which will automatically take information from site listings to give buyers answers to a number of top questions — such as whether a seller will ship items internationally. A seller wouldn't have to respond personally.
The company added that that starting in the second quarter it will start handling disputes between buyers and sellers through eBay itself, rather than on the dispute-resolution section of its online payments service, PayPal, as it had in the past.
EBay said the change is meant in part to cut down the time spent settling problems between buyers and sellers. It expects to handle all disputes on eBay before the start of the 2009 holiday season.
EBay spokesman Usher Lieberman said the company decided to announce all the changes at once, about two months before they will be implemented, in response to sellers' requests for more predictability about site adjustments.
The changes are the latest in a long line of alterations the company has made as it has struggled to improve its online marketplace. They are being announced a month after eBay acknowledged it still has a long way to go.
At the time, Chief Executive John Donahoe echoed what many on Wall Street have long believed — that eBay's marketplace business has not kept pace with the changing competitive landscape and customers' needs. Donahoe pledged to pick up eBay's pace of innovation.
EBay shares fell 32 cents, 2.2 percent, to $14.31 in midday trading Tuesday.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Abbreviations & Acronyms for Selling
The following is a list of common abbreviations and acronyms used to describe items offered for sale online. Some terms are category specific, and therefore should only be used when describing certain items. But not all abbreviations and acronyms belong in the title of your listing. In some instances the actual word versus the abbreviation might be more recognizable and searchable.
General Use
- AUTO – Autographed
- BNWT – Brand New with Tags
- EC – Excellent Condition
- FS – Factory Sealed
- GU – Gently Used
- LTD – Limited Edition
- MIB – Mint in Box (Box not necessarily Mint)
- NIB – New in Box
- NIP – New in Package
- NM – Near Mint
- NWOT – New Without Tags
- NWT – New With Tags
- OOP – Out of Package/ Out of Print/ Out of Production
- S/O – Sold Out
- SIG – Signature
- SZ – Size
- TM – Trademark
- VG – Very Good Condition
- VHTF – Very Hard to Find
Category Specific
- 1st – First Edition (Books, Collectibles, Toys and Hobbies)
- Ed. – Edition (Books, Collectibles, Toys and Hobbies)
- F/E or FE – First Edition (Toys and Hobbies, Collectibles)
- FN – Fine Condition (Books, Comics)
- AKA – Also Known As; an alias (DVDs, Movies, Music)
- NRFB – Never Removed from Box (Collectibles)
- OOAK – One of a Kind (Collectibles)
- S/S – Still Sealed (Clothing, Shoes and Accessories)
- VF – Very Fine Condition (Stamps, Coins, Collectibles)
- STER – Sterling (Jewelry)
Technical
- CIB – Cartridge in Box or Instructions in Box (as in computer equipment)
- CIBO – Cartridge, instruction, box, overlay (video games, computer equipment)
- CPU – Central Processing Unit
- Ghz – Gigahertz (processor speed)
- G or Gig – Gigabyte
- LCD – Liquid Crystal Display
- MB – Megabyte
- Mhz – Megahertz (processor speed)
- OS – Operating System
- RAM – Random Access Memory
What Sells Online: Antique Furniture
The definition of “antique” varies from person to person, but many collectors and dealers use it to designate furniture that is at least 100 years old. Buyers of old furniture acquire it for a variety of reasons—some collect pieces made by specific designers; others are looking for unusual items to furnish their homes.
In general, everyday furniture sells best through an online Classifieds site such as craigslist. Antique furniture, on the other hand, can also be sold through an online marketplace such as eBay, a popular source for historians, collectors and design enthusiasts alike.
In general, everyday furniture sells best through an online Classifieds site such as craigslist. Antique furniture, on the other hand, can also be sold through an online marketplace such as eBay, a popular source for historians, collectors and design enthusiasts alike.
What Sells
A wide range of antique furniture is sold online, including:
A wide range of antique furniture is sold online, including:
- Sofas and chairs
- Dining sets (tables, chairs, buffets and hutches)
- Bedroom sets and individual pieces
- Cabinets and armoires
- Doors and hardware
- Commercial and institutional furniture (from offices, hospitals, restaurants, etc.
