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 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!
Do you know what the #1 way to score Back To School sales on eBay is?
The answer is to PLAN!
Effective planning and then executing your sales plan is crucial for success!
Back To School is a multi billion dollar sales season!
Back To School Is A Multi Billion Dollar Sales Season!
Sellers the time to get ready is NOW.
Are you thinking that Back To School is just about paper and pens?
Don’t fall into that trap and lose the opportunity to merchandise your items to eager shoppers!
Perhaps you’re thinking that Back To School shopping doesn’t start until August. Back To School advertisements are on the airwaves now. The shopping has begun! Keep in mind that schools across the United States begin at many different times.
Don’t lose sales by starting your merchandising too late.
Don’t Lose Back To School Sales By Starting Too Late!
Back To School retail is products for students from Pre K- College. That covers a lot of ground. Sellers don’t forget teachers are shopping too. Savvy Back To School retailers are advertising clothing, electronics, dorm room supplies and more starting now.
You can compete with the big boys if you start organizing your inventory this month. I’ve spent weeks researching what customers want to buy during the Back To School shopping period.
With your curated items, create Back To School eBay Collections. Using tips from my blog post How eBay Collections Can Help Your Sales To Surge create tightly niched eBay Back To School Collections. Start sharing your niched eBay Collections on social media to generate traffic to your items. Your niched Collections can also be found by eBay search and featured on eBay to shoppers!
Next week I’ll give you more power tips to get you Back To School Items searched and SOLD!
Sellers, Father’s Day will be here in less than 2 weeks!
There is still plenty of time to target eager gift shoppers so that they make their purchases with YOU!
Here are 4 simple steps that can work to increase your Father’s Day sales everywhere you sell!
This information is great for sellers on eBay. Etsy, Amazon and your own website.
1-CUSTOMERS WANT THEIR PACKAGES FAST!
Excellent sellers always ship quickly.
To score extra sales for Father’s Day offer your customers the choice of paid shipping upgrades.
If you normally ship 1st class, offer your people the opportunity that for a nominal fee they can upgrade their purchase to Priority or Express mail. Shoppers like choices. Offering consumers paid shipping upgrades is a win-win!
2- GET THE WORD OUT!
Get The Word Out!
You have products for sale. You need customers to buy them. Social media is a great way to help shoppers find you!
Posting regularly on your Facebook Business page, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest is crucial to help shoppers discover your items.
To attract Father’s Day shoppers be accurate with great keywords. Great keywords enable consumers to find you on the sites you sell and using Google search. Be sure and mix great social content in with your product posts.
Customer service is always crucial for a successful business on eBay. Etsy, Amazon and your own website.
Smaller sellers can grab extra sales close to holidays by being very responsive to customer questions.
Super speed and professionalism in answering queries on size, fabric content and the myriad of things a shopper can ask, may get the smaller seller the sale over the large retailer. Large retailers often have auto responders and or delays in communication that can lose them business.The smaller seller that answers promptly gives the shopper what they need and gains the sale!
4- RUN A SALE!
Run A Sale!
Shoppers love to save money! Stand out in the crowd by running an attractive Father’s Day sale whether you sell with an eBay store, and Etsy shop or your own website.
A discount of at least 10% grabs the eyes of busy shoppers!
Grab Father’s Day sales now and in the coming week with fast shipping, great social media content, a quick response time on customer questions and running an eye grabbing sale!
Isn’t it nice to be busy shipping?
4 Simple Steps To Score Last Minute Father’s Day Sales!
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