Online sellers are scrambling to have all their inventory listed and promoted on social media.
Shipping supplies are stacked and ready to be used. Inventory is stocked, stored and double checked.
With Christmas fast approaching, what is a seller’s most precious commodity right now? Is it money for inventory, learning a new listing software, or is it training Holiday help?
When I speak with sellers, hands down their most precious resource this time of year is TIME!
eBay, Etsy, Amazon and other online sellers come to me and ask, “Kathy how do you get so much done?” “Kathy I want to list more but I can’t find the time!” “Kathy I want to do more social media, but I don’t know how to fit it in my schedule!”
I will tell you what works for me. I plan yearly, monthly, weekly and daily. Success starts with planning!
Each year I set myself goals. I tweak and adjust my overall goals throughout the year.
Starting each month, I look at what needs to be accomplished that month towards my yearly goals.
Is my monthly goal making sure all my Holiday inventory is listed? Is it deciding what sales I’ll run during 4th quarter? Is it setting up a date night ( or several) with my husband? Once my monthly goals are set, I then look to each week.
Each Sunday, I check my coming week. I focus on any deadlines I have. I do create deadlines and challenges for myself. For instance, I make a weekly challenge for myself to list XX new items that week. I then plan backwards from my goal to strategize how to accomplish my goal.
Success Starts With Planning!
With an overview of my week I then take 5 minutes the night before, or 5 minutes first thing in the morning to plan my day.
I think through what must be done in that 24 hours. I include personal activities such as a doctor’s appointment, my favorite Pilates class, or a play date with my grandson. I set my top 2-3 priorities each day.
Prioritizing each day is crucial for success. Without priorities important tasks can get overlooked.
What is that day’s most essential tasks? Is it listing products? Is it taking pictures of my products ( or training someone to do it)? Is it shopping for inventory at the 1/2 off sale? I chose my priorities. I can also re-order my priorities as needed. Normally, I list and ship sales every morning before I do anything else. If I need to leave home by 10 am for a client meeting, I look at the time needed to list and ship. I get up early enough to do my morning tasks before I need to leave home. I may only get 1 new listing up. I will then will schedule myself to get more listings done later.
Plan Breaks
I plan breaks and rewards for myself.
My break can be a walk around the block. I also enjoy coffee with friends at a nearby coffee shop. I set a time allowed for my work break and do my best to stick to it.
The task(s) I least like to do, I schedule as early in my day as possible to get them over with. If I think X should take XX time and I’m consistently running overtime, I look at the task to see if I can streamline it. If that’s not doable, I allow more time to accomplish it.
There are never enough hours in the day.
To help my seller friends set and keep priorities that lead to sales, I have developed my Holiday Sales Success Tool Kit!
In addition to my insider video that walks you through winning 4th quarter strategies, I give you tools to set and stick to priorities that ignite your sales! Click HERE for instant access!
Setting and keeping priorities equips me for success!
I set priorities on a yearly, weekly, monthly and daily basis. I monitor my progress monthly, weekly, daily and adjust. Without planning you’ll lose your day and your success.
There are more shoppers than ever on the internet now. The volume of gift buying shoppers will only increase in the coming weeks.
With this huge increase of shopping comes an equally large amount of listed products on eBay, Etsy, Amazon and all the big online retailers.
How can a small Holiday online seller stand out amidst the crowd?
How Do You Stand Out?
1-Leverage your size.
For many smaller entrepreneurs, you are the chief bottle washer. When someone asks a question about your eBay, Etsy or Amazon item, it lands in your inbox. This is a HUGE plus. Large sellers often use auto-responders and or outsource their customer service. Buyers have YOU! Whatever the question, make it a point to respond quickly and accurately. Buyers often are shopping during short breaks of time. Answering quickly can get you the the sale. The same question if received by a large seller can take over 24 hours to get an answer.
2- You exceed expectations!
Give your shopper a free shipping upgrade!
Wow your online customers. When a shipping upgrade is only a small amount of money, upgrade your customer’s purchase at no additional cost to them. Put a note on their packing slip wishing them a wonderful Holiday, letting them know you upgraded their shipping for free! Is your normal handling time 1 business day? During the Holiday season ship the same day with a cut off time that works for your shipping schedule to move that purchase just that much faster.
I elaborate on this tip and the others listed here in my recent appearance on eBay Radio with Lee Mirabel and Jim “The Griff” Griffith. Click HERE to listen.
3- Offer Gift Messages and Cards!
When your customer messages you indicating that a purchase is a gift, offer to include a card or gift message. Customers will appreciate that your read and responded to their message quickly. Everyone appreciates thoughtfulness, especially during the hurly burly of the Holiday shopping season.