- Pews and confessionals from old churches
Furniture Styles
The range of antique furniture offered for sale online is incredibly varied. Some of the most collected styles include:
- Gothic: heavily ornamented with trefoils and pointed arches
- Early American and Colonial: featuring turned wood and padded or caned chair seats
- Louis XIV: elaborate, oversized pieces often painted white with gilt trim and marquetry inlays
- Neo-classical: featuring graceful designs by renowned designers Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Sheraton and Duncan Phyfe
- Shaker: characterized by straight tapered legs, woven square chair seats and mushroom-shaped wooden knobs
- Victorian: featuring heavy proportions, dark finishes and elaborate carvings and ornamentation (often recalling earlier Gothic styles)
- Arts & Crafts and Mission: substantial furniture often made of oak with strong horizontal and vertical lines
Research Resources
Two excellent books that will help you identify different types of furniture are The Encyclopedia of Furniture by Joseph Aronson and The Bulfinch Anatomy of Antique Furniture by Tim Forrest and Paul Atterbury. These will help you determine not only the style but also the age and types of wood (and other materials) used in creating each piece.
Condition
Antique furniture is rarely in perfect, like-new condition. Even if a chair or table wasn’t subjected to decades of daily use, it might not have been stored properly resulting in damage due to excessive heat, moisture, bugs or mold. Fortunately, many older furniture pieces were constructed with excellent materials and craftsmanship, and are therefore able to withstand the ravages of time and Grandma’s basement.
Inspect antique furniture carefully:
- Look at the back and undersides (you may find the maker’s name hidden here; if so, be sure to include a photo in your listing)
- Open doors and remove all drawers so that you can look at every side
- Gently press seat cushions to test stuffing and springs
- Insert and remove leaves from tables
- Test all other moving parts
In your listing, describe and take photos of all damage, including:
- Scuffs, scratches and gouges
- Faded, worn or ripped upholstery
- Chipped, cracked or broken glass in cabinet doors
- Missing handles and door pulls
- Rusted or broken hinges
- Warped, cracked or split wood
- Uneven or wobbly legs
- Damage from water, alcohol, wax and other substances
Faded paint, dirt and worn finishes aren’t necessarily negatives; original finishes are often prized by collectors, so don’t have the item cleaned and refinished before selling it. You can remove dust with a soft cloth but don’t use polish, oil or wax; let the buyer worry about that.
Key Details
- Type (dining set, console table, chair, etc.)
- Maker/designer (if known, many antiques are unsigned)
- Style (Louis XIV, neoclassical, etc.)
- Age (an approximation like “mid-1700s” or “Edwardian” will do if exact age is unknown)
- Region of origin
- Material (cherry, mahogany, etc.)
- Original or a reproduction
Storage and Shipping
Keep antique furniture in a well-ventilated room, away from children, pets, smoke and cooking odors. Don’t place an item in direct sunlight; cover it with a sheet or better yet, keep the windows covered. Don’t place items next to heating vents or air conditioners either, since temperature/humidity changes can cause damage.
Large furniture may require expensive shipping; before you accept an item for sale, determine how you will ship it (to be picked up locally, shipped by freight or another method). Estimate the shipping total and include the amount in your listing. Also, measure the item and make sure you can fit it into your vehicle and through your front door.
Some furniture pieces can be easily disassembled. If you take an item apart, be sure to label the parts clearly so that you can easily reassemble the piece. Store fasteners and other small parts in Ziplock bags and label the bags with a permanent marker. Be extremely careful when using tape on furniture; blue painter’s tape is easily removable but can damage the finish.
Skype IPO to be released in 2010 by eBay
Just 24 hours after divesting itself of StumbleUpon, eBay is making a much bigger but much anticipated move: announcing plans to spin-off Skype as its own, public company. According to eBay, the IPO will “be completed in the first half of 2010.”
The news follows recent rumors that Skype’s founders were attempting to put together an investment group to buy back the company from eBay. That plan appears to have never materialized, as eBay is instead opting to take Skype to the public markets.
On its own, Skype is a quickly growing company, though, that growth has slowed somewhat in recent months as the Internet telephone service has run into the laws of large numbers. In total, there are currently more than 400 million Skype users, and the company generated $551 million in revenue in 2008.
Much like StumbleUpon, Skype didn’t really fit into eBay’s main businesses - auctions and payments (PayPal) - and the company has acknowledged as such for some time. The company’s CEO, John Donahoe, reiterated that again in today’s announcement, saying “it’s clear that Skype has limited synergies with eBay and PayPal. We believe operating Skype as a stand-alone publicly traded company is the best path for maximizing its potential.”
