Classified Sites

eBay has made some forays into the classified ads space and enjoyed some good success. In the UK, you’ll see gumtree.com, worldwide take a look at kijiji.com and (for an example of an eBay owned classified site that is beating the traditional eBay site) in Holland take a look at marktplaats.nl. Take a look too at craigslist.com, of which eBay owns, 25%.

I think one of the principles of successful online marketing is to ‘follow the traffic’. And these online communities and sites provide new environments with which to interact with buyers. Search the sites and see if you might be able to advertise your sales, website, or individual items there. I think most sellers on eBay can find something to do there. Don’t forget that these sites index really well in search engines.

Comparison Shopping

Sites such as Kelkoo, Shopping.com and other major Comparison shopping sites have often proved a difficult environment for eBay sellers to penetrate. Not only are small businesses competing with big businesses who are typically getting better rates, but the it can be technologically challenging to plug-in and publish your inventory. The pricing model, pay per click rather than pay per sale, is also risky for smaller businesses with tight margins and a need for certainty.

But do take a look. They’re definitely not suited to all sellers, or indeed many, but there could be something that intrigues.

I think that every seller dependent on the eBay monster needs some sort of independent online presence. It could be just a blog or a single webpage but for many I reckon that a full-blown ecommerce enabled site is a very good idea. At the very least your own site is good cyber-squatting and also good marketing sense. At best, it will come to eclipse your eBay sales. Bottom line: you can’t rely on eBay. She may not be malicious but she can be a cruel mistress, unintentionally. Moreover, if you’re making a success of eBay you can replicate that success with your own website.

If you start now and spend a bit of cash, by Christmas 2008 you could be selling a lot of stuff from your own site, in your own way. It’s worthy of serious thought. Depending on the path you choose (and I’m hoping for lots of comments from people who’ve already had a pop), I reckon that even a relatively small outlay of £500 will pay for itself within months. Hopefully, there will be some perspectives on good packages and services too.

eBay delivers a lot of things. When it comes to buyers and traffic, nobody does it better but there are other ways of getting sales. So why do it? I think that every eBay seller can find greater profits. It’s crazy to depend on eBay alone and a website is a really good step towards diversification.

Some benefits:

You’re in charge: No more fussing over what eBay will do next. Build a site and you’re the boss. Organise how it looks and feels, take charge of the findability and create the buying experience that you think your buyers like.

Fees will be lower: Your site will have costs associated with it but they will in all likelihood be cheaper on a per item basis.

Incremental sales: website sales will hopefully be additional to those you’re already making on eBay and not cannibalising them to any real extent (unless you want them to!).

Building loyalty: For a seller, a website represents a good opportunity to build relationships with regular buyers. If they like what you’re selling and like how you’re selling, then in all hope, you can migrate them to your own platform.

There are two particular advantages of using this channel. Firstly, it’s free from eBay’s gaze. You are free to market your own website, or indeed, anything you like, without fear of eBay taking umbrage and slapping your wrist. Secondly, when buyers get their parcels they are excited and hopefully in a good mood. This is a good time to encourage them to come back for more. A satisfied customer is ripe for the picking.

At the very least you want to make sure that you’ve got some marketing bumf inside your parcel. Simply including a PayPal or eBay print-out isn’t enough. Look at creating either a professional leaflet (you’ll find some very affordable print deals on eBay) or doing your own custom despatch note. You’ll obviously want to thank your buyer and probably encourage them to contact you if they have any bothers, but otherwise it’s a blank canvas.

You don’t need reams of text, just stick to a few important messages: visit my website, check out these deals, try my Shop for these complementary items. Brand the leaflet/flyer in your colours and make it congruent with your on-eBay presence. Don’t forget to use images!

Some of the more imaginative marketing and branding I’ve seen has been on the outside of parcels. Stickers and ink stamps can be very striking and effective. You might even want to get your jiffy bags custom printed for a very professional finish.

About Me Page: Just about nothing is free on eBay and yet this free option isn’t taken up universally. Your About Me page is a freeform page that you can customise, design and brand. Buyers do, it seems, like the About Me page and take a look as they peruse eBay for things to buy. Two things. You can include a link to your website on this page, so do that. You’ll get a bit of trickledown traffic via that link (and it’s always a case of the more the merrier) but it’s also another link in to your site and good for your Google sexiness. Secondly, don’t cobble together an About Me page in minutes, taking a bit of time to ensure it’s a functioning part of your marketing is best practice.