On their Facebook Business page eBay For Business has a card that sellers can download and use. The card wishes people Joy during the Holiday Season. Click HERE to access this free card.
4- Do Social Media that WORKS.
Social Media is essential to reach your customers where they are! Customers are on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Targeted, friendly social media can reap rich rewards for sellers.
What sets apart the great hotels and restaurants from the mediocre?
Yes it’s location and their luxurious and high quality offerings. It’s also their white glove service. Superb establishments offer their customers white glove service. Their attention is on their customer’s every need. During this frenetic time of year, how can you help your shoppers have an easy and pleasant time with you? Are your listings clear and easy to read? Do your pictures represent your product well? Are all the item’s measurements included so a potential buyer doesn’t have to message you for them? Think, how can I make shopping with me the BEST possible experience. Then do it.
This all takes time. Time is a small sellers most precious resource.
I’ve developed a Holiday Sales Success Tool Kit to help you use your time well!
My Holiday Sales Success Tool Kitwill equip you to maximize your sales NOW. The proven Tool Kit includes my video that will steer you week by week through the Holidays. You will know how and what to target for sales success. I give you worksheets so each day of the week to equip you to ignite your sales.
For a short time my Holiday Sales Success Tool Kit is 50% it’s regular price of 10$ and is ONLY $5. That’s right right now you can get access to this proven set of sales tools for $5.
Facebook has over 1 billion daily active users! Online eBay, Etsy and Amazon sellers often come to me scratching their heads and ask me,
“Kathy, how can I get more followers and likes on Facebook?”
My answer is simple, “Share food and recipes!” Want instant engagement with followers? Show them FOOD!
No matter what you sell online, let it baby clothes, antiques and collectible or auto parts, there is a food that your ideal customer loves and likes to see!
If you sell products for young children, how about healthy snack recipes for your social media followers on Facebook?
Post Healthy Snack Ideas If You Sell Kids Clothing!
Do you sell sports and fan gear? If yes, then you can feature food and recipe ideas for tailgating parties on your Facebook Business page!
Are housewares and serving dishes and flatware your product line? Holiday cooking offers a wide array of recipes for you to feature.
Share Holiday Foods!
You can share your own recipes and pictures of foods as your prepare them. There is an abundance of great food content on Facebook that you can easily share with your fans and followers.
Post food regularly and see what selections your followers like the most. Your Facebook Business page has insights so you can see which of your posts gets the most attention from Facebook users, As you learn what gets likes and follows you’ll then be able to search and find more of the same. This targeted strategy helps you gain followers and interaction with your Facebook followers.
Enjoy finding great food and recipe posts that you and your Facebook community will enjoy! Yum! Yum! Yum!
Online sellers are turning to me and saying, “Help my Halloween items aren’t selling. Kathy, what do I do?!”
I answer, “Let’s get to work!”
Here is my 4 step plan for you to increase your Halloween sales NOW! You can do these steps in 10 minutes or less. Let’s go!
Step 1 is check prices. Prices on eBay, Etsy and Amazon fluctuate daily.
A price difference of only a few cents can make the difference between an item sitting on your self, or an item being sold.
Check Prices Daily!
During this busy season it’s worth it to spot check your prices daily.
Step 2 is check your keywords. Get slang out of your title. Remove the condition from your title. You want the brand, what the item is ( costume, lights, candy dish), what type it is ( fairy, super hero, ghost), and if applicable age, (adult, kid’s) etc.
If your item is on eBay, this super fast title building technique will make you money and save you time.
Step 3 is, if you’re an eBay seller you will want to run eBay auctions right now. Before you cry out ” Kathy auctions don’t work for me”, just hang on for a few seconds. Auctions are about getting traffic to your items. In any online Halloween category right now there are hundreds if not thousands of items listed.
Your goal is to get YOUR items sold NOW.
Auctions hep you attract shoppers attention on eBay. Halloween is a few weeks away. I explain strategies of auction duration, days and times to start and end auctions and how to select the best starting price in my hit online webinar The Secret Sauce for eBay Sales. The Secret Sauce For eBay Salesgives you power tools to maximize your eBay auctions to get eBay sellers profits faster!
It’s Time To Be Social!
Step 4 take a few minutes and promote your products. Amazon, eBay and Etsy all have social sharing buttons on your listings. Sellers, now is the time to use them!
According to recent data reported by The New York Times, Facebook has 1.65 billion users monthly!
Use your Facebook business page to gain traffic for your Halloween online items now!
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!
Join our Premier eBay Tips to get the next practical tip for building a successful eBay business.
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