Ultimately, the Skype IPO, when it happens, will be a hugely important event for the Web world, and potentially pave the way for IPOs of other quickly growing companies like Facebook. However, much of how it will be received will depend on issues outside of Skype’s control - like the rebound (or lack thereof) of the global economy and stock market.
Tips for Managing Multiple eBay Auctions
It can be very time-consuming to keep your auctions ticking along, especially if you have hundreds listed at a time. Don’t despair, though: there are a few things you can do to take the weight off you.
Use My eBay:
If you want a broad overview of where you are with your auctions, make sure you pay a visit to My eBay occasionally instead of just relying on emails. With my eBay, you can see all your auctions in a big table, and sort by things like the number of bids and the current price. If you want to see which of your auctions currently has no bids, then you can do that.
One of the most useful things about My eBay, though, is the ‘Summary’ view. If you’re not sure what you should be doing next, then this acts effectively as an eBay to-do list: anything you need to be doing will end up here.
Use Selling Manager:
If you’re willing to pay the fee of $4.99 per month, you can sign up for Selling Manager, which is a more effective version of the My eBay ‘Selling’ view. It lets you customise your view more effectively to see the information that’s important to you, see useful snapshots of how things are going, make automated responses to your buyers using email templates, and more.
Selling Manager Pro gives you more features: it keeps track of inventory for you, and lets you relist items in bulk. It will even produce a monthly profit and loss report to help you keep track of the big picture. Unfortunately, it costs $15.99 per month.
Use a Listing Tool:
Even though they’re called listing tools, much of the software out there lets you manage what you’re doing long after it’s been listed, with all the features of Selling Manager and sometimes a few more besides. This programs also often have the advantage of being programs instead of websites, meaning they’re faster to respond and can do more sophisticated analysis.
Remember the ‘Relist’ Button:
After your auctions end each time, there’s an easy way to put the exact same thing back again: the ‘Relist’ button. You can Relist items quickly and easily this way, as long as you don’t want to change in the listing.
Pay Someone:
Here’s something you might not have considered: if you’re listing so many expensive items that even automated selling tools take too long to use, then have you considered paying someone to help out, as an employee? After all, you wouldn’t try to staff a shop full-time on your own, would you? If you already run a business, you could even give the responsibility to someone who works for you there. Freeing up your own time to do something else might pay off for you in the long run.
When you’re managing so many auctions, sooner or later you might need to cancel one of them early. The next post will let you know when and how you can do it.
Use My eBay:
If you want a broad overview of where you are with your auctions, make sure you pay a visit to My eBay occasionally instead of just relying on emails. With my eBay, you can see all your auctions in a big table, and sort by things like the number of bids and the current price. If you want to see which of your auctions currently has no bids, then you can do that.
One of the most useful things about My eBay, though, is the ‘Summary’ view. If you’re not sure what you should be doing next, then this acts effectively as an eBay to-do list: anything you need to be doing will end up here.
Use Selling Manager:
If you’re willing to pay the fee of $4.99 per month, you can sign up for Selling Manager, which is a more effective version of the My eBay ‘Selling’ view. It lets you customise your view more effectively to see the information that’s important to you, see useful snapshots of how things are going, make automated responses to your buyers using email templates, and more.
Selling Manager Pro gives you more features: it keeps track of inventory for you, and lets you relist items in bulk. It will even produce a monthly profit and loss report to help you keep track of the big picture. Unfortunately, it costs $15.99 per month.
Use a Listing Tool:
Even though they’re called listing tools, much of the software out there lets you manage what you’re doing long after it’s been listed, with all the features of Selling Manager and sometimes a few more besides. This programs also often have the advantage of being programs instead of websites, meaning they’re faster to respond and can do more sophisticated analysis.
Remember the ‘Relist’ Button:
After your auctions end each time, there’s an easy way to put the exact same thing back again: the ‘Relist’ button. You can Relist items quickly and easily this way, as long as you don’t want to change in the listing.
Pay Someone:
Here’s something you might not have considered: if you’re listing so many expensive items that even automated selling tools take too long to use, then have you considered paying someone to help out, as an employee? After all, you wouldn’t try to staff a shop full-time on your own, would you? If you already run a business, you could even give the responsibility to someone who works for you there. Freeing up your own time to do something else might pay off for you in the long run.