My World: In some ways My World is simply a souped up About Me Page. But it’s the ‘social’ features that mark it apart and make it useful. And when you write a blog entry, review something or write a guide it’s not being sociable that really matters. You’re a actually talking to an audience of one: Google. Setting up your My World to match your Shop and listings need only take a few moments and you can easily add or remove boxes you’re not using.

You can blog about anything you like, but for the full benefit of indexing well in search engines (which eBay My World and the blogs functionality do) make sure you’re writing about your business, what you sell and related topics. Write a couple of reviews about items you sell and pen a guide too.

Shop Headers: Ensuring that your Shop items, and the whole of your catalogue, is adequately exposed include your Shops header, and maybe your category lists if you like, in all your listings. A buyer might not necessarily want to buy the item they land on so let them know about everything else you stock. The Shops header, replete with logo, is also a great bit of branding.

Email Footers: How many emails do you send out a week? Hundreds without really trying, I bet. Make sure that every mail you send out, eBay-related or not, has a shameless plug for your Listings or Shop. Those clicks here and there add up.

What should you be considering?

Colour Scheme and Logo: Having a recognisable and consistent colour scheme is the most obvious branding option you have. Think of big brands like Harrods, Tesco or Boots the Chemist. You know exactly what their colours are and you can replicate a bit of that immediate recognition by adopting colour schemes that are reflective of what you sell and permeate all of your eBay activities. A striking logo is also a must. Make sure it projects the kind of business you are and tells your customers something about you and what you sell. An ultra modern logo for a business selling purely antique goods doesn’t send the right message. It’s not necessarily pricey to get a designer to knock something up that you’ll like and it does look good.

Tone of Voice: The way in which you speak to your customers influences them. Compare, for instance, adverts for Cilit Bang and Marks and Sparks. The words and the way they are spoken is a million miles apart but both do the job of getting their messages across and helps us understand the products for sale. Most of your communications will be written but tone is still vital. Examine what you’re saying and whether you’re happy with it.

The Message: Do you have key messages that you want customers to absorb? Are you the cheapest, the fastest, the nicest, the most reliable? You might want everyone to know that you’re a long-established family business off-eBay. Or that you source fairtrade goods and greener packaging. Whatever the message, make sure you are getting it out forcefully and consistently. Consistency? That feels like where I came in…

I like to think about selling on eBay in contexts that are familiar. Think about a fruit market, a car boot sale or even the shops on the High Street. You’ll have outlets that don’t need to market to you. You go there anyway. You trust and know them. But everyone else will have to tempt you in with their goods, offers and messages. That’s all it is and why it’s important.

Branding is stating who you are and what you stand for and being recognized for those things. Marketing is capitalising on your brand and projecting messages that will attract customers. So what does this mean for an eBay seller?
Even if you are tut tutting under your breath as you read this, believing it to be bovine excrement, whether you like it or not, you’re marketing and branding already. Your brand is expressed by your Feedback and listings and buyers are already making judgments. You’re also already marketing: what else are your listings?

It might already be out there but for many it’s incoherent. Getting the marketing and branding right on eBay is part of being competitive because it marks out a great seller from a good one and helps you attract those all important multiple purchases and repeat buyers.

Over the next few days I want to look at some topics related to branding and marketing on eBay.

Being as efficient possible with stock levels and shifting those slow lines is a key part of your profitability. Here are some thoughts:

Keeping Stock Costs Money
For any retailer, keeping the stock itself is part of the cost of doing business. Of course, it might not be a pressing cost if you have ample cheap premises or operate from home. But even then remember that slow moving stock might be preventing you from stocking new goods. Have you got a batch of stuff that been lingering? If so, it’s efficient to try and get rid of it.

Something is Better than Nothing
You might have a price in mind for the stock that’s not moving that you need to achieve to make a profit or break even. If you’ve been failing to get that, it’s possibly worth considering whether your price is unrealistic. You can leave that stock safely stowed because you don’t want to make a loss or sell it (and make only a hopefully small loss) and then at least it’s putting something back into the business. If it’s gathering dust it’s a dead loss.

