UK Mail specialises in offering innovative parcel, mail and logistics services designed to provide local and international business which suit all their clients’ requirements. Formerly known as Business Post Group, UK Mail has built up their business intuitively over the last 40 years in order to offer some of the most competitive and client-oriented services on the market.

The leading mail delivery and logistics organisation has a national network which consists of over 52 sites and 2,500 vehicles; enabling them to offer customers a fully-integrated service which places their best interests at the core. Whether parcels, letters or pallets; UK Mail can deliver a solution that’s 100% geared towards their customers’ requirements.

UK Mail strives to serve as a dynamic organisation well-equipped to serve clients of all sizes, and from a wide range of different industries. UK Mail’s loyal customer base ranges from giant mobile phone networks to local family-run businesses. They are a company who embraces innovation and strives to take heed of any new technologies which could contribute to the convenience and quality of the services they offer.

Services Designed for Your Business

UK Mail offers a number of carrier services to multinational clients, including stores which operate solely online; delivering parcels, mail and pallets to the addresses specified in a 100% secure and conscientious fashion. Their services are aimed at business-to-business (B2B) organisations which require time-efficient services; having supplied such services to companies including O2 and Talk Talk.

The company is thoroughly delighted to have built-up such an extensive list of international clients and business customers, whom all rely on UK Mail to consistently provide a high level of service that other providers find hard to match. Irrespective of the size of their client’s business, UK Mail has complete confidence that their diverse and high quality services will meet their needs.

Amongst the services available from UK Mail are parcel delivery, mail, courier and specialist logistics, online, and IT solutions and services. The company prides themselves on offering advice and guidance to customers who are unsure of which service is right for them, and cite customer satisfaction as their highest priority in everything they do.

Find Out More About UK Mail

Whether a client is looking for international parcel delivery, a same day courier, or is interested in seeing how online fulfilment solutions could assist them; UK Mail can deliver.

If you would like to find out more, please don’t hesitate to contact UK Mail or visit our website for further details – www.ukmail.com

(Text provided by UK Mail.)

If you’re still trying to figure out how to make Facebook work for your business then read Does ROI Exist on Facebook? Measuring your social revenue by Lace Llanora on The Wholesale Forums. This discusses how to track if your Facebook efforts are paying dividends with customers buying from your website.

To help you further The Wholesale Forums have published an eBook “Does your Business need to be on Facebook“. They’ve kindly agreed to allow all TameBay readers to access the Facebook eBook for free for a short while so download today whilst it’s available.

If you’ve had success driving business from Facebook to your website let us know either in comments below or if you’d like to write a guest post on how you use Facebook for your business just get in touch

The first thing you’ll notice when you log in is that key research tasks are highlighted on the home page, and if you’re after a specific type of research then you’ll find them by clicking the “Show Tasks” tab on the relevant section. There are a load more feature upgrades under the hood that will delight existing users and if you’re not a customer we highly recommend that you sign up for Terapeak.

Terapeak are the only company that licence eBay data so if you want to know what sells at what price, or if you want to research your competition and discover what their hot selling products are and where they’re making the most money then Terapeak is the default place to go.

Terapeak eBay marketplace research costs from as little as £19.96 per month for a single country site, or £32.96 for all International markets and eBay.com motors.

It’s said to be the largest seasonal migration of humanity on the planet. Every Chinese New Year, more than 100 million Chinese workers take time off to return to their home-towns to celebrate the New Year Spring Festival with their families, clogging mainland transportation systems and idling the country’s factories and other businesses. With Chinese New Year falling on Jan. 23 this year, this exodus is already under way.

For foreign companies that are new to trading with the mainland, this virtual shut-down of the country’s commercial activity may come as a shock. China’s government offices and stock markets will be closed for the week of Jan. 23, but New Year Spring Festival celebrations go on for 15 days—and because many workers began leaving work this week to ensure they can get seats on trains heading home, commerce may conducted at half-speed, if at all, starting the second week of January and lasting until after Feb. 6.

Clued-in Western companies have learned to plan around the period. “It’s all about communication and managing expectations,” says Nelson Yip, a vice chairman of the Hong Kong Electronics & Technologies Association, a trade group whose members operate manufacturing plants in China. Not all factories completely shut down for an entire month, but shipping delays are common and phones may go unanswered. “I think small orders may be acceptable, if buyers ask for some standard product,” says Yip. “That’s manageable. But it’s not very practical to get big orders placed” during New Year celebrations, he says.

Yu Mulin, owner of Zhejiang Sanle Plastic Co., a plastic bottle maker in China’s Zhejiang province, says that every year, she starts talking about the impact of Chinese New Year on production schedules with her western customers as early as October to avoid bottlenecks and shipment delays. “We try and complete all orders before the new year,” Yu says. “All orders received in the month leading up to [Jan. 23] will be filled after the holiday.”

Yip says it’s possible to continue a business dialogue with many suppliers over Chinese New Year. Factories with offices in Hong Kong, where workers get only three days off, and factories that conduct business through agents will still have people manning the phones. Buyers can often use the downtime to iron out production details, he says, in preparation for the restart of manufacturing.

But new orders likely won’t be processed, let alone filled. “In general we reply briefly to buyers’ enquiries during the holiday,” says Cissy Xu, general manager of Guangzhou Miti Import & Export Trading Co. in China’s Guangdong Province. “However, if discussions involve complex products or products with major price changes, suppliers will not be able to provide accurate information, including shipment and other details, since the other suppliers in the supply chain are on vacation.”

