eBay and Etsy sellers the Holidays are fast approaching! With the holidays so close for many entrepreneurs that means most if not all of your cash is tied up in all the inventory you already have listed for Christmas shoppers!
After getting free goods to sell from your own closet, friends, family, Craig’s List and yard sales what’s next?
Here are more secrets to finding free stuff to sell on eBay and Etsy!
I’m picking up where the previous list left off.
6- Keep a keen eye out for garbage pick up days in your town and neighboring areas!
Every municipality has rules on what can be put out when. So, know the rules. On the days where furniture or appliances are discarded keep an eye out for items that can be resold. Some appliances can be broken down and sold profitably online for parts!
7- Look for moving trucks.
Often when people move they discard bags of clothing and boxes of kitchen appliances, kids toys and more as not being worthwhile to take with them. Those discards can be turned into dollars for you!
Moving day discards can be cash for you!
8- Shop stores with their sales circular in your hand.
Check the sales circulars for daily or weekly deals. Look in the circulars for extra coupons. Go online and also check Sunday newspapers for manufacturer’s coupons. If an item is on sale, with a coupon from the store most places will allow you to piggyback a manufacturer’s coupon. With combining coupons on an item already heavily discounted sometimes you’ll find products end up being free with you liable for any applicable sales tax.
Check online and Sunday papers for coupons!
9- Consider dumpster diving and a trip to the local city dump.
This is not for everyone. You’d be surprised ( or maybe not) at what folks throw out. I’ve heard of some people that find discarded clothes with money still in the pockets! Know your area’s laws re dumpster diving and also the rules governing your local dump. One man’s trash is another’s treasure!
So eBay and Etsysellers look out for moving trucks, know the garbage pick up schedule where you live, shop with coupons and consider dumpster diving!
Any treasure you find to sell from these sources costs you nothing and that means after selling fees and postage it’s all profits for you!
It’s surely nice to hear those cha chings at the Holiday and all the year long from free merchandise!
Well eBay store owners it’s now 56 days til Christmas!
It’s 56 days til Christmas!
From part 1 in this series of preparing your eBay store for the Holidays you have a nice Holiday store header in place or ready to be put in place for your eBay store.
The next step to bringing Holiday cheer into your eBay store is your store description!
This is a very, very important part of your store. Store descriptions are very overlooked by many, many eBay sellers.
Everything you place in your eBay store reflects on you and your business. Oftentimes what I’ll see when I read store descriptions is “Welcome to my store! I love to go shopping. And look for these things every day. Just come back and shop with me again.”
No, no , no! Sellers did you know that eBay gives all store owners of all levels 1000 characters for them to use in their store description. It is SEO territory. What this means is that the search engines actually crawl your descriptions. You want to put in there who and what you are using great keywords. Your keywords are essential for your ebay store and it’s products getting picked up by the search engines like Google,Yahoo, Bing and ebay’s search.
You want to be found by the search engines!
An excellent store description that is crafted full of well chosen keywords helps your customers. When your customers see your store description they will get a clear sense of who you are and what you carry. An optimized store description invites shoppers in to browse and buy!
Invite shoppers in to browse and buy!
Think about what are you selling. What types of items, what brands, and write down a list. From that list start to write a welcoming description that is professional and descriptive.
Here is an excellent store description from Antique and collectible seller Darryl Reilly and his ebay store Reilly & Jenks Antiques.
“Happy Holidays. Welcome to Reilly and Jenks Antiques. We have been selling on line for over 20 years and selling on eBay since 1996. Vintage Holiday items including Putz, ornaments, houses and other items. We offer a fine selection of Formal, Country and Primitive Furnishings and Accessories. Early American Pattern Glass a specialty and have full line from Sandwich to Higbee. We have written five books on the subject including Identifying Pattern Glass Reproductions. Other glassware from early blown mold to Pyrex. We have mens clothing emphasizing Hawaiian shirts, baseball caps and ties. A selection of coffee cups & mugs. Plush and vintage toys. Fine china from early transferware to RS Prussia and Nippon to modern day. Textiles including fabrics, feedsacks, quilts and quilt blocks and sewing items with early 19th to mid century styles. We have a nice grouping of kitchen items from preparation, cooking, baking to serving. You will also find interesting items for home decoration.”