Hold a Sale
It’s that time of year and a sale of some sort is a good way of shifting stock. On eBay you have 3 options. In your Shop you can fire up Markdown Manager. There may be some requirements but at least buyers will know they’re getting a reduction. Secondly, just go for the cheap and cheerful 1-99p start price auction. Or finally, rather than sell individual items, sell batches wholesale. This cuts costs and hassle.

Every cloud…
… has a silver lining. Use your sell-off as a marketing event. Be sure to cross-promote and signpost and see if you can attract to your regular items using your cut-price items.

When it comes to email enquiries from potential buyers, I’m curious as to how many result is successful sales. You may know. But even if it’s a low percentage, as you’re now scored and rated with the Detailed Seller ratings in Feedback, you can’t really escape from this chore. Even if it is, as I suspect, often fruitless and unprofitable, it has to be done.

Automate Everything You Can
If you’re using Seller Manager Pro, or indeed any other tool, make sure that everything that can be automated has been. Payment Received and automatic Despatch Notifications put buyers at ease and help you get good grades with the DSRs.

Work the Templates
The vast majority of your emails will have identical, or near identical, content. Once all yours are set up it’s important to review and optimise them over time. You have almost complete freedom so you can tweak them to match the needs of your business. A few moments today working out what many of your emails regard, crafting the text, saving the template and using it again and again will cumulatively save you loads of time over the course of the year.

What are your FAQs?
Are you often being asked the same questions by potential bidders and buyers? Shame on you. Address your FAQs in your listings and also using the FAQ feature to save time. Look back over what you’ve been asked over the past month or two to assess what you could be adding to listings. Needless to say, even a comprehensive listing will still attract questions that you answer very clearly in your published text. But there’s not much we can do about that.

Set Times for Emails
The urge to provide ultimate customer service is a strong one for sellers on eBay. But don’t let the best be the enemy of the good. It’s tempting to ‘just log on for a second and do the emails’ but it is rather inefficient. And if your inbox is empty, it’s a complete waste of time. Have fixed times, stick to your schedule and don’t waste time poring over My Messages. The chances are that it can wait.

Remember too that buyers are sensitive to postage costs. It’s noticeable that eBay are keen to promote items with inclusive P&P. A cynic would say that’s because eBay get their share but it’s more to do with the fact that buyers like the clarity and certainty.

If you haven’t had a look at ‘free P&P’ (and, of course, it isn’t really free, it’s just factored into the item price), it is worth considering. Run an experiment: sell like-for-like items and compare conversion. You may be surprised. It could be that ‘free P&P’ works better for you on certain lines or makes a difference on BINs.

Packaging
There are two ways you can be more efficient with packaging. The first relates to cost and the second to time. Using the cheapest packaging can be a false economy. Crap materials can cost you more in the long-run, once you have to deal with breakages and returns. You should never underestimate the ordeal that the average parcel goes through in transit, so don’t scrimp. Looks for good deals and make sure that your supplier is offering the best value for money, like for like. Buying in bulk will save you money, so if you can, do. I know of one group of PowerSellers who live close to each other and they effectively operate as a cooperative to buy in bulk and save money.

In terms of time, are you using materials that mean that you can pack your despatches as quickly as possible? It’s a serious point because time is money. I remember advising a seller who was selling odd shaped items. He used to make beautiful parcels, using loads of bubblewrap and took real care. But it did take him an age. A box, less bubble, packing peanuts and a bit of newspaper was just as effective and each parcel took him less than half the time to create.

Postage Tips.
I imagine hell is rather like the queue at the Post Office. If you can possibly avoid it, you’ll save loads of time. Find out when your PO is quietest and gun for then and talk to the staff to see if you they can help. Otherwise, if you’re selling loads consider collection, PPI or other services. Time saved on despatching goes straight to the bottom line.

On a slightly different note, make sure you’re paying the right tariff. The size and weight criteria have added ambiguity, and through either malice or ignorance, it’s easy to pay too much. If it fits through the slot, it’s a Large Letter and much cheaper to send. Know the system inside out and make sure you’re not paying too much.