Still, as China becomes increasingly integrated with the global economy through trade and the Internet, there are signs that domestic businesses are realizing that a vital, modern economy can’t easily turn out the lights for lengthy periods. Earlier this month, the China Express Association, a national trade group of shipping companies, issued guidelines urging courier companies not to suspend operations during Chinese New Year and recommending that employees work no fewer than six hours a day to avoid delivery delays and a huge backlog of packages.

And how is the industry responding? According a recent story in the Shanghai Daily newspaper, major courier services in Shanghai are charging higher fees to offset rising costs due to surging workload and an acute labour shortage in the run-up to the Spring Festival. Indeed, real work can be accomplished during the holiday, for those who are willing to pay. Frank Lavin, who was chairman of the steering committee of the USA Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo, said that in order to open in time, construction of the pavilion had to take place during Chinese New Year. “The work crews weren’t unhappy,” Lavin said. “They just said, ‘give me three times the money.”

Yu, the owner of the plastic-bottle factory, says she is careful to explain to her new customers that Chinese New Year is to the East what Christmas is to the West—except for the longer leaves. “Workers deserve a month off to be with their families,” she explains, noting that employees endure gruelling work schedules the remainder of the year. “We’ve been exporting for more than 11 years and our customers totally understand the importance of the holiday,” she says.

All you have to do to enter is “Like” the Linnworks Facebook page and add a comment telling them why you’d like to win the prize.

If you’re looking at expanding after Christmas and want multichannel management software to help grow your business then winning this prize would be a fantastic start to the New Year.

Full details of the Christmas contest are on the Linn Systems website.

The retailer in question placed a weekly phone call to a particular supplier and never even managed to get through to the contact they were trying to reach. As soon as they explained that they wanted to become a customer they were blanked.

This went on for a whole year. A weekly phone call that was rejected out of hand, so after a year they sent the manufacturer a “First Anniversary” card and mentioned that they’d really love to speak to the contact before the second anniversary.

It worked! Well, not quite – the lady in question was amused and intrigued enough with the anniversary card that she phoned the retailer the following day – She explained that due to there efforts they at least deserved to speak to her, but that there was still no way that they’d ever get an account.

After just another six months of persisting they eventually had their account!

What’s the hardest supplier or manufacturer have you ever had to deal with and what tactics did you use to get an account opened?

Import Duty and VAT is never something a buyer welcomes paying, but at least if they know how much they’re likely to incur it doesn’t come as quite an unpleasant surprise as if they didn’t know they’d have to pay tax in the first place. That’s why I was interested to learn that Duty Calculator is now available as a plugin for eBay listings.

If you want to provide your international customers with an accurate estimate of any import duty & taxes due then this is a great plugin to have on your listings. You can also get a DutyCalculator checkout widget for your website.

It’s no secret that one of the biggest headaches for online-retailers is managing and creating Amazon listings, especially if it’s hundreds or thousands of them.

The reasons are quite justifiable as Amazon takes this process very seriously, requiring online retailers to fill in all the mandatory fields while creating the listing, including item’s EAN and UPC codes. This policy surely serves customer’s purpose and those who prefer to know the most precise information about the product being bought and the category to which it belongs. But it also implies that it takes more time for retailers to prepare their items for Amazon.

Amazon Bulk Lister, created by Linn Systems, not only simplifies this task but also speeds up the process of creation bulk listing and increasing sales profits. Let’s take a closer look at Amazon Bulk Lister and find out its main advantages.

It’s a web-based tool and it’s completely FREE

Click to embiggen

All you need is a CSV file

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CSV Importer in Amazon Bulk Listing tool is fluent in working with CSV files and helps to fill in all required fields. All that Lister needs is the files that are properly formatted. That’s why the program contains many examples of simple CSV files as well the most complicated ones facilitating the understanding of the required fields and different attributes.

Create brand new listings or use “Look up” option

Do you want to create new listings and use Amazon “Look up” option for searching the item you sell using EAN, UPC and ASIN codes? Not a problem, as Amazon Bulk Lister supports all these methods.

Listing with variations

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Amazon Bulk Lister is completely optimized for creating all kinds of listings with variations. The program also contains examples of CSV files that will allow the users to get to know properly-prepared CSV files with variations.

“Sell Again” feature

This feature allows you to save and use this info later while creating future listings. For example, if you have ever sold toys and decided to sell them again – this feature allows you to fill in all previously used fields again.

Validation & Verification statuses

The Amazon Bulk Listing tool keeps you updated all the time, using special statuses near your listings:

• Waiting for listings (yellow)
• Listed. Waiting for a report (blue)
• Error! (red)
• Listed successfully (green)

Colour indicators help you understand whether or not your listing was successfully created. In case of some problem, the program will automatically change the statuses and inform you as to the reason of listing creation failure.

Historical reports

Another advantage of the program is the ability to save the last five uploaded CSV files and gives the opportunity to switch between them for flexibility purpose.

Are you ready to get started?

You can start working with Amazon Bulk Lister using 4 simple steps:

1. Add your Amazon account(s)
2. Import your CSV inventory file
3. Make sure all mandatory fields are filled
4. Click on the “List products” button – that’s it!

One last thing

Amazon Bulk Lister is a web application; it means that you can use it from any Windows or Mac browser. The system is built on Microsoft Silverlight technology, making it rich and very dynamic as opposed to standard web page browsing; that’s why you will need to have Silverlight plug-in installed on your computer. In most cases Silverlight is already installed on your computer by default. Otherwise you can download Silverlight from Microsoft.

Helpful Amazon Bulk Lister Links

• Amazon Bulk Lister Demonstration
• Register an account
• Log In Page
• Documentation

I’ve blogged previously on the problem of Illegal Business Seller Terms on eBay on a couple of occasions. In April this year while browsing as a buyer and 3 out of 5 of the outlet sellers I looked at that day had illegal seller terms and put me right off buying from them … yes the eBayAnorak bought from Amazon, not the first time.