When you’re managing so many auctions, sooner or later you might need to cancel one of them early. The next post will let you know when and how you can do it.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
How to Report and Handle eBay Transaction Problems
Even when there aren’t any disputes, you might run into a few transaction problems on eBay – glitches that aren’t really anyone’s fault, but are just the result of a technical malfunction or another situation beyond the buyer or seller’s control. The number one cause of problems like this is email.
Email Problems:
If you use the Internet a lot, you’ll no doubt be familiar with the problems eBay can cause, and many buyers and sellers are relying on email to keep them informed about their transactions.
Sometimes, you might find that your emails to a seller bounce –you might have the wrong email address, or there could be a problem with their email. This happens especially often when buyers have free webmail accounts at places like Hotmail and Yahoo Mail.
When this happens, the buyer might not know you’re trying to contact them. Consider it urgent to contact them in the real world, before they leave you bad feedback. To find out someone’s real-world contact details, follow these steps: Click ‘Advanced Search’ near the top of your eBay screen, then ‘Find Contact Information’ in the menu on the left (under the ‘Members’ heading). All you need to do then is enter the other users’ eBay ID and the item number of what they bought.
You might find that the address you end up getting doesn’t exist, and the phone number seems to be disconnected, or wrong. However, if you didn’t get any working contact information for the buyer, then this means they’ve violated eBay’s contact information policy. You can report them at http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/identity-false.html, and nothing that they do from then on will reflect badly on you.
Be patient, though: Don’t send masses of angry emails to someone’s account: for all you know, they might be having problems with their computer or their Internet connection. Try phoning, and try waiting a while for a response.
PayPal problems:
You might also find that you have problems with people who aren’t quite sure how PayPal works. For example, they might try to send you money directly and send the wrong amount – this means that you need to refund any overpayment and get them to pay underpayment. If your buyer is reasonable, though, this should be an easy enough problem to solve – remember that they’re hardly going to refuse to pay the right amount when you’ve already got some of their money!
If Nothing Helps, Who Do I Report It To?
You need to click ‘Help’ on the toolbar and then ‘Contact us’, to contact eBay’s customer service. You might find you have better luck with the ‘Live Help’ function than you do with trying to get sensible responses to emails. PayPal have the same procedure – ‘Help’ then ‘Contact us’ – and offer limited phone support if you need it.
If you run lots of auctions at once, some of your problems might be caused simply by things getting lost and forgotten, because you have no way of keeping track of them. In the next post, we’ll look at how to manage multiple auctions effectively.
Email Problems:
If you use the Internet a lot, you’ll no doubt be familiar with the problems eBay can cause, and many buyers and sellers are relying on email to keep them informed about their transactions.
Sometimes, you might find that your emails to a seller bounce –you might have the wrong email address, or there could be a problem with their email. This happens especially often when buyers have free webmail accounts at places like Hotmail and Yahoo Mail.
When this happens, the buyer might not know you’re trying to contact them. Consider it urgent to contact them in the real world, before they leave you bad feedback. To find out someone’s real-world contact details, follow these steps: Click ‘Advanced Search’ near the top of your eBay screen, then ‘Find Contact Information’ in the menu on the left (under the ‘Members’ heading). All you need to do then is enter the other users’ eBay ID and the item number of what they bought.
You might find that the address you end up getting doesn’t exist, and the phone number seems to be disconnected, or wrong. However, if you didn’t get any working contact information for the buyer, then this means they’ve violated eBay’s contact information policy. You can report them at http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/identity-false.html, and nothing that they do from then on will reflect badly on you.
Be patient, though: Don’t send masses of angry emails to someone’s account: for all you know, they might be having problems with their computer or their Internet connection. Try phoning, and try waiting a while for a response.
PayPal problems:
You might also find that you have problems with people who aren’t quite sure how PayPal works. For example, they might try to send you money directly and send the wrong amount – this means that you need to refund any overpayment and get them to pay underpayment. If your buyer is reasonable, though, this should be an easy enough problem to solve – remember that they’re hardly going to refuse to pay the right amount when you’ve already got some of their money!
If Nothing Helps, Who Do I Report It To?
You need to click ‘Help’ on the toolbar and then ‘Contact us’, to contact eBay’s customer service. You might find you have better luck with the ‘Live Help’ function than you do with trying to get sensible responses to emails. PayPal have the same procedure – ‘Help’ then ‘Contact us’ – and offer limited phone support if you need it.