Relying on one format sucks.
Today, if you’re sticking to a single format, you’re missing out. Selling using auctions only and BIN only (in 99% of cases) is not wise. eBay has lots of different types of buyers. Some love the thrill of the auction, the obsessive poring over bids, the adrenalin of sniping and the hope of a good old-fashioned bargain. The love of auctions, from a buying perspective, is a remnant of the old eBay. In the age of collectables and antiques it was the only way to go and I, personally, love it. But it doesn’t appeal to the convenience orientated shopper who isn’t interested in the ritual and waiting of the auction game who will very happily think Amazon (or plump for a High Street purchase) online before taking a risk on an auction. These eBayers prefer Buy it Now. They want to know what they will pay, do it quickly and receive the goods in a matter of days. Don’t limit your customer base by being dogmatic about formats.

It’s about a mix.
Both BIN and pure auction formats can serve as very useful signposts for eBay sellers. This is where you start thinking not just about individual items but rather the entirety of your catalogue. You can direct buyers to different goods, sale items and different formats. But most importantly, under the current regime, ‘core’ listings can be used to drive traffic to your eBay Shop and your SIF items. SIF items aren’t tarts: they are shy, demure BINs. They only show their faces in Search and Browse under certain circumstances. Sometimes I see sellers who depend too heavily on SIF alone and they grumble but sellers who are cleverly using the merchandising features, cross-selling tools and shamelessly pimping their Shop and SIF listings will happily say that all’s right with the world. Displaying your Shops header and category structure in all your listings is a good idea and pimping complementary items really does work. When they buy a pair of shoes, upsell cleaning products and the like.

SIF also works if you have a customer base that will search for very specialist terms. SIF items show when there aren’t many ‘core’ items to display. So SIF really works on highly niche terms and sellers with buyers who search for things like serial numbers or use unusual part names. Canny buyers, such as myself, will also toggle their search options in the hope of finding a bargain.

Don ‘t do anything yet.
Please don’t run out and start changing your listings on the back of the post. Within the fortnight we’ll know what eBay has in store for your business (yup, you’re the last to know). So, sit tight and try and spot the Eliot and Browning quotes I’ve included (as per Biddy’s Challenge) in this post. ;O)

Tomorrow: eBay Shop Email Marketing

Time was that people would come to eBay directly, search and buy. Nowadays much online shopping begins with Google, eBay turns up in results and then buying commences. It’s sage to expect that this trend is going to continue (it’s why I reckon that diversifying away from eBay into other channels is wise). Hold me to this, if eBay still exists: in time you’ll be getting more of your eBay customers from Google, than eBay itself.

This means that making your eBay Shop and listings as sexy as possible to Google and search engines is more than just about boosting the bottom-line. This is about survival.

eBay Shops SEO options

Aside from the name of your Shop, there are two key areas to consider: your Shop ‘blurb’ and your category structure. The good news is that eBay also gives you help with keywords. Check out the section in your Shop Manager.

Shop Blurb: The obvious temptation is to write something along the lines of “Hi there! I’ve been trading on eBay for 3 years and really hope you’ll buy from me! Check out my… blah, blah, blah…” This might be friendly but it’s bad for Search Engines. This would be better: “Daphne’s Furniture and Homeware Shop sells furniture and household goods. We’ve got chairs, tables, shelf units, sofas and storage units. Check out big brands… blah, blah, blah.”

Shop Categories: It’s the same game with your categories. Make sure that your Shop Category structure is working really hard. Of course, the terms will depend on what you sell, but the discipline in the same: cram in the keywords!

To use a field I know well, imagine ‘Dan’s Doctor Who Emporium’:

You could go for:

Action Figures
Audio
Books
DVDs
Toys

But this would be better:

Doctor Who Action Figures
Doctor Who Audio

Big Finish
Vintage

Doctor Who Books

BBC
Target
Virgin

Doctor Who DVDs

Box Sets
Vintage
William Hartnell
Tom Baker
David Tennant

Doctor Who Toys

Dinky
Dapol
New Series

It’s just about giving the search engines fodder to chew on to help them catalogue you. Hamlet summed it up: “words, words, words.”