So, how much responsibility should eBay take for its Top Rated Business Sellers who continually flout the law and the EC Distance Selling Regulations as regard returns and refunds?

As a ‘selling venue’ is eBay responsible for the Top Rated Sellers’ it promotes from front page, outlet & deal of the day etc? Should eBay check that they are compliant with the law along with the other criteria for entry?

As I type this, a very large national retailer all over the eBay front page is charging a 10% restocking fee for returned items over £25. Ultimately the retailer is responsible for their T&C’s. eBay promote the ‘good buyer experience’ how can they promote a good buying experience at the same time as promoting companies with illegal seller terms that actually give a bad buying experience.

I firmly believe that in most cases this is an education issue eBay has made it easy for the Mumpreneur, the front room/garage based business and the teenage start up to progress in the world of online retailing at low cost and so are unaware they are breaking the law. Learning about Distant Selling Regulations, EC Rulings and UK business law is usually not on the priority list.

eBay, please, what does it take to send out an email or short multiple choice button survey to all new business registered sellers to let them know that these phrases/terms are not permitted?

But, Outlet sellers’ shame on you, you should know better, some of you have been bought to book before.

Terms like:

• We are not responsible for items lost in the post (Yes you are!)
• We charge X% restocking fee (No you can’t!
• Buyer has option of shipping insurance in case of damage in transit (Seller responsible until it reaches the hands of the buyer)
• Refund less PayPal & eBay fees (fraud as they get fees back from refunds
• Refund less original P&P (Refund including original P&P)
• No returns, or no returns unless faulty (this applied to items relating to returns due to hygiene reasons; buyers have the right to change their minds)

The list goes on …

Business Sellers, give your buyers a reason to purchase from you not 10 reasons to be scared to, know the rights of your buyers and your legal obligations as a seller.

eBay, take some responsibility for those sellers you promote.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer but advise you read this OFT (Office of Fair Trading) document on the Distance Selling Regulations

Gumtree reckon that 40% of Brits are are tightening their purse strings and spending less on Christmas this year than last year. Therefore, it’s not surprising that people are looking at ways to save money and many are going several steps further than just buying Christmas presents using sites that offer daily deals. 37% are aiming to fund their entire Christmas, from cards and decorations to party outfits and Christmas dinner, using sites that offer daily deals.

As a seller are you taking advantage of the growing trend of buyers looking for a bargain? The chances are that with eBay’s current policy of almost exclusively offering deals from Outlets you’re not getting a look in there, but there are plenty of other deals sites around.

Could you supply a Gumtree Daily Deal?

Gumtree Daily Deals are a little more enlightened than eBay – they’re up for deals ranging from experiences to products and even ran a deal for Free PayPal Cash a few weeks back. If you’ve got some great products and are interested in supply Gumtree with Daily Deals you can apply on the Gumtree Website to become a supplier.

Typical Gumtree Daily Deals range from from experiences and holidays to beauty and clothes. Hamish Stone from Gumtree told us “Gumtree Daily Deals boosts the user experience further by offering consumers the chance to help choose what deals come next through Facebook and Twitter. We’re also taking note of the research findings and introducing a festive offering of 12 deals of Christmas to help people get the things they need for less, over this expensive time. Bargain hunters across the UK are cottoning on to the power of shopping using daily deals services as they take the stress and sting out of this year’s festive season”.

Are you supplying any Daily Deals sites with your products, whether eBay, Gumtree, other sites or perhaps your own website? If you are let us know what your experience of running Daily Deals is and any tips you have when pitching as a Deals supplier.

Stamps.com survey findings on shipping promotions

Free shipping is the most effective sales promotion heading in to the holiday season according to Stamps.com. In their latest survey on e-commerce shipping practices, Stamps.com found that 64% of respondents report that free shipping, with or without minimum spend, is the most effective promotion they can offer during the holiday season, and 53% will be offering free shipping on more products this year compared to last holiday season.

Free shipping might appear to be something foisted on sellers by eBay, but there’s little question that it’s the direction in which ecommerce is moving. Other significant findings from the Stamps.com surrvey are:

• Of merchants offering free shipping with a minimum spend, 66% of respondents require an order value of $50 or higher
• 29% of the respondents will offer free shipping on orders of any size, no minimum purchase required
• 82% of e-commerce merchants expect to have international sales
• For merchants using social media this holiday season, 54% plan to use the channel to drive sales

eSellerPro Christmas Ecommerce Guide

A report by eSellerPro has found that despite the increased revenue opportunities available in the lead up to Christmas, many online retailers are still struggling to take advantage of this increased consumer spend. Although Christmas activity should really begin in October, it is not too late for retailers to act to maximise their seasonal revenue.

The free eSellerPro Christmas Ecommerce Guide details the steps retailers should take when it comes to planning for Christmas, including steps that should have been taken 60 days prior and further steps that should be taken 45 days, 30 days and 15 days prior.

However the guide also emphasises that it’s still not too late to gear up for Christmas and take advantage of the huge opportunity this year and lays out a plan with steps to take immediately to ensure bumper Christmas and New Year sales. In particular the guide identifies email marketing as an area often forgotten at the busiest time of year but according to iContact email marketing is one of the most cost effect methods of converting previous customers into repeat buyers.

What are your Christmas selling tactics?

What are you doing to ensure Christmas is as profitable time a year as possible? Acknowledging the economy isn’t (to say the least) at it’s best are you offering more promotions and undertaking more marketing this year than in previous years? Do you have any tips for our readers on how to drive as many sales as possible in the run up to Christmas and to capitalise on New Year sales?