If you run lots of auctions at once, some of your problems might be caused simply by things getting lost and forgotten, because you have no way of keeping track of them. In the next post, we’ll look at how to manage multiple auctions effectively.
How to Use eBay’s “Promotional Flyer” Tool
If you have an eBay store, then you can print off promotional flyers for it for free.
You might have seen ones that other sellers have sent you – they’re basically lists of items available in their eBay stores, usually bearing this default message: “Thank you for your purchase! Please visit my eBay Store for more great items and friendly, reliable customer service.” If you know what you’re doing, though, you can really make your flyer stand out from the crowd.
How Do I Do That?
Go to ‘My eBay’, then ‘Manage Your Store’. Now click ‘Promotions’, and you’ll see the ‘Store Promotional Flyer’ option there for you to use. A flyer will be automatically created using the settings and items from your eBay store, and you can customise it however you want. Be sure to add a border, to make your flyer more attractive visually.
Once you’ve created a flyer, you can print it as many times as you need to – it will be updated each time you print it to show your latest items, so you should only print what you need that day.
What Can I Do With the Flyers?
Well, there are all sorts of uses for promotional flyers.
While you could go and hand them out on the street, that probably wouldn’t be especially effective. Most of the people who walk past you and take the flyer will have no interest in your product, and it’ll just be a waste of paper, ink and time. No, as with all marketing, there are better ways to target your flyers.
Put them in envelopes: if you’ve been putting business cards or compliment slips in your envelopes, use the flyers instead. It’s like sending out a mini-catalogue to your buyers, and including the right items on it might help you make a few backend sales.
In your shop: If you have a real shop or business, then you can hand flyers out to your customers to let them know that you also sell things on eBay.
At a rival’s shop: This is a bit of guerrilla marketing, but maybe you’re into that. You can try handing your flyers out outside a shop that sells your items. Be aware that this might get the shop’s owners a little upset if they see you, however – you should only give flyers to people leaving the shop, not entering it.
Send them to businesses: Look up the addresses of businesses in the area that might need what you’re selling, and send them flyers in the post.
Flyers give you another advantage: If someone types your store’s address as it appears on the flyer and then buys something, then you’ll get the 75% final value fee credit for advertising, without even having to pay anything for advertising!
Users who are inexperienced on eBay, though, can create a few problems for you – they might not quite know what they’re doing, and that’s never good. In the next post, we’ll cover how to report and handle eBay transaction problems.
You might have seen ones that other sellers have sent you – they’re basically lists of items available in their eBay stores, usually bearing this default message: “Thank you for your purchase! Please visit my eBay Store for more great items and friendly, reliable customer service.” If you know what you’re doing, though, you can really make your flyer stand out from the crowd.
How Do I Do That?
Go to ‘My eBay’, then ‘Manage Your Store’. Now click ‘Promotions’, and you’ll see the ‘Store Promotional Flyer’ option there for you to use. A flyer will be automatically created using the settings and items from your eBay store, and you can customise it however you want. Be sure to add a border, to make your flyer more attractive visually.
Once you’ve created a flyer, you can print it as many times as you need to – it will be updated each time you print it to show your latest items, so you should only print what you need that day.
What Can I Do With the Flyers?
Well, there are all sorts of uses for promotional flyers.
While you could go and hand them out on the street, that probably wouldn’t be especially effective. Most of the people who walk past you and take the flyer will have no interest in your product, and it’ll just be a waste of paper, ink and time. No, as with all marketing, there are better ways to target your flyers.
Put them in envelopes: if you’ve been putting business cards or compliment slips in your envelopes, use the flyers instead. It’s like sending out a mini-catalogue to your buyers, and including the right items on it might help you make a few backend sales.
In your shop: If you have a real shop or business, then you can hand flyers out to your customers to let them know that you also sell things on eBay.
At a rival’s shop: This is a bit of guerrilla marketing, but maybe you’re into that. You can try handing your flyers out outside a shop that sells your items. Be aware that this might get the shop’s owners a little upset if they see you, however – you should only give flyers to people leaving the shop, not entering it.
Send them to businesses: Look up the addresses of businesses in the area that might need what you’re selling, and send them flyers in the post.