Darryl is incorporating Holiday language to greet his shoppers. He uses wonderful grouping of keywords that let me know his expertise and at the same time he covers a huge variety of goods in a friendly and professional way.
Write that list of your top selling items, categories and best keywords.
Watch this webinar I did on preparing your eBay store to see other great examples of store descriptions to inspire you!
It’s time to get use those 1000 characters eBay store owners to welcome search engines and shoppers!
One of the greatest costs to running a successful online business whether on eBay or Etsy or your own website is the cost of inventory!
I am reminded by this weekly on the hit ABC TV series Shark Tank! Entrepreneurs regularly arrive on the show to ask the sharks for funding for their inventory! To be a success selling on eBay and Etsy it’s crucial for sellers to watch costs.
Keeping costs under control is always a crucial element for the total health and continual success of your online business.
Sellers ask me “Kathy where can I get free stuff to sell?”
Well sellers, I’m going to tell you!
1- Go in your closets and drawers!
Though technically not “free” unless everything in your closet was given to you, your home is full of potential items to sell. Make a pile of items that are still in great condition but that you and your family no longer use! Now you have plenty of products to sell on eBay. If you also have vintage items in your pile you can also list it on Etsy!
2- Offer to take unwanted items from friends and family.
Many times if you offer to help people clean out their garage or attic you’ll find that they will end up with boxes of items they are ready to get rid of ! Many of these unneeded products are still in great shape, it’s just the owner doesn’t want or need them anymore! Well online sellers volunteer to take the boxes!
Volunteer to take the boxes!
3- Check Craig’s List and Free Cycle papers in your area.
There are great items offered for free for you to pick up from someone downsizing and/or moving.
Some free cycle groups have strict rules against re selling so be sure and check your local free cycle guidelines.
Do a little research online and you’ll quickly know if the free item is something you want to pick up to sell on eBay or Etsy!
4- Be at yard sales, estate sales, auctions at the end of the event!
Yes you heard me right at the end and I’ll tell you why! Often there is still lots of great items as the sales are ending. The people running the events DON’T want to have to rebox and haul the inventory home and or throw it out! Again sellers you are there to help! Volunteer to pack the items and take them off the tired seller’s hands. They are happy to not have another task after along day, and you just scored more inventory!
So sellers volunteer! Volunteer to help friend’s clean out attics, volunteer to take unsold inventory at sales and auctions and keep an eye on you own home for inventory on your shelves!
Next week, more sources of free stuff to sell on eBay and Etsy!
Ebay small business sellers it’s less than 70 days til Christmas!
Christmas is coming fast!
OK, take a deep breath. If you have an ebay store you have access to an ebay store header! In less than 30 minutes you can decorate your ebay store to give it a festive feel just as if you were Macy’s or Target!
Decorate your ebay store for the Holidays!
You can add a Holiday touch to your ebay store header including a Christmas tree or some ornaments! Decorating your store header helps communicate the joy and fun of the Holidays to your online shoppers!
This can be done for free or low cost with Fiver or Canva.
You can hire a professional designer. I use and recommend Kathy Keefe and her excellent and reasonably priced graphic services for online sellers.
Doing an ebay Holiday header is a quick and effective way to move your ebay store up a notch! ebay Holiday headers are a great way to attract shoppers during the hectic months of November and December!
I speak to this underutilized ebay sales booster in my recent presentation for Top Rated Seller Webinars.
Enjoy watching this Youtube and learn Is Your ebay Store Ready For The Holidays?
Watch, decorate your store and you’re that much more ready for maximum profits this 4th quarter for your ebay business!
It’s October ebay, Etsy and eCommerce sellers and you know what that means don’t you?
Halloween should be selling now!
It means if you are selling anything Halloween related it better be flying off the shelves NOW!
If your Halloween sales on ebay, Etsy and your website are on target, great! If they are not and or if it’s time to take your online business up a notch, look to Pinterest!
Pinterest is social media that is online scrapbooks created by users that boasts 100 million users as of September 2015!
If you’re not familiar with Pinterest or want to brush up on your pinning skill here is a video I did to help sellers optimize their Pinterest pins and boards!