There’s a long thread on the eBay Business Seller Board and there are many more discussions about the matter. A TameBay reader even pointed out that when they searched for my own auction listings on eBay they too were dumped at the bottom of search results.

TameBay reader Robin has been doing some investigation and tested where his auctions appear in search and used two different eBay accounts to do some a-b testing. He’s captured his findings in video which makes for interesting watching and if you currently sell on eBay you need to be aware of this information.

eBay auctions (even in Best Match) are supposed to be sorted by Time Ending Soonest, the only sellers listings dumped to the bottom of search results should be those who are below standard. Why are good sellers listings being demoted? There’s been much discussion of this and some sellers have had answers from eBay support suggesting that their listings are being demoted due to their sell through rates. If you don’t have a high proportion of auctions closing with multiple bids there’s a pretty good chance that your auctions will be hidden from potential buyers regardless of your seller standards.

If your auctions are being demoted in search by eBay it’s not just your slow selling items that will be demoted though, it’s every eBay auction that you have running on the site.

The best advice we can currently offer if your listings are being lowered in search results is to cancel all of your auctions. Relist your products on fixed price listings and trust to eBay Best Match to enable buyers to find them. Start relisting auctions at low prices to encourage multiple bidders – eBay like auctions with lots of bidding activity. Try to avoid listing auctions which will end without sales – we know that this has been a valid selling strategy in the past but it will no longer ensure visibility but is now likely to lead to your auctions being blacklisted and demoted to the bottom of search results.

Yesterday we looked at how eBay Catalogue may affect your ranking in search results. There are ways to take advantage of eBay catalogue and some sellers already are being advantaged by these listing practices (perhaps by design but mainly through ignorance). I never recommend that sellers bend the rules on eBay, but in this instance it’s worth being aware of the possibilities and taking advantage of those that you legitimately can.

1) Don’t use part numbers in your item title.
eBay only appear to match your item against a catalogue entry based on your item title. If they find a matching part number then they’ll want you to list against that product. If your product isn’t an exact match don’t include the part number (e.g. “Samsung HD Ready 1024p LCD TV”) and eBay will be unable to determine if it matches a catalogue entry or if it’s not in the catalogue in the first place.

Most of the sellers using this method don’t appear to be intentionally bucking the system. They’re just not very good at listing and are using titles like “TV” or perhaps “Samsung TV”, they probably don’t even know what model or part number they’re selling! Nonetheless on looking through their listings it’s often not hard to identify the product when you can see the part number in their photographs, so buyers will still know what they’re buying. Not including a part number means that eBay can’t match their product to a catalogue entry leaving it free to float in search results as a standalone listing.

In the long term not matching your part numbers will probably disadvantage you in search results, but equally there are many products not in eBay’s catalogue so eBay still need to surface great deals from non-catalogued listings. This one is a 50:50 bet on whether it’ll it advantage you or not.

2) Check for duplicate category entries
Lots of products bizarrely have two catalogue entries e.g. the IBM L171 monitor (here and here). If you list against an alternative catalogue entry then technically your listing is 100% eBay legal, but even better you don’t have to compete with other sellers listing against the alternative catalogue entry. You’ll be on a Product Card in search on your own and your search placement will be entirely dependant on your own listing’s performance, not on someone else’s. Of course other sellers are equally free to list against the alternate catalogue entry as well.

This strategy is worth considering if your item is slightly more expensive than your competitors and if there’s a duplicate catalogue entry available. It’s also worth considering when your product is priced slightly less but the item condition is lower – e.g. if you have a refurb product for £90 and your competitor is selling new for £99 – many buyers might choose to pay the few extra pounds for a new product if they’re displayed alongside each other.

3) Use a different part number
You could simply use an alternate manufacturer part number. A good example of that is again the IBM L171 monitor, IBM also identify it with a “Machine Type 9417″, there are five varients the 9417-AB1, 9417-AB9, 9417-AN9, 9417- AJ1 and 9417-AD1. eBay don’t recognise any of the alternative numbers so you can include them in your product title. If anything it makes it easier for eBay to decide that they’re not matching than not including a part number (even though they are matching!). This subterfuge also allows buyers to confirm with Google that it’s a suitable product to purchase, whilst leaving it impossible for eBay to automate matching it to a product card.

This is of course a more fundamental problem with eBay catalogue than it might appear on first glance, often sellers using alternative part numbers may have searched for those parts in the catalogue and think their item isn’t actually in the catalogue.

If eBay ever allow sellers to add products to the catalogue then there’s a very good chance they’ll add the alternative part numbers as separate entries rather than match them to existing correct catalogue entries. This will lead to a bloated catalogue full of duplicate items added unnecessarily.

4) List in an alternative category
You won’t always have the luxury of listing in alternative categories to sidestep a category which is catalogued, but when you can it’s well worth considering doing so. An example where this could legitimately be done is for a multifunction fax, scanner, copier, printer. This could be listed in Computers > Printers in which case it will be catalogued, or it could equally be listed in Business Office & Industrial > Fax Machines, in which case it wouldn’t be catalogued.

Another example could be for TVs and Computer monitors. Some monitors could be (and currently are) listed on eBay in the TV category as requiring an external TV/Satellite Tuner. Equally most modern TV sets have a VGA or DVI port and could legitimately be listed as computer monitors with a TV tuner built in. Listing the opposite category means that their won’t be a part number in the categories catalogue.

You could also consider listing in two categories although this would of course result in paying double fees. For fixed price listings this isn’t a huge cost if you’ve got an eBay shop compared to the benefit of actually being found in search. However bear in mind final value fees do vary between categories.

