Online sellers are turning to me asking for my hot tips for 2016 Holiday sales success! Sellers want to know what are my insider tips to really sky rocket their sales on eBay, Etsy and Amazon! I give them my super duper insider tip. Want to know what it is?
Keep the customer first.
Some will respond to me, “Kathy that’s too simple.” “OK” I say, “Take a few minutes and think.”
When you pick inventory to sell, what are your major concerns? You consider cost and if the item will sell.
The bottom line for sellers is, you don’t make money if customers don’t buy what you’re offering.
Do Your Products Sell?
Discovering and then selling what shoppers want, that is keeping customers first.
When you list your product online on eBay, Etsy, Amazon and your own website, you take clear pictures to showcase your inventory. Your item’s title and description is crafted using carefully selected words ( keywords) that shoppers would use when searching for your product online.
You offer a generous and hassle free return policy to gain and maintain customer confidence in you and your products.
All of that is keeping your customer first. You are crafting a listing and business policies that keeps your shopper’s needs up front and center. The customer is first.
Once your item is sold, you carefully package the item with the intent of protecting your customer’s purchase so that it arrives safely.
The purchased item is then sent off quickly to satisfy the eager customer.
Doing all this, you are keeping the customer first. Should there be questions or concerns at anytime of the purchase or afterwards you quickly and politely respond.
It’s All About The Customer!
From start to finish it’s ALL ABOUT THE CUSTOMER.
With all the sourcing, listing and packing of product in addition to posting on social media, the primary focus of one’s business can get lost. The fundamental truth for any successful business is that it’s ALL about the customers.
Selling customers what they want, and wowing them with your care and speed of delivery gets you repeat business and profits.
So the number one key to Holiday selling success for 2016 ( and any year) is, all during the frenzy of the Holiday selling season, keep asking yourself one question.
It’s less than 105 days until Christmas sellers! Halloween is a little over a month away. Students and teachers are back in school. With school back in session, Mom and Dad are taking the time now to do some shopping for themselves.
What does this mean for online sellers?
With all these Holidays approaching and parents enjoying buying for themselves, online sellers should be VERY busy packing and shipping sales!
Are you?
If you are, terrific, carry on. Be sure to keep your eye on Halloween fast approaching and Christmas. If you haven’t mapped out a Holiday strategy it’s not too late. Read my recent blog post Quickly & Easily Get Ready For The Best 4th Quarter Ever!and take the time now to get your business set up for continued success.
If your sales are slow, now is the time to stop and take stock of the situation.
Are Your Sales Slow?
The truth about Holiday Sales is that if you are not setting yourself up NOW for success, you are going to have a tough time in the coming months,
It’s smart to take a long hard look at your inventory NOW. A little research will give you the understanding you need to see why your products aren’t selling at the rate you anticipated.
If you sell on eBay, use eBay‘s advanced search and the professional research tool Terapeak. Check the current and past prices for your inventory. Using Terapeak you can see the prices for the past year. Prices fluctuate. To get your items sold it helps to know those price fluctuations, including what sells when and for how much. It can be a matter of a small change in price to get your products moving. When checking prices be sure and also Google your products. Shoppers compare prices on several sites, you need to do the same.
Once you have your items prices properly the next step is to get them in front of your shoppers. It’s crucial to write optimized listings when selling to get found by search engines.
Are Your Listings Optimized?
There have been huge changes to eBay search in the past few years.
As an eBay seller if you are using the same style listing that worked for you three years ago, there is a very good chance that you’re using outdated practices. Those practices can cripple you in eBay and Google search, and that impacts your sales.
The order of your keywords is crucial to search on and off eBay. My YouTube video shows you how to write a killer title in under 3 minutes!
With a great title in place, the next area that can cause your sales to lag is your pictures.
Do your pictures pop?
Are they clear and crisp? Taking a few extra minutes with your pictures can reap big rewards in sales. Most items photograph well with a white background. I’ve done a video to show you a simple and inexpensive way to get plain backgrounds for your pictures.