You may think to yourself, “Kathy I have Halloween boards already on Pinterest! I’m finding that my Halloween boards are not getting repins and likes!” Online seller you have come to the right place!
I find on Pinterest that you need to micro niche your boards and that as a seller you need to be social.
If you sell Halloween costumes don’t have 1 board with all your costumes. Break your costumes down by age. For instance create Pinterest boards for Halloween costumes for adults, Halloween costumes for babies etc.
Micro niche Your Pinterest Boards for Halloween!
Remember Pinterest is social media. So on Pinterest as on all social media platforms you want to be social.
So you say to me, “Kathy I have no idea how to be social about Halloween on Pinterest.”
One of the great free services that Pinterest gives business account holders is a list of interests of your followers!
Under the audience tab in your analytics dashboard you’ll find a tab for interests. Click the tab and voila free from Pinterest you are given awesome ideas for social and product boards!
Pinterest’s personalized statistics tells you as seller in your business dashboard what Pinterest specifically found that your people like to see and pin!
Pinterest Business Account Free Board Tips!
ebay, Etsy and eCommerce sellers jump on Pinterest! Be sure and check your free personalized business analytics!
It’s time be social, get pinning and welcome Halloween shoppers!
Thousands of ebay sellers and staff from around the world converged on San Jose California last week September 10 and 11 for a 2 day Seller Summit to celebrate ebay’s 20th anniversary hashtag #ebay20.
Happy Birthday ebay!
ebay and eCommerce have gone through massive changes in the past 20 years. Pierre Omidyr ebay’s founder remarked to me that in the beginning you had to have your own server to host pictures!
Pierre Omidyr spoke with me about ebay’s early history
Many different kinds of sellers with many different kinds of products are currently on ebay’s global platform.
ebay greeted all of its sellers with an open embrace.
Warm greetings from ebay staff at #ebay20!
From start to finish in every presentation the sellers and the entire selling community were acknowledged and thanked profusely by every speaker from ebay CEO Devin Wenig and ebay’s founder Pierre Omidyr to each of the Vice Presidents and then every leader of the 2nd day break out session workshops.
ebay CEO Devin Wenig & ebay Founder Pierre Omidyr Photo: ebay for business
Starting with the event’s opening video ebay turns 20 to the closing remarks the ebay team with CEO Devin Wenig at the helm turned backward to acknowledge ebay’s roots in social eCommerce and ebay’s heart to empower small and medium business.
ebay’s core values of empowering people were reaffirmed to be the same today but with different challenges and hurdles than what founder Pierre Omidyr faced not so long ago.
Devin Wenig set the tone by speaking to ebay’s powerful and vibrant selling platform that values people over drones.
ebay spoke to it’s sellers and ebay partied with it’s sellers!
ebay 20 party Thursday Night! Photo – CampaignGo
I enjoyed one to one access to many ebay senior staff including VP of Seller Experience Jordan Sweetnam, Sr VP of North America Hal Lawton , VP of Local and Seller Experience Heather Friedland, Laura Chambers VP of Global Customer Trust and more!
Chatting with ebay VP’s Hal Lawton & Heather Gordon Friedland
I wasn’t alone in gaining access to ebay senior staff! They made themselves accessible to sellers in the various public areas of the 2 day summit!
So now that the event full of information and parties is over, what do I think?
#ebay20 was over so fast!
I think ebay is in a very good place steered by informed and compassionate people that are taking a great deal of time to listen and respond to it’s global seller community.
Seller after seller I spoke with liked the details of ebay’s Fall Seller Release and noted the openness and the consistent easy access to the senior staff. The Fall Seller release is full of actions by ebay to empower it’s sellers.
I’m left feeling very happy, full of information, tips, email addresses and hugs. I am very optimistic with a bit of caution in my mind.
ebay has started a massive reaching out to it’s sellers. It has opened the door to talk and listen. This is going to be some job! ebay staff spoke of using snap polls, surveys and social media to listen and engage with the seller community regularly.
I’ll be watching to see how the ebay selling community
responds. I want to see the what and how of ebay’s corporate energy to continue and maintain this vital conversation.
Well done ebay to remember ebay started with a man whose heart was to believe in people and to reaffirm that essential value.
I look forward to seeing how Devin Wenig and his team orchestrate a vibrant and ubiquitous ebay.
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