4 Good Reasons to have an eBay Shop

Search Engine Sexiness: A well-named Shop, optimised by its owner, making it as sexy as possible to Search Engines will most likely perform well on Google and the like. Your eBay Shop can be the way you drag in punters from the World Wide Web and get buyers from sources other than eBay.

Good Reports: As part of the basic package you get all the lovely Shop Traffic and Sales reports. This feature, should be the meat and drink of every eBay seller’s daily routine, is worth the £6 subscriptions on its own.

eBay Shop as a Destination: Your Shop is a place you can drive traffic to and promote independently. Although not as flexible as it could be (I would welcome changes that transform an eBay Shop into a truly customiseable, pretty much white-label, facility), sellers can enjoy success by tweaking their Shop.

SIF Format: Shop Inventory Format Listings offer sellers with some options not available to others. Of course, when choosing selling formats, a mix works. And for most sellers SIF can be part of that mix.

So, over the next few days I’ll be looking at eBay Shops. Is there anything that you’d specifically like to discuss?

Videos are becoming ubiquitous online and the unstoppable rise of YouTube shows how at ease most net users are with moving pictures. But it seems like eBay and eBay sellers have been slow to adopt video with eBay UK only implementing a video policy on the site last September.

Videos are an efficient way of communicating and an effective way of selling. Not only can a moving image communicate more than even a dozen pics, but you can also talk directly to viewers. It’s a very easy way to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Tricky and Time-consuming?

Not necessarily. Most digi cameras, and even your mobile phone, can shoot a video. People don’t necessarily expect Spielberg-esque films. Online video can be a bit rough round the edges so the filming and upload need not take any longer than a clutch of images.

eBay Video Ideas

There are lots of different ways you could use a video to sell on eBay and there’s huge scope to be creative and produce material that suits your business.

Item Videos
The most obvious use of video is to film and describe the item you’re selling. Just like with a picture, you need to give buyers a fair impression of the item. Don’t forget to talk. Connect with your buyers and tell them about what you’re selling.

Merchandising Videos
If you’re selling a number of complementary items or have regular lines that go well together how about creating a merchandising video? Say, if you’re selling cameras, tripods and other photographic goods, make a video that tells buyers about the other goods you sell. The benefit of this is that you can make a video that can be inserted into multiple listings and used multiple times, thus saving time.

About your Business
A video about you and your business can be a really good way of inspiring confidence and reassuring buyers. How about creating a video that features you talking about your business and what you sell? As with all videos online, brevity wins prizes. Even just a minute of footage can be beneficial.

For help and more information about vzaar, click here.

I have been astonished by the number of sellers, yup powersellers too, who expect me to splash out hundreds of quid on something I’ll have to live with every day, but who provide me with only a single picture to help me form a judgment.

Pictures aren’t a luxury

A great many sellers do a really good job on photos. Quite right too. It’s such a vital part of a listing that the time invested is surely reflected in profitability. My big ticket purchases have been made from sellers who have given me all the information I needed to login to PayPal and ping them my hard earned. Take a cold, dispassionate look at your pics and ensure that you’re helping convert viewers into buyers with your images.

eBay Picture Tips

Tooled up? Are you ‘making do’ with a crap camera? Better cameras do yield better results and equally things like lights, tripods and backgrounds can give your images a professional zing that gets those bidding fingers twitching. Editing software (which is cheap and sometimes free) can help you improve your pics immeasurably.

Customer Focused Pics: Are you taking the easiest or most obvious photo? Or are you aiming for an image that will encourage bidding. Think about what a buyer would want to see. For instance, I was looking at beds on eBay. Most sellers provide a homely shot of the bed, made up, in a charming room. I actually want to see the bare bones of the bedstead and how it’s constructed.

More is More: There aren’t many things that you’d sell on eBay that wouldn’t benefit from having more photos showing them off. It also strikes me as incredible that eBay essentially ‘taxes’ better listings and a better buying experience by charging for additional images. But you don’t need to pay extra for extra images. Obviously, the first one is free and you should take that, not least because it’s your Gallery image. The rest you should be hosting yourself and popping into your templates with HTML. Learning a few tags could save you a lot of dough.

Top and Centre: When you’re hosting your own pics, you also have greater flexibility in how you position them. Make a photograph the first thing a browser sees by putting your image top and centre. It’s madness to make them scroll down and down and down just to see what you’re selling.

