Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Does anybody use Sellers Voice on their eBay auctions?
Friday, June 24, 2005
New resource links
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Lord of the Rings Collector Sting Sword
I just wanted to share this listing with you, its a collectors edition sword from the movie "Lord of the Rings". This sword is a numbered, limited edition collectors item. Click the link below to check it out for yourself!
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Promote your favorite eBay stores here!!
http://stores.ebay.com/PassAlong-Digital-Music-Downloads
I am mentioning this store only because it is what eBay sellers should try to copy. It catches the eye, isn't a copy of all the other stores that you see on eBay. If you have a store you'd like to promote or one you want to suggest, feel free to post it here...just make sure that it is an eBay store.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Top 5 tips for selling on eBay
2) Information.
3) Include a Photograph.
4) Follow Through.
5) Offer Good Customer Service.
PowerSellers toolkit
Prospecting on eBay
Saturday, June 11, 2005
eBay Live! A chance to meet and learn from top eBay sellers and developers!
I just wanted to let you all know about eBay live. This is a chance for eBay members to get together and talk about what is happening with eBay and learn how to improve both their own eBay sales model and learn about new and exciting features the eBay will offer. Some of the things that will take place are classes on different ways to become more successful selling on eBay, a speach by Meg Whitman the eBay CEO, eBay campus tour, and some 10th anniversary surprises. If you are in the San Jose, California area on June 23-25th, you should drop by and check it out. I wish I could go to meet other sellers and learn more tricks of the trade but there is just no way for me to get away this year. Let me know how it was and what you learned! To register for eBay live, click the following link to their information page. (Link)
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Tips to get started selling on eBay Part 3
In this edition I'd like to talk a little bit about optional promotion items. In the last edition I touched on listing fees and a couple of listing options that I suggest for all items. Now I want to get in to some of the higher priced options that you might want to consider for higher dollar items or if you are a little more advanced and want to try a "Dutch" style auction. I will cover "Dutch" auctions in a later edition as I don't suggest them for beginners, nor will eBay allow a beginner to use this type of auction.
Optional fees are not for the beginner who is just experimenting. But after you
begin to feel at home with the auctions, experiment with the higher-priced
choices and see what happens...
1) Home Page Featured
Featured auctions aren't for the faint of heart. On eBay, it costs $99.95 to feature one item and $199.95 for dutch auctions. While it does increase the likelihood that your
item will sell, I don't suggest these options for beginners. If your items are featured, you are guaranteed to be in the featured section which can be accessed from the front page of the big sites. Overall, featured items have a much higher sale percentage than those that aren't. Your listing will be briefly featured on the home page of eBay where thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of potential customers, may see your items. eBay says you will most likely be on the front page but nothing is guaranteed.
2) Featured Plus!
On eBay, it costs $19.95 to appear in your category's Featured Item section
and in bidder's search results. Plus, your item may be selected for display in
another area -- your category index page Featured Items section.
If a customer types in the exact words that you have used in your listing, they will find your item. However, if the words aren't exact, it won't be featured.
3) Gallery Featured
This type of listing costs $19.95 on eBay. You need a picture in a JPEG (.jpg file) format to use the Gallery (140 x 140 pixels in size).
4) Boldface Title
A boldface title costs $1 on eBay and obviously it can bring more attention to your item.
5) Highlight Your Title
For $5, eBay will put a highlighted strip through your item listing.
Makes it a little easier to pick out from the other listings.
6) Hot, Hotter, Hottest!
This is a very valuable designation that cannot be bought. If your item receives 30 bids, it is placed in the hot category, and is placed at the very top of your category. This is what we all strive for in an item.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Tips to get started selling on eBay. Part 2
Welcome back! I hope that you found some of the info and links in part 1 interesting. Now we are going to talk about selecting the type of listing and some basic design ideas. If you only have single items to sell and are sourcing your items from home or local markets, I suggest you use either the "fixed price" format or the "auction" format as you really don't need to set up a store just yet. Stores are great because of the reduced listing prices and longer duration of the listing but they don't show up on the regular searches unless there are something like 10 or less auctions for that item. Auction and fixed price listing are almost exactly the same except in an auction, people place bids while fixed price lets people buy now without waiting for the auction to end. Auctions can have a "buy it now" option added but it will cost extra money so a lot of people don't like using that feature. eBay offers many listing upgrades that can help promote and sell your item but most just add fees to your listing cost and should be used sparingly. I suggest two options for EVERY listing and they are, pictures and gallery. Having a picture to show your item atracts attention and displaying it with the gallery option puts it on the search page so people get an idea of what your item is before they click on your listing. This attracts buyers that are interested in your item and not "window shoppers" that click just to see what the item is. I suggest that you review the fee list (link) before you decide what options to add to your listing so you know before hand how much these additional items cost. I suggest that you run your listing for 7 days to give more people a chance to view the listing even though you will find that most "hits" will come in the last couple of days of your listing. This happens because most people sort their search results by "items ending first" or "ending today" but it is always a good idea to have your listing out there for as long as possible.
Now we will touch on the design of your listing. I will save the fancy HTML and advanced listing ideas for a future edition. The two most important parts to each listing are :
- The title
- The description
The title is where you will not only capture the attention of the buyer so they click on your listing, it is also the one part of the listing the people search most. When people search for an item, eBay's search engine scans the headline only unless people click the option to search both title and description. I have found through tracking software I use that 90% or more of all the hits I get came from a title only search. Are you beginning to see how important it is yet? You only get a limited amount of space so fill it with keywords that people might type in to the search box and avoid the attempt to be cute by putting in funny symbols. Here are a few examples of what not to do.... "Great stuff!!!" "L@@K!!" or "Check this out!" Try to keep as many words related to the item as you can, like... "Pearl Harbor DVD Ben Affleck new in box" This title will be displayed with a search on any of the words in the listing. You can find some popular search terms at Auction Keywords. (link) In the description portion of the listing you will not only give details of the item and its condition, you should also use this area to try and "sell" your item. "Selling" your item is done by trying to convince the buyer that your item is something that the can't live without and that you are the only buyer that they should buy from. This is done by giving examples of how and when the item should be used, the improvement that it might have made in your life, the attractiveness of your home with this item in it..... The list goes on and on. The most important part of this process is to always show an interest in each and every item you are selling and make it sound interesting to your shoppers. I will give more examples in a future marketing edition that I am working on.
Well, its about time to close for now, I wanted to add a couple of links to give you some ideas on HTML programming for the details portion of your listing. These should help you understand the basics of page design and the language that powers it. You don't need anything fancy to sell on eBay but every little trick helps. Try some of these and let me know how they work for you.
This last link is for watching auctions, looking for good keywords to put in your title, and much more. This is a good tool to see what is hot at the moment and find out prices for the items you want to list.