Flyers give you another advantage: If someone types your store’s address as it appears on the flyer and then buys something, then you’ll get the 75% final value fee credit for advertising, without even having to pay anything for advertising!
Users who are inexperienced on eBay, though, can create a few problems for you – they might not quite know what they’re doing, and that’s never good. In the next post, we’ll cover how to report and handle eBay transaction problems.
Friday, April 17, 2009
How to Market Your eBay Business
So you want to market your eBay business? Well, you probably won’t have too much luck with traditional marketing methods – they’re just not targeted enough. The best way to do things is to pay for targeted advertising, which comes up when people search for keywords you specify: they’re looking for exactly what you’re selling, and so many of them will click on your ad.
On eBay:
You might not have noticed that eBay offer this kind of advertising, but they do. You can pay them for a small ad that will appear above the search results (next to the banner ad) for any keywords you want. Buyers will then be able to click through and get to your eBay store – and you only pay for clicks, not for views. You can also set a budget for how much you want to spend, and your ads will simply stop if they go over-budget.
If you do this, it is best to create very targeted ads for specific products. Buy a specific model of something as your keyword, and write how much you sell it for in the ad – this will be more effective than just advertising across the name of a whole category.
There are some products that this approach simply doesn’t work for, though, and you might be better off spending your money on a more visible Featured Plus listing for your item, especially if you’re trying to advertise on valuable keywords.
Search Engine Ads:
If you want to market your business more widely, then you can try to bring in business from outside eBay. The best way to do this is by buying keyword-targeted ads on search engines. With Google AdWords, for example, your ad will appear in their ‘Sponsored Links’ section when someone searches for your keywords. Again, you set a maximum budget and only pay for clicks.
This can be very effective, as you’ve just taken your products to the world outside eBay – imagine someone going to a search engine, typing in what they’re looking for and seeing your store right there! What’s more, if you target this approach to specific models of a product it can be very cheap.Most advertisers try to get as much traffic as they can instead of targeting their ads as specifically as you will be, meaning there won’t be much competition for the keywords.
eBay benefit from this as well as you, since it drives new buyers to eBay as a whole, not just to your site. They actively encourage sellers to go and advertise on search engines by offering you 75% of your final value fee back for each item that someone finds and buys this way. On expensive items, that’s probably enough to pay for the advertising to begin with!
If you’d really like to try a little marketing in the real world, though, you might want to make some flyers. Did you know that eBay can do this for you automatically? The next post will tell you how.
On eBay:
You might not have noticed that eBay offer this kind of advertising, but they do. You can pay them for a small ad that will appear above the search results (next to the banner ad) for any keywords you want. Buyers will then be able to click through and get to your eBay store – and you only pay for clicks, not for views. You can also set a budget for how much you want to spend, and your ads will simply stop if they go over-budget.
If you do this, it is best to create very targeted ads for specific products. Buy a specific model of something as your keyword, and write how much you sell it for in the ad – this will be more effective than just advertising across the name of a whole category.
There are some products that this approach simply doesn’t work for, though, and you might be better off spending your money on a more visible Featured Plus listing for your item, especially if you’re trying to advertise on valuable keywords.
Search Engine Ads:
If you want to market your business more widely, then you can try to bring in business from outside eBay. The best way to do this is by buying keyword-targeted ads on search engines. With Google AdWords, for example, your ad will appear in their ‘Sponsored Links’ section when someone searches for your keywords. Again, you set a maximum budget and only pay for clicks.
This can be very effective, as you’ve just taken your products to the world outside eBay – imagine someone going to a search engine, typing in what they’re looking for and seeing your store right there! What’s more, if you target this approach to specific models of a product it can be very cheap.Most advertisers try to get as much traffic as they can instead of targeting their ads as specifically as you will be, meaning there won’t be much competition for the keywords.
eBay benefit from this as well as you, since it drives new buyers to eBay as a whole, not just to your site. They actively encourage sellers to go and advertise on search engines by offering you 75% of your final value fee back for each item that someone finds and buys this way. On expensive items, that’s probably enough to pay for the advertising to begin with!
If you’d really like to try a little marketing in the real world, though, you might want to make some flyers. Did you know that eBay can do this for you automatically? The next post will tell you how.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
How to Use eBay “Listing Tools”
Listing tools automate the process of adding listings to eBay, to stop you having to go through the ‘Sell Your Item’ process every time. There is a surprising amount of choice out there when it comes to eBay listing tools, to the point where you might not know what to choose. Here’s an overview of what’s useful and what’s not.