5) Charge for postage
This one is counter-intuitive – eBay have for the last couple of years begged and cajoled us to offer free post, they even promised a small boost in search results for including the postage cost in the item price. Now however cheapest price is what counts, listings attached to product cards will have price shown as “6 Used from £29.99“, not “6 Used from £29.99 plus £10.00 carriage“. This looks much more attractive than £39.99, again it’s only in search results on the product card buyers can’t see the postage costs, but by the time they do see them they’re already looking at your product instead of an alternative from your competitor.

If you’re listing looks the cheapest you’ll be the one to get the clicks. Closely monitor your Detailed Seller Ratings, but if you can play the game and charge postage to make your item look cheaper it’s more likely to sell. Forget the boost in search results for free postage – that’s not going to matter in a category that’s catalogued.

6) Choose your item condition judiciously
Consider using item conditions which you might not have used before as this could affect how your item is presented in search. Of course if you’re going to use the refurb condition you need to be very up front and accurate in your listing description to ensure buyers know exactly what they’re getting – “Refurbished” covers a wide range of product conditions and you don’t want to set buyers expectations too high and then suffer with low feedback.

Advantages and disadvantages

There are definite advantages and disadvantages for not listing against a catalogue entry. The big disadvantage is for popular products – If for instance you don’t match your iPad against the relevant catalogue entry eBay will catch your listing if you use the word “iPad”, and if you don’t buyers won’t find your item and you’re unlikely to get the price you want (especially on auction).

For other items (e.g. for TVs or Computer Monitors) there will be many buyers who don’t care about the brand or model (especially for used items). These buyers simply want a good deal on price for a new screen and they won’t care or know the difference between a Samsung PS-42Q96HD and a PS-42C7HD. They’re both 42″ 720p Plasma flat screen TVs, and especially if they’re used, there’s not a lot of difference between them. If the buyer isn’t going to use the part number to buy then it’s possible you could be better off with an unmatched listing. If you don’t want to list against eBay’s catalogue when you might just get a higher price by not matching your product with Catalogue.

Observation not experience and disclaimer

I do want to point out that I’ve not purposefully used these techniques (unless by accident) and that I’m not recommending that you do. I’ve discovered some (e.g. duplicate catalogue entries) just by listing products on eBay. Other catalogue avoidance methods have been observed by checking hundreds of listings and looking to see why eBay haven’t cancelled them even thought they’re not listed against a catalogue entry.

There is always of course a danger of being caught if you try to buck the system which is why I wouldn’t recommend bending the rules. Also eBay never stays still for long so what works today probably won’t work tomorrow let alone next month or next year.

Of course if sellers don’t use catalogue then categories where catalogue is used will suffer overall. Quite frankly though so many sellers still aren’t using catalogue that a few more won’t make much difference until eBay start mandating catalogue for every listing as they have done in GPS. To do so eBay have to figure out how to identify alternative manufacture product codes and eliminate duplicate catalogue entries. That’s going to be a big project for eBay to implement.

In the meantime eBay’s big focus should be to tweak catalogue to present the best deals on the site regardless of which product card they’re tied to and then to clamp down on sellers not matching products to the catalogue. Sellers priority should be to get their listings visible in search.

It’s hard for eBay to distinguish between genuinely uncatalogued products and those that the seller hasn’t matched through ignorance or design so I’d expect them to start dumping unmatched listings to the bottom of search results. As soon as you notice unmatched listings being penalised it will be time to make certain that all your products are matched to the catalogue.

There are a number of reasons why having your product matched against eBay Catalogue affects you ranking in search results. Knowing what they are is the first step in knowing how to list to your best advantage.

You can’t use your own title
If you have a listing matched against eBay Catalogue you can’t call out key features in your title. You have to rely on eBay’s title on the product card to draw the buyer’s eyes to your listing.

Your title keywords will be picked up in search results but they won’t be displayed to buyers to confirm that they’ve found what they’re looking for. Your subtitle also won’t be displayed so you can’t call out features such as Next Day or Free shipping.

Pricing doesn’t include carriage costs
The price show in search on catalogue product cards shows the lowest item price excluding shipping. This gives a serious disadvantage to sellers who include shipping in the item price as it makes them look expensive. The sellers who charge extortionate shipping to keep their item price low are being advantaged in search and again on product pages.

Auctions aren’t sorted Time Ending Soonest
If your auction is matched to eBay catalogue it will be sorted according to the best selling new fixed price item. If that item is particularly poorly performing then your auction will never rise to the top of search results which is bound to affect views and bids.

The only good news with auctions is that many buyers will still change the sort order to Time Ending Soonest, but that still leaves a large proportion that won’t!

Item conditions are misleading
Sellers who are selling used items are quite blatantly describing their products as refurbished. The highest item condition is most usually presented first on the product card.

Whilst some items are most certainly well refurbished by reputable sellers or manufacturers most of the so called refurbs on eBay are low grade customer returns, damaged and repaired goods, or quite simply used items which have been given a quick clean and wipe over and called “refurbished” because it sounds better than used. eBay are giving buyers a pretty poor experience by presenting these products to buyers who stipulate they want a new product.

What can you do to tilt the table in your direction?

Tomorrow we’ll look at how sellers might want to take advantage of the gaps in eBay catalogue and how to free your listings to be ranked on their own merits.

Terapeak allows you to determine the value of your products before you even buy them. Giving access to completed listings you can research what price similar items have actually sold for to ensure when you purchase it’s at a price you know will sell at a profit. You can also research your competitors to find out what’s working for them and what’s not.

The promotional pricing is £159.60 giving access to Terapeak data for eBay UK, or Terapeak International for £259.60 giving access to International eBay data from the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, UK, Italy and eBay.com Motors Parts & Accessories.