After eBay‘s OPEN event the summer of 2016 and the eBay Fall Seller Update of 2016 there are new suggestions for item specifics and descriptions.
eBay is making huge strides in using structured data to engage shoppers.
To get a good sell through rate ( how fast your item sells) and price, a successful seller needs to keep abreast of all the current best particles on eBay.
Digesting all the changes and best practices on eBay can be a daunting task.
I’ve done the research for you! I went through all the seminars from eBay OPEN 2016. I had long conversations with eBay staff involved in all areas of eBay listings. I then spent hours analyzing eBay‘s Fall Seller Update. I’ve distilled all this information into my hit guide The Secret To eBay Search.
Don’t you love saving time? I do! Time is my most precious commodity as an entrepreneur.
My guide The Secret To eBay Search saves you time AND helps you get MORE sales!
I’ve taken all the guesswork out of your eBay listing process. I walk you line by line through your listing in The Secret To eBay Search. I explain each current eBay practice. In addition, I explain how and what Google is looking for in your listing.
Arming yourself with accurate information in The Secret To eBay Search. Know what works NOW in eBay listings. Get the power you need now to get your sales moving.
The truth about Holiday Sales is that optimized eBay listings are crucial for sales success NOW and in the coming busy months!
eBay‘s Fall seller update was released August 30, 2016 with good news for sellers!
eBay‘s razor sharp focus is on facilitating an awesome shopping experience for customers. Satisfied customers makes for increased sales and happy sellers.
To facilitate this great customer experience, eBay is continuing to use structured data in new and innovative ways. To further develop a great browsing experience for shoppers, sellers will be required to use UPC’s and product identifiers for many categories when listing NEW and manufacturer refurbished items starting February 2017. In addition to UPCs and GTIN’s, sellers will be able to use ASIN ( Amazon standard identification numbers,), Google product identifier and private label self generated numbers.
Used items will not be required to use product identifiers.
Structured Data Is Key!
As of the Fall of 2016 sellers with catalogs of products will be able to import their catalog to eBay. When importing their items, seller’s will receive and ePID eBay Product identifier. ePID’s enable sellers items to qualify for eBay Product reviews and other benefits.
eBay continues to remind sellers that active content will not be supported as of June 2017.
June 17 Deadline For Active Content!
With June 17, 2017 many, many, months away eBay sellers have plenty of time to remove JavaScript and other active content from their listings. Removing the active content makes seller’s eBay listings more mobile friendly. eBay is a leader in the mobile shopping market with millions of uploads of it’s popular mobile app.
With this year’s Fall Seller update, eBay continues to push it’s entire platform to more and more changes that make for an even greater shopping experience for customers.
To that end there are upgrades and changes to what is best for eBay seller’s listings.
With my FREEtip sheet in hand you’ll know what changes impact you and what you need to do.
4th quarter is almost here! I know that sellers time is even MORE precious this time of year!
I don’t want you having to spends hours wondering how the eBay Fall Seller Update impacts you and your listings. Grab your FREE copy ofeBay Fall Seller Update Insider Tips and set your mind at rest.
Make sure YOUR listings get ALL the benefits of eBay and Google search for the Holiday selling season!
eBay and Etsy sellers with these 3 simple strategies you can start equipping yourself for the best 4th quarter of online sales ever!
Are you ready? Let’s Go!
1st simple strategy for 4th quarter success is to take notes!
Take Notes!
It’s wise to take notes on what inventory of yours sells when. Record what promotions you offered and when. Pay attention to which sales worked and which didn’t. Note what bundles worked to sell products. Bundling is an awesome way to get your products seen and sold during the Holidays! My hit online webinar Secret Spice For Online Sales walks you easily through the process of turning your inventory into bundles that sell! The notes you take this year, will be a deep reservoir of knowledge for you to use for 4th quarter 2017!
2nd simple strategy for 4th quarter success sellers is to check your inventory!
Check Your Inventory!
If you have not done a hands on inventory of all your stock in the past few months, now is the time to do it!
An accurate count of inventory now will save you from out of stock headaches in November and December. While indexing your inventory start thinking what promotions will work best. Using the 1st strategy of taking notes, record what items will group together well for eBay Collections, Etsy treasuries. Think about what products you want to feature on your Facebook business page, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram during the Holidays!