Turbo Lister:
Turbo Lister is a free download from eBay, and allows you to sell on eBay without ever having to actually visit the site. You can write descriptions, save them and list them over and over again – if you want to, you can even do most of your eBay work offline, and just go online for a few seconds to upload it.
You can list in bulk and schedule your listings to start any time. Since this is eBay’s officially supported program, you’re guaranteed that upgrades to eBay’s site will never break it and leave you out in the cold. Personally, though, I find the design quite bad – it’s not really that much easier than just going through eBay directly.
Blackthorne:
Also from eBay, this is what used to be called the ‘Seller’s Assistant’. It’s a downloadable program, but it’s more powerful than Turbo Lister is. It lets you do everything in bulk: listing, re-listing, and even feedback. You can export your sales data to an accounting program, and track your auctions while they’re still going on. You only have to enter things like payment choices and shipping details once, and they’re saved forever.
So where’s the disadvantage? It costs $9.99 per month, or $24.99 for the pro version, which also lets you print shipping labels in bulk and manage an inventory.
Andale Lister:
If you want to try something that’s not been made by eBay, Andale’s lister is still web-based, but aims to streamline the process.
You can create ‘profiles’ with different selections for your auctions. For example, you could create a ‘Normal’ profile that doesn’t include any of the listing upgrades, a ‘Promote’ profile that includes Bold and Highlight, and a ‘Super Promote’ profile that buys Bold, Highlight and Featured Plus. This makes it easier to choose the set of options you want for each item.
It’s all about saving things you’ve done. Each time you upload a picture, it gets added to a ‘Picture Library’ for you to use again, and you can store an inventory and choose from it to create a listing. You also get nicer-looking templates than eBay provide.
Of course, if eBay had their act together then this is what their own process would be like – but they’re happy for third-parties to make money doing the work instead of upgrading their own site. Andale Lister can cost anywhere between 20c and 4c per listing, as you get discounts for volume.
Now that you’re listing in bulk, you can spend more time trying to attract people to come and bid on your auctions. But how should you be doing your marketing? In the next email, we’ll go through some of the options available to you.
Turbo Lister:
Turbo Lister is a free download from eBay, and allows you to sell on eBay without ever having to actually visit the site. You can write descriptions, save them and list them over and over again – if you want to, you can even do most of your eBay work offline, and just go online for a few seconds to upload it.
You can list in bulk and schedule your listings to start any time. Since this is eBay’s officially supported program, you’re guaranteed that upgrades to eBay’s site will never break it and leave you out in the cold. Personally, though, I find the design quite bad – it’s not really that much easier than just going through eBay directly.
Blackthorne:
Also from eBay, this is what used to be called the ‘Seller’s Assistant’. It’s a downloadable program, but it’s more powerful than Turbo Lister is. It lets you do everything in bulk: listing, re-listing, and even feedback. You can export your sales data to an accounting program, and track your auctions while they’re still going on. You only have to enter things like payment choices and shipping details once, and they’re saved forever.
So where’s the disadvantage? It costs $9.99 per month, or $24.99 for the pro version, which also lets you print shipping labels in bulk and manage an inventory.
Andale Lister:
If you want to try something that’s not been made by eBay, Andale’s lister is still web-based, but aims to streamline the process.
You can create ‘profiles’ with different selections for your auctions. For example, you could create a ‘Normal’ profile that doesn’t include any of the listing upgrades, a ‘Promote’ profile that includes Bold and Highlight, and a ‘Super Promote’ profile that buys Bold, Highlight and Featured Plus. This makes it easier to choose the set of options you want for each item.
It’s all about saving things you’ve done. Each time you upload a picture, it gets added to a ‘Picture Library’ for you to use again, and you can store an inventory and choose from it to create a listing. You also get nicer-looking templates than eBay provide.
Of course, if eBay had their act together then this is what their own process would be like – but they’re happy for third-parties to make money doing the work instead of upgrading their own site. Andale Lister can cost anywhere between 20c and 4c per listing, as you get discounts for volume.
Now that you’re listing in bulk, you can spend more time trying to attract people to come and bid on your auctions. But how should you be doing your marketing? In the next email, we’ll go through some of the options available to you.
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