Via eBay SellerSphere

Lasting 60 minutes the webinar will cover:

• Google Shopping data freshness policy
• The Content API for Shopping
• Analytics and reports on API usage
• Available support for the API
• Using Merchant Center vs. using the API: Google will walk through the advantages and disadvantages of each

As an added bonus Google Product Search team members will be on hand for questions at the end of the webinar.

You’ll need to register for the Webinar in advance if it’s of interest.

Whilst you should be able to match your products to the eBay catalogue at the time of listing, there’s a pretty fair chance that you already had products listed on eBay which haven’t been linked to a catalogue entry. eBay have made a Catalogue adoption tool available to help you find matches for your live listings and quickly link them to the relevant catalogue entries.

It’s important to match your products in categories where use of catalogue is mandatory for two reasons. Firstly it ensures that your products can be found in search by buyers looking for your item – That’s the carrot, and the stick is that sellers who repeatedly list items without the catalogue or fail to relist with the catalogue when there is a product match, will be subject to a range of actions including listing removal, limits of buying and selling privileges, and possible account suspension.

Even if you think all of your products that need to be matched to a catalogue item already are, it’s worth running the Catalogue adoption tool every week or so to ensure that none have slipped through the net.

In reality though Christmas is only 10 weeks away and if ecommerce businesses haven’t already got their holiday plans into place, it’s almost too late to capitalise on what is the busiest time of the year for retailers.

To help with your online marketing iContact have put together a 2011 Holiday Marketing Guide which is available free of charge. As well as highlight key dates thoughout the holiday season it includes strategies to appeal to different types of shoppers with tips on the types of offers most likely to appeal to them.

By following the tips in the 2011 Holiday Marketing Guide you can kick start your Christmas sales today, maximise them right up to Christmas and extend them into the New Year.

If you have any marketing tips that the guide has missed out on share them in comments below. With the tough economic times it’s been a tough year for many businesses but online retailers are best positioned to maximise on Christmas so let’s make it a good one!

This morning I received an email from an apparent ‘Charity’ representative asking if I could give a special discount on a number of items. This is not the first such email I have received and I thought I would share my thoughts on the matter.

Firstly I personally support several charities and believe that giving by either donating or fund raising is a good thing. My favourite charity shop gets all my unwanted stock and returns and I will continue to support those charities which have significance to me.

I don’t donate a percentage of sales income to any of the charities available through eBay because I prefer to keep business and my charity work separate.

One American customer who I communicated with sent me $100 via my Paypal selling account for one of my charities which he also supports. The money was very welcome but it created a minor blip in my accounts and although not currently VAT registered I wouldn’t want to reach the threshold because I had combined business and charity fund raising.

I also didn’t want to engage in emails back and forth with this apparent ‘Charity’ representative to verify if they were legitimate, and to be quite honest their record of feedback left for others put me right off the possibility of dealing with them.

I believe that although business should support charities there should be clear distinction between the two.

Editors Note: Glenn is correct about the complications of charity fund raising/donations from a tax perspective. If you want to make charitable donations from your business you will need to read up on the HM Revenue & Customs documents “Gifts to charity made by companies” and “VAT implications of Giving to Charity by Businesses“. In fact any disposal (including giving away) of business assets is normally considered as supplying goods and you will have to account for VAT on the disposal.
 
It is often simpler, as Glenn suggests, to make a personal donation with Gift Aid or to specifically list items on eBay with a donation through eBay for Charity listed on your personal eBay account, not your business selling account.

The internet is a totally visual medium, everything your customer accesses is visually based. The quality of the visual imagery the customer sees is fundamentally important, so having high quality consistent images is paramount to the identity of a brand.

There are basically two options for producing images of product – “Do it Yourself” or “Bring in a Professional”.

DIY – The seller of single small items:

I will start right here off the bat and say that if you are selling single items below a value of £100.00, then you should be taking your own pictures. Why? Simply because your profit margin will not soak up the cost of a professional commercial photographer whose prices are typically going to range from £20 – £15 for a single image (lower for multiples).

Whilst you will not be able to equal the image quality that a professional provides, you will be able to supply acceptable quality images if you invest in a good basic setup.

Our recommendation for equipment:

• A bridge camera with macro and minimum 10mp (Fuji make some good bridge cameras, £200 – £300) and a good tripod (£80.00)
• A light tent (purchase the largest you can fit on a table – 100cm x 100cm x100cm is a good size for small to medium sized product, £25 – £40 should get a decent quality tent)
• Continuous lights with stands (daylight balanced) – with as much power as you can afford (more light = faster shutter speeds), expect to pay £200 for about 2400w of light
• An image editor like Lightroom 3 which will enable you to batch process images quickly – £220.00 (you could use Gimp which is free but it will not be as quick with batch processing we imagine)
• A decent computer that can handle lots of images being edited at once – minimum spec: Windows 7, 4gig ram, decent processor and an external drive for storage of the images
• Preferably – an area dedicated to photography, so that your setup is ready for use continuously

Setup

• Choose a mid tone grey background for your backdrop in your tent, white backgrounds (pure white) is very hard to achieve and takes professional level skills, whereas a mid-tone is forgiving and will give a background to contrast a light or dark item against enabling high turnover of images produced
• Do not use bright colours as your background as they produce strong colour casts, white should look white, a red background will make white look pink
• Remove/blank all sources of light other than the daylight bulb lighting, this stops lots of lighting problems
• Set your lights so that you have one shining on top of the tent and two to one side to create some contrast in the tent
• Set your camera to its auto mode with macro and shoot in JPEG
• When taking the images think about your framing of the image, get it right in the camera so that you don’t need to crop in software
• Keep your setup consistent and your images will remain consistent
• Bulk edit in Lightroom and make sure that when you export your images you reduce them to a standard web resolution size (640 x 640 is a good middle ground we feel)

Bring in the professional – the seller of multiple quantity items

Have you ever heard the saying that “accountants pay for themselves”? A professional commercial photographer does the very same thing, they produce images that help you sell your product because they know how to portray quality and professionalism. They invest substantial sums to deliver this level of quality through equipment and knowledge.