My other thought relates to buyers. A good Return Policy is a huge reassurance to a buyer. It encourages them to bid because it makes them feel safer: they can return the goods if they want to. It soothes a furrowed brow.

So, while we’re thinking about customer focused listings, reviewing your Return Policy and making sure it’s as clear, flexible and friendly as possible is one thing that can make a difference and convert browsers into buyers.

Some things to consider:

Legal requirements: The Return Policy you offer will depend upon what you sell and be determined by the style of business you run. But as a basis, know what you’re legally obliged to offer. Of course, regardless of whether or not you express your legal requirements, your buyers can enjoy the benefits. Find out about the legal obligations here. Again, even some of the legal obligations are dependent on the goods sold.

It’s a cost of doing business: There’s not much point fretting too much about returns. They are an inevitable cost of doing business, whether you’re a small time trader or a high street giant. Some canny sellers I know specifically budget for returns across all their sales when they calculate their prices (perhaps a little extra on your P&P?) to therefore generate a ‘Returns Fund’ that covers the ones that go awry.

Be as flexible as you can: It’s hard to over-express how popular Return Policies are with buyers. Don’t forget that many eBayers aren’t that tech savvy or experienced as online shoppers. For many, still, coming to eBay is scary and daunting. Offering a Return Policy which appeals to that massive number of convenience orientated shoppers, makes sense. By being flexible, you may attract many more buyers and not see a corresponding rise in Returns.

Tomorrow: Pictures Perfect.Â

To get a sense of just how long an eBay View Item page is, print one of yours out. It’s astonishing. Obviously, much of this is compulsory content from eBay, but you might be adding to sprawl.

Keep it Short

The one thing that most sellers know is that many buyers don’t spend a great deal of time reading listings. So make it easy for them. Key information can often be digested into bullet points or short, pithy sentences. Rambling paragraphs are a turn-off. Use bold and caps for emphasis.

Clearly Works

Clean, crisp, uncluttered templates and designs work. Garish wallpaper, zany text colours on bright backgrounds are distracting and potentially impossible for people with visibility issues to read. Stick to dark text on light backgrounds. And absolutely no bloody wizards tracking the cursor around the screen.

Be Friendly

Exhaustive Ts and Cs might make you feel better but they also serve to make you look slightly paranoid and unfriendly. It’s always possible to cut them down and DO check the tone. You may have had a bad experience with a tricky buyer 18 months ago, but your new customers don’t need to know about.

Tomorrow: Returns Policy

Bring ‘em in: Get a potential buyer’s attention so they’ll view your listing.

Convert ‘em: Once they’re looking, persuade them that you have what they want to buy and that you’re someone they want to buy from.

Process ‘em: Take payment, deal with queries, pack and despatch.

Satisfy ‘em: Most buyers are happy when they receive the goods and Robert’s your father’s brother. But sometimes you might need to sort out a problem or deal with a difficult or disappointed buyer.

With these stages in mind, your listings have two roles. Primarily, it’s a persuasion tool. Buyers are asking: “is this what I want to buy?” Your listings need to provide all the information they need. But don’t forget that you are also selling yourself as a trustworthy person to trade with.

Secondly, your listing is about managing expectations and solving problems before they occur. That basically means explaining the deal regarding payments, postage and other ‘boring’ stuff.

Two things often strike me about eBay listings that don’t ‘convert’ me. They haven’t been crafted to appeal to me as a customer. Rather their primary aim seems to be covering the seller’s arse. Moreover, they don’t give me the info that will make me say “Hell yeah. I’m buying this!” In short, listings that fail to make the grade aren’t customer focused. How do you think yours are doing?

Tomorrow: Customer focused listings.

eBay Inc.

If you’re a professional eBay seller you’re staking a lot on a global business that you have no control over. So keeping tabs on what’s going in San Jose makes sense. At the very least, keeping an eye on the Annual Report and Quarterly Reports, that can be found in the Investor section of eBay.com, is time well spent.

Site Changes and News

The eBay UK Announcement Board is a must read, but do look at eBay.com too and other national sites. Much of the information is the same but you might get advanced warning of a change heading our way. Tamebay is, of course, a great source of information and there are lots of other handy blogs out there. Make it easier to keep up by using a reader, such as the Google Reader.