The next simple step for selling success is check ALL your shipping supplies!
Check Your Shipping Supplies
Look at what your sales volume was last year. Note your current sales. Calculate the difference.
Examine how fast you go through mailers, boxes and tape now.
Looking at the increase in sales you experience typically for the Holidays you’ll have a good idea of how much and what shipping supplies you need on hand now. Order your supplies now.
The free USPS Priority envelopes, boxes and labels often take 2 and 3 times longer to arrive in November and December. Now is the time to stock up. If you use polymailers, padded envelopes, packing peanuts and tape consider the family owned company Bubblefast. They offer a wide variety of shipping supplies and with the coupon esnbes you’ll save 10% on your entire order!
Sellers, take in depth notes all through the Holiday season, check and log all your inventory and stock up on all your Holiday shipping supplies. These are crucial steps for selling success.
Take the time to do these easy and simple steps NOW.
Laying a firm foundation with these basic steps for you business moves you forward towards your BEST 4th quarter of sales EVER!
Did you know there is a super fast way to promote what you’re selling on eBay? Not only does this promotion work for many sellers it’s also FREE! By now you’re thinking, “Kathy, Kathy what is it?” You may also be thinking, “What’s the catch?”
It is totally free and there is no catch.
It’s using Facebook, but NOT just any old way.
Let’s start.
You don’t need an eBay store to have a Facebook Business Page.
Get improved search without an eBay store!
It can be easier for you to set up a Facebook Business page for an eBay store, but it is not mandatory for having a Facebook business page. Click here for Facebook’s information to set up your page.
Now go to ebay.com’s page on Facebook. Click on eBay’s Facebook page. This is the page that is eBay’s corporate’s face to the world. This page is geared toward buyers. The first thing to note is that the Facebook page has over 10 million likes.
10 million likes! That is an enormous number. Facebook controls who sees your posts. When you post on Facebook only a fraction of your followers see your content. Who sees it is based on Facebook’s algorithm. If you have 100 friends only a small handful will see your post. The more your friends like and comment on your content, the more people will see it. The same is true of eBay’s page. However, the page is starting with over 10 million people who like their page. Even if a post only reaches a fraction of the page’s fan base, that’s a nice number!
Sellers, you are getting FREE access to their 10 million people fan base!
You may post a listing, a Promotion created through Promotions Manager, a link to a store category, a link to a Store search and a link to your store header. The link cannot take shoppers off eBay. Links to Twitter, your Facebook Business page etc are not appropriate.
You do NOT need to be a store owner to take advantage of this amazing offer.
If you have a Facebook Business page, when possible, it’s best to post from your Facebook Business ID. Sellers doing so report an increase in likes for their Facebook Business page.
I have been testing posting along with many sellers in the Facebook group eBay Stores Nothing But eBay Stores. Many, many sellers are reporting sales of the items they post in this manner.
Posting on eBay’s Facebook page is free. It takes minutes. It can help your items to sell faster!
I’ve just returned from the exciting eBay seller event eBay OPEN in Las Vegas!
When you get eBay sellers together, you know that they are interested in hearing about increasing their sales!
2 of the eBay OPEN workshops for sellers dovetailed nicely. The 2 workshops were Marketing On eBay and Using eBay Stores To Build Your Business. Both workshops were targeted to eBay store owners.
Nick Shah, a Group Manager at eBay for B2C Seller Growth was joined by eBay‘s Gaurav Jain, Adi Behara and Deepak Pillai in the Marketing on eBay workshop. Dylan Henryson eBay‘s Senior Director of COO Seller Experience and Kevin Clark spoke at the Using eBay Stores To Build Your Business presentation.
Both teams explained the 1-2 punch for eBay store sellers of using paid Promotions integrated with Promotions Manager.
Powerful eBay Sales Combination!