The cost of producing the images will be proportionally small to the sales attached to that image, one image for £20.00 that helps sell 300 items is not expensive.

Quality of image helps differentiate between competitors, look at the competition, how good are their images? Now compare yourselves to them. Examine the market leaders and the trendy e-commerce giants, these tend to invest in high quality images.

The type of seller that should use professional help will probably be selling cross platform on many sites and be handling large ranges of stock and will be looking for growth.

The images produced should fill certain criteria

• Pure white background – the industry standard in the majority of cases
• High contrast and colour corrected images (Ebay are considering using contrast in images as a factor in Best Match – 3rd party platform companies like you to have good images)
• Consistent images – using stock images from different suppliers will result in inconsistent quality, lighting and backgrounds and usually the images are small and therefore of poor quality when expanded
• Branding in the form of subtle watermarking can again be used to support marketing as can your consistent style

Finding a professional commercial photographer

• Ascertain their skill-set in this niche area of commercial photography, they should have a website with examples of their product shots which you can examine
• Understand what they provide for the price, make sure basic colour correction, white balancing and removal of flaws is included, you do not want to be handed half finished images that need more money spending on them to make them usable
• Find a specialist in commercial photography, a wedding photographer will not be equipped to supply commercial product photography as a rule, neither will the “friend” with a camera
• Make sure that the photographer has the equipment to shoot on your premises if you have large runs, this will reduce transport costs
• Negotiate price discounts if you are requesting hundreds of images

We hope that helps your thoughts in this area and you find this a good introductory guide, if you need help or advice on this subject please feel free to contact Mark or Philomena at Business Photography

To get the Google Trusted Store badge you’ll need to demonstrate a track record of superb customer service along with a record of shipping promptly. To participate retailers will need to share their shipping information with Google.

Google also offers up to free $1,000 lifetime purchase protection for eligible purchases. If the customer then has a problem with their purchase, either non-delivery, mis-charged orders the retailer doesn’t honour their returns policy or the goods arrive damaged, then Google will arbitrate and work with the merchant and customer to resolve the issue.

You may spot the Google Trusted Store logo on the Internet starting today. O.co, Wayfair, BabyAge.com, and Beach Audio are part of the pilot and more stores will be added in the near future.

Whilst doubtless this program will be restricted to large retailers in the US for the duration of the pilot program it’s an interesting development. Many buyers are happy to purchase from known brands, but why should they trust your website if they’ve never heard of your company before?

With Google backing your customer service and offering free purchase protection if anything goes wrong it’s a pretty compelling reason for customers to purchase from your online store in preference to your competitors who’s sales aren’t backed by the Google Trusted Store promise.

“One tool I have been using for the past 4 month which is wicked is this Yahoo Pipe. This allows me to monitor via RSS feed my positive neutral and negative feedback on a drop down on my browser. Useful for eTRS and general monitoring of your status. I can also access this information on the go with my Blackberry RSS feed syndicator”.

The tool is a Yahoo! Pipe, which are tools to allow you to aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web. This tool has been set up to monitor feedback simply by entering an eBay User ID and eBay site.

What you can also do with this tool is monitor a competitors feedback via RSS. If you want to know how much feedback your competition is receiving and want to monitor multiple competitors accounts you can set them all up as RSS feeds in your RSS reader. From then on, whenever any of those competitors is left feedback, you’ll be notified of it in your RSS reader.

Now, after 18 months of planning and development and 6 months of beta testing, SaleHoo is launching their own e-Commerce solution for online retailers, SaleHoo Stores.

So what is SaleHoo Stores and how is it different from other e-Commerce solutions out there?

1. They are quick to setup.

Within just 15 minutes of getting your SaleHoo Store, you can have it up and running and ready to add your listings. There is no fussing around with HTML or CSS either; if you can list an item on eBay, you have the skills necessary to get your Store setup.

Watch the video demonstration to see a SaleHoo team member set up a brand new store in just minutes.

2. SaleHoo Stores are not just for US sellers.

So much eBay and online retail-related software is very US-centric, but SaleHoo Stores caters to sellers in the UK, too.

You can easily set your default currency to pounds sterling to make your local buyers feel more at home. Additionally, you can select the metric system as your weight class (for shipping information) and you can set VAT percentages where applicable.

3. SaleHoo Stores use clean, buyer-friendly designs.

There is no need to be or hire a graphic designer to get an attractive, modern and clean store design that it easy on the eye, and easy to navigate.

SaleHoo Store’s shopping cart is common-sense and highly intuitive for buyers which makes it easy for them to navigate product categories, view item descriptions and make their purchase faster.

Changing the overall look and feel of your Store is also easy. Choose from a number of templates and colour variations and with just two clicks of a mouse, your Store theme, layout and colour scheme is transformed.

Here are some examples of current SaleHoo Stores and various themes you can use. Each has a unique look, while adhering to timeless design principles.

4. Import direct from eBay.

If you are an eBay Turbo Lister user, you can easily import your eBay listings within minutes. The SaleHoo Stores eBay Importer strips out HTML code from your eBay listings. Note that any eBay-specific information will need to be adjusted and you will still need to upload images as the importer uses a CSV file rather than a Turbo Lister file.

5. More payment options.

If you’re growing tired of PayPal fees, or have ever worried about having your account frozen and being left without any cash freed up, then you will love the options that SaleHoo Stores offers. You may offer bank transfer, cheque or money order, cash on delivery, PayPal or PayPal Direct Checkout.