Trading Trends

What’s everyone buying? What’s selling like hotcakes? How does your conversion rate look against the category average? The Marketplace Research Tool will tell you all this. You probably keep a close eye on what’s going on around you anyway, but with hard numbers you can back up your hunches.

Carry on Spying

If you aren’t buying from your key competitors (incognito of course!) then you’re missing a trick. Are they doing anything better than you? See what they’re doing and do it better. You don’t just compete on price, after all.

Tomorrow: Pimp your selling.

A lot of serious sellers are running their own businesses for the first time and with that comes inexperience. One basic business practice that many sellers neglect is keeping a close eye on their sales and other business metrics.

Why is this important?

Understanding what’s going on with your sales is vital because it’s how you determine how much money you’re making and let’s face it, profit is why you’re in this game. On eBay it’s particularly important because it’s a cut-throat, competitive marketplace. It’s not an advanced skill or practice; it’s one of the fundamentals. You haven’t got time? You have to find it. Next time you’re hunched over My Messages waiting for an email to come in or checking your auctions for the umpteenth time that hour, consider if it’s really necessary and whether you could be spending some quality times with your numbers.

When you know the numbers, you will be able to make informed decisions related to stock, pricing and improving the health of your business.

What numbers matter?

Sales Data: First up, you need to know what you’re selling and for how much. This information can be found in the Sales Report in your eBay Shop. Something else to examine the number of unique buyers you’re selling too. Repeat sales and multiple purchases are a really good health metric: the higher the better.

eBay/PayPal’s ‘Take Rate’: What percentage of your turnover in general, and item by item, are you paying to eBay/PayPal? There’s no hard-and-fast rule but between 8% and 15% is pretty good for most sellers. Most importantly, is the ‘take rate’ changing over time? One way to improve your profitability is to maintain sales but cut what you’re paying. Or you could concentrate your sales on more profitable lines with lower ‘take rates’.

Conversion Rate/Sell Through Rate: What percentage of what you’re listing is selling? Are some of your lines better performers? Improving your conversion is a key way of improving profitability because you’re not wasting fees on items that don’t sell. What’s an ideal conversion rate? It depends. If you sell big ticket items, a conversion rate of 10% can be profitable and even a seller who has 100% conversion might not necessarily be making money.

Average Selling Price: What prices do your lines get? A vital metric on it’s own but more valuable as you track it over time. If you compare ASPs to the previous month, and also the same month the year previous, and they’re decreasing it’s a heads up that the market is saturated or demand has fallen and you might want to look for other lines.

Tomorrow: Know the Marketplace

Casual sellers are probably wise to stick with the old orthodoxy, especially with auctions, of ten day listings, comprising two weekends and ending on a Sunday evening. Professional/serious sellers have to be more clever.

Different Goods, different times

Your most profitable ending times will depend on what you’re selling. Young mums, office workers, emo kids or militaria collectors will have different shopping habits, so you need to tailor your ending times to your key audience and experiment. Of course, that’s easier said than done (especially if you have a broad base of customers). Your Shop Traffic Report is an invaluable tool in gauging whether particular times are better for you and your listings. Set up a spread of listings and see if any preferential times emerge. Don’t just look at days and hours. Are certain weeks of the month better than others? For instance, do you get a ‘third/fourth week bounce’ after payday?

It’s about a mix

As a serious seller you doubtless want to be making sales throughout the week. So make sure you spread out ending times, especially if you’re selling numerous items in a single line. Needless to say, both BINs and auctions are most visible as they’re drawing to a close because most of eBay’s Search and Browse pages default to ‘Ending Soonest’. Try to avoid ‘clumping’ whereby you have lots of items ending very closely together. For instance, if your three beige widgets all currently end on a Wednesday evening, change them so they end on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. This should improve your visibility overall. Don’t forget that with Selling Manager Pro that listing scheduling is free.

Think about your whole catalogue

If you do identify a ‘hotspot’ it’s time to exploit it. Do some of your items ending at a particular time do especially well? If so you can use them to channel traffic to your other listings and your Shop. Use your ‘hero listings’ as signposts to other lines and your Shop by using the full gamut of merchandising tools available.