For paid promoted listings, the Marketing on eBay presenters clearly explained that eBay store sellers ONLY pay the promotion fee IF the item selected is sold from a customer clicking and buying through the promoted link. If a customer finds the promoted item from a Google search, or through social media work the seller does and buys through those searches, the seller DOES not pay a Promoted Listing sales fee for those sales.
eBay‘s Promoted listings is NOT pay per impression.
Dylan Henryson in the eBay Stores presentation compared Promoted Listings to Google adwords. Dylan emphasized that with eBay‘s Promoted Listings the seller only pays for the sale from a customer clicking and buying the item through the Promoted listing. There are no fees for impressions without purchases.
Gaurav Jain pointed to Promoted Listings as a powerful tool to increase the visibility of seller’s eBay Store listings, eBay store categories and the seller’s entire eBay store.
Let’s say you sell coffee mugs. When you promote 1 multi quantity mug, most sellers find increased traffic and sales to that eBay store category and their entire eBay store. The promoted mug works to increase customer traffic overall in the seller’s eBay store
Get Customer Traffic With Promoted Listings!!
You’re only paying a fee when the customer clicks the promoted link. The residual traffic is a bonus!
Promoted Listings are available for multi quantity fixed price items in an eBay store in certain categories. Click Here for the FAQ information from eBay.
If the seller only sells 1 of a kind items I have discovered a work around. Let’s say you sell coffee mugs. You have no multi quantity fixed price items as your mugs are each unique and one of a kind. Go on eBay, or a local retailer and buy 2 of an interesting mug. Go on eBay and list the multi quantity mug. Then go to your growth tab in Seller Hub, click the Marketing tab to access Promoted Listings and select your promotion rate and launch your promotion.
This short video from eBay shows you how to set up a promotion in Promotions Manager
Test different promoted items and categories and see what works best for you and your eBay store. eBay gives you the data you need in your Promoted Listings dashboard.
Ready for part 2 of the 1-2 punch to increase your eBay store sales? Part 2 is using Promotions Manager.
Deepak Pillai stated that eBay has data showing that sellers using Promotions Manager see a 10% increase in sales across their entire eBay store. He further stated that 75% of shoppers are looking for some kind of deal, sale or promotion.
Online selling competition will only increase. When you showcase an item in a Promotion through eBay‘s Promotions Manager you greatly increase the likelihood of a shopper browsing and buying from you. An effective promotion with Promotions Manager helps to keep the eBay shopper in YOUR store. Experiment to see what groupings and what promotions in Promotions Manager work best for your items.
I find micro niching promotions effective.
To get ideas of content I look at shopping blogs and brick and mortar retail to see how they are grouping products. I also use Terapeak to investigate my competitors and see what Promotions they may be using.
Deepak Pillai encouraged sellers to use Promotions Manager to get traffic during retail moments (Back To School, Christmas etc), to put the spotlight on newly arrived inventory and to clean out stale inventory.
Adi Behara pointed to the importance of firing Promotions with Promotions Manager at the best time to get traffic. He reminded sellers that eBay spends enormous amounts of money to bring shoppers to eBay around retail moments. Targeting Promotions to these moments has immense value. Promotions in Promotions Manager also have social sharing buttons for the sellers to use to gain additional traffic from Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
eBay helps sellers target their Promotions with a retail calendar in Promotions Manager.
Use fixed price multi quantity listings in Promoted Listings. Combine that with Back To School promotions in Promotions Manager now to increase your eBay store sales! Click HERE to get your free guide!
Adi Behara emphasized that every eBay store is different and it’s important to test promotions and tweak promotions.
Promoted listings done right are an effective tool for sellers to drive traffic to their eBay store. Once there, targeted promotions through Promotions Managers fired at the right time converts shoppers to buyers!
All the eBay staff at both presentations at eBay OPEN emphasized the importance of sellers testing and finding the right combination for for their shoppers. Both Promoted Listings and Promotions Manager offer data and suggestions to help sellers make effective choices.
eBay Store Owners using these Promoted Listings and Promotions Manager see increased traffic and sales!
eBay gives sellers the tools to increase visibility and sales with 1-2 punch of Promoted Listings and Promotions Manager!
Join our Premier eBay Tips to get the next practical tip for building a successful eBay business.
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