6. Pricing

So how much does all this cost? Well, first of all, here’s what you DON’T have to pay for:
- High start-up fees
- Additional hosting fees
- An SSL certificate to make your checkout secure (it’s already included).

Instead, you will just pay a low monthly fee to keep your SaleHoo Store up and running. Plans start from just US$27 per month for the Basic plan that allows up to 200 products to be listed. Currently, SaleHoo is offering a special where you can get the Premium (and best value) plan for just US$47 instead of the usual $97. In addition, you can currently get a double-value bonus package which gets you:

• A FREE SaleHoo membership worth $67 which gives you unlimited access to the SaleHoo supplier directory and market research tools
• A FREE copy of SaleHoo Stores Traffic Training, a video training guide on how to get floods of traffic to your SaleHoo Store. This training guide was crafted by Mark Ling, co-founder of SaleHoo.com and an internet marketing extraordinaire.
• Plus! You get a full 60-day money-back guarantee so you can try SaleHoo Stores for a full 60 days, and if you aren’t impressed, you can get a full refund, no questions asked!

Head over to SaleHoo Stores now to learn more and take advantage of this limited-time offer.

Normally we don’t publish anonymous stories, but in this case we’ve chosen to withhold the sellers name to ensure that the parties involved can’t be identified. This in their own words is what happened:

A fellow seller seeks to damage my TRS status

I like many professional full time sellers have experienced difficult buyers and have needed to contact eBay Customer Services to seek assistance for the removal of a Feedback comment or resolution of a problem.

On each previous occasion the problem was easily identifiable and eBay provided a mechanism for resolution. Some I won and some I didn’t.

However I recently experienced a “Smiling Assassin” – a fellow seller who deliberately sought to sabotage my Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs) by leaving three positive feedbacks along with 3 low score DSR marks for communication.

This particular seller was grief from the very beginning and it was only because I anticipated some back stabbing that I managed to identify and correct it.

The seller sells media items as do I and openly stated that were buying to resell, something I have no problem with. It appears that they had received a ‘PayPal Coupon’ and wanted to use it to purchase goods for resale. I combined 4 separate orders and sent an invoice to which the buyer replied “Sorry I thought I could use my ‘PayPal Coupon’ to pay for all the items, but it seems that I can only use it for a single item. I will send you a Postal Order by Recorded Delivery for payment.”

Firstly I only accept PayPal as a payment method and why, I asked myself, would a seller who accepts payment by PayPal not use their PayPal account regardless of any coupon.

Needless to say no Postal Order arrived and repeated requests for the Recorded Delivery tracking number were ignored. Nine emails down the line (apparently I am a poor communicator!) I had had enough and filed a non payment claim in the eBay Resolution Centre.

Payment by PayPal followed immediately.

The feedback

Amongst the various emails between us this were comments from this buyer thanking me for “prompt responses and being helpful” and they left 3 positive feedback comments.

However a few days later upon checking my Dashboard I noticed a blip and my communications score had jumped up by 3 taking me close to the loss of Top Rated Seller (TRS) status.

eBay customer support

I contacted eBay Customer Services and informed the agent that I thought I had been the victim of ‘Malicious DSR scoring’ and named the person I suspected. To my surprise they confirmed the identity of this buyer!

I should point out that I was fuming angry and informed eBay Customer Services that I was quite prepared to take this buyer to the small claims court and would blog about this incident (yes I admit I used the threat of TameBay) in order to get the removal of this DSRs.

To cut a long story short after much discussion and consultation with supervisors eBay Customer Services agreed to remove the DSRs (took 36 hours to clear.)

As I previously stated I have no problem with a fellow seller purchasing and reselling my products. However when that fellow seller has TRS status and seeks to damage my TRS status with malicious DSRs and gain an advantage over me I get bloody angry.

My little example really shows the danger of anonymous DSR and the need for eBay to better police feedback and DSRs.

Once eBay removed the DSR scores I contacted the seller and told them exactly what I thought about them and they were full of apologies. Unfortunately they haven’t been suspended.

Final comment

One final comment – as a regular moaner about eBay Customer Services I have to say that on this occasion they came up trumps – “Thank you, eBay Customer Services”.

eBay have added a field into TurboLister for you to type or scan in a UPC, EAN or ISBN product code. You can also short cut the listing process on the Sell Your Item form by entering product codes instead of item keywords.

In TurboLister you currently need to add the UPC/EAN/ISBN code in two places – once in the UPC/EAN/ISBN field and again to search the eBay catalogue for a matching product.

On the Sell Your Item form however the entire listing process is shortened by entering your product code right at the beginning of the listing process. By entering the product code eBay will automatically populate the Category, Product Details, Image, Title and some of the Item Specifics.

Short cutting the listing process though isn’t the only reason to list with product codes. If you search eBay for a product code such as the 766907610529 (for a Viewsonic flatscreen) it will take you straight to the eBay Product Page for that item. (In some cases eBay don’t yet direct you to a Product Page but to standard search results.)

You might think that buyers aren’t likely to know the product code for many items, but don’t forget that many buyers now use eBay’s mobile apps. Inbuilt into the mobile apps is the RedLaser barcode scanning technology that eBay purchased. Any buyers who scan a bar code will most likely be scanning a UPC, EAN or ISBN.

Adding a product code when you’re listing in TurboLister or a third party application may seem like extra work, but if it helps your product be found it makes sense to add them. Using the product code to short cut the Sell Your Item listing process will actually save you time and make it easier as well as quicker to list on eBay.

The product code will also ensure that your item is matched against the relevant eBay catalogue item and that your listing appears on the eBay Product Page giving it the greatest chance of being seen and purchased by buyers.