Tomorrow: Know your Numbers.Â

Your Username is the core of your eBay brand. It says something about the kind of operation you run and it influences your buyers. It’s also probably intensely personal to you. Which is quite right: you should be proud of it. But for many sellers, the choice of Username was not necessarily one driven by business reasoning and was in all probability done hastily, a long time ago.

You can change your Username at any time (but not more than once every 30 days) and you take all your Feedback with you. Find out whether a new name you like is available here.

What does your Username say about you?

Nicknames, pet names and humourous handles might be fun for you, but they are most likely meaningless to customers. Ask friends what your Username says to them. Of course, that’s not to say that a fun name isn’t right. Some very successful sellers have built their brands around cute names but those that do make it work ensure that their name is reflective in some way of what they sell or how they conduct business and they make sure that it’s pervasive their eBay activities.

Search Engines

Most people begin their online shopping trips with Google. eBay spends a great deal of time and money ensuring that the site is as sexy as possible to the search engines and in this context a sober, factual and descriptive Username can be beneficial. If someone is searching Google for ‘discount clothing’ an About Me page, My World page or Shop* (don’t forget the same ideas apply to your Shop name!) from a user with the words ‘discount’ and ‘clothing’ in their Username stand a much better chance of showing up than ‘wobbly-buttocks’ and ‘fredisflatulent’.

Get the URL

If you decide on a superior Username, run out and grab the domain. If your eBay sales are going well, or perhaps if they’re not, then you might well want to start your own website in due course. It’s only going to set you back a few pounds to squat the domain and ensure you can carry your brand and customers off-eBay.

Tommorrow: End Times.

* Don’t forget that if you want to change your Shop name too, change your Username first and then your Shop name, otherwise you might get in to a pickle!

The most important part of your eBay listing is the title. Why? It’s how buyers find you. To succeed you need to ensure that your titles are 55 characters of sexed up keyword bliss. Of course, other factors do influence your eBay findability, but if someone is searching eBay for something to buy (and remember that the vast majority of buyers do search rather than browse) they probably won’t find your item unless your title includes the search keywords they enter in to eBay’s search engine.

There is always room for improvement when it comes to your titles and your first step is to understand what’s working. To find out the keywords driving traffic to your items, use the Keywords Information in your eBay Traffic Report. It it’s working, make sure you keep doing it.

Stating the Obvious

You’re close to what you’re selling and probably well-versed in the specialist terms related to your wares but your buyers may not be and by omitting the obvious you might be losing viewers. A divan is still a bed. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles is still a CD. For inspiration check out pulse; it’s a good tool to make sure that you’re playing to the gallery.

Use Every Space

If you aren’t using every space available in your Item Title, you aren’t trying hard enough. Don’t forget that words like ‘new’ are valid terms and if you have space do include alternatives. Doctor and Dr. TV and Television. Plurals are worth considering too.

Needless to say, if you haven’t filled every space, splashing out on a Subtitle is a waste of money. In any case, remember that Subtitles aren’t searched by default by the eBay search engine.

Not Nice

Nice. Beautiful. Charming. Lovely. Pretty. Attractive. Good words but bad for Titles. Your Title is less about describing the item you’re selling and more about dragging in the eyeballs: you have the Item Description to wax lyrical. Your Title needs to be crammed full of what people are searching for. Go for brands, types and specs. Retro is better than old. Art Deco (where it’s relevant) better than ‘thirties’.

Tomorrow: What’s in a Username?

But it shouldn’t just be a case of reacting to these changes and making the best of it: serious eBay sellers will need to take advantage of events and use them to gain a competitive edge over less-flexible sellers. And to reap the rewards you’ll need to ensure that your eBay selling is in tip-top shape.

To help you enjoy a successful year on eBay I’ve put together ‘eBay Tips 2008′: a month-long series of advice, tips and strategies. Every day in January, I’ll be blogging new material, ranging from basic housekeeping, efficiency ideas, off-eBay suggestions and marketing experience. There’ll be something for everyone but just one aim: helping you be a better, more profitable, more efficient seller.

So, tomorrow, when your hangover has abated, see in the first working day of 2008 with the first instalment of ‘eBay Tips 2008′.

Tomorrow: Review your Titles