by Kathy Terrill | Jan 5, 2020 | eCommerce Selling Tips, eCommerce Tips, Selling on eBay
eBay 2020 has arrived.
eBay 2020 is here!
The new decade is here. We’re celebrating the beginning of not just a new year, but a new decade! As a seller, what are your top resolutions for eBay 2020? Reorganize your office/workspace or inventory? Finally get those death piles listed? Attend eBay Open in July?
Those worthwhile goals for eBay 2020 are all fine and dandy, but without consistent sales, you won’t have a business to organize. Healthy cash flow is the lifeblood of any commercial enterprise, especially your business on eBay.
In the hit reality series Shark Tank, what’s one of the first questions the sharks ask each would-be entrepreneur?
They ask the business owner,” What are your sales?” Now I’m asking you the same question, and you’d better know the answer. If you don’t, you’ve got some homework to do. Because as a seller, it’s essential that you know your numbers — including not only how much you’re selling, but also how fast you’re selling it (sales velocity). In other words, how long are items listed before they sell?
The answer to this question will vary by category and even by item.
For example, cell phone accessories have a different sell-through rate than Mid-Century Modern candleholders. Furthermore, MCM candleholders may have a different sell-through rate than Art Deco candlesticks.
Once you have some idea of your sales history, consider this: If a certain type of product typically takes four months to sell, what would it mean for your bottom line if it sold in three months? Or two? It could mean the difference between a business that stagnates (or even fails) and a business that flourishes.
Here’s why.
“Sell-through rate” (how fast your items sell) is also known as “conversion rate”, because it represents the process of turning an item into cash — i.e., converting it to dollars and cents. The faster you can recoup your initial investment, reap your profit, and get that money into your bank account, the better. Many sellers get into trouble because they have too much cash tied up in inventory that isn’t selling.
Don’t be that seller in eBay 2020!
I can help you to get cash flowing (and/or flowing faster). What you need — what every eBay seller needs — is to accelerate sales. And I’ve got some proven tips for doing that. You can grab them right here. eBay Sales Accelerator tips are my gift to you when you add yourself to the wait list for my exclusive membership group Social Media Insider.
Now, when evaluating your business look at what IS selling. It’s important to note your best selling products and categories. While doing this be sure to do the following.
First, check prices! The value of an item will fluctuate over time. You may be asking too much, or you may be leaving cash on the table by asking too little. Use Advanced Search to check sold prices on eBay. My YouTube Watch This Before You List On eBay!, will show you how to use eBay’s Advanced search feature.
If you have an eBay Store subscription, check Terapeak as well (under the Research Tab in Seller Hub).
Second, include 4 or more pictures in each listing. You can have up to 12, so take photos of all the sides of each item as well as closeups of details and/or any flaws. Showcase each item to its best advantage, because shoppers make their purchase decision based on your photos and description. Show them what they’re getting, preferably on a plain white background! More pictures can add up to more as well as faster sales plus a boost in eBay search.
Third, offer a robust return policy. Most customers want what they’re buying. But they’ll feel a lot more comfortable about buying from you if they know they can return an item that doesn’t work out.
Think like a buyer in eBay 2020!
It pays to think like your buyer!
Let’s say a buyer needs a widget. Two identical sellers have widgets listed at the same price with free shipping. One seller offers no returns, while the other offers 30-day returns. Which widget would you buy?
Look at your competitors’ return policies. How can you make yours better than theirs? If they offer 30-day returns, maybe you could offer 60-day returns. Or free returns. Or both! Check the number of returns you get in any given category to know what’s best for your business.
To score a free copy of my eBay Sales Accelerator with even more tips, add yourself to the waiting list for Social Media Insider, my VIP sellers group.
Here’s to a new year full of more eBay sales than ever, faster than ever!
by Kathy Terrill | Dec 22, 2019 | eCommerce Tips, Selling on eBay
Time for sellers to look for their eBay New Year’s super sales power, with Holiday shopping winding down.
eBay New Year’s Super Sales Power Tips!
Using your eBay super sales power, with 2020 arriving, there is no reason for sellers to see declining online sales. Now that customers have finished their holiday shopping, they’re ready to start buying for themselves. January is famous in retail circles as the season for self-gifting. Folks have received holiday bonuses, gift cards, and/or cash gifts; now they’re eager to spend that money. Let’s get them to spend it with you!
What can you do to attract shoppers to your eBay items and exercise your eBay New Year’s super sales power??
Two words: Promoted Listings. It’s not enough to simply list your items and wait for buyers to find them; you need to promote your listings as well. If you’re not already using Promoted Listings, then this is the perfect time to start. And if you are, then it’s time to fine-tune your campaign(s).
Promoted Listings is eBay’s pay-per-sale advertising tool.
It’s available to all sellers in good standing for use with fixed price listings. Here’s how it works.
Promoted Listings helps boost your item’s visibility by showing your listing in prominent places on eBay, including search results and product detail pages. It puts your merchandise in front of more buyers when they’re actively searching and shopping on eBay, thus helping to improve the likelihood of a sale.
I have a special freebie guide for you, Winning With Promoted Listings. Use its killer tips to super charge your sales results with Promoted Listings
The sales power of eBay Promoted Listings!
What fees are involved with Promoted Listings?
That’s the beauty of Promoted Listings: How much you pay is up to you — and you only pay when a buyer clicks on your promoted listing, then buys the item within 30 days. You set the ad rate at whatever percentage of the item’s final selling price (minus shipping and taxes) you’re willing to pay.
Furthermore, if you’re Top Rated and/or subscribe to an Anchor or Enterprise Store, you automatically receive a quarterly Promoted Listings credit. Top Rated Sellers receive a $30 credit; Anchor and Enterprise Store subscribers receive a $25 credit; and sellers meeting both criteria receive a total PL credit of $55 per quarter. Don’t let your credit go to waste!
eBay provides guidance for creating Promoted Listings campaigns.
In Seller Hub and as you list you see the trending rate for that category. Setting rates can be tricky, though, so test — test — test. HERE is the list of Ad Rate Trends on eBay.
Some sellers set their ad rate at ½% across the board and swear by it, while others are equally fervent about setting their rates at or just above or below the trending rate. Listen to other sellers, but always test for yourself.
Your cost to use this program should never be higher than the rate of sales. But if setting your rate at or near the trending rate dramatically increases your sales, then it’s well worth the cost.
Watch your sales results from Promoted Listings.
Use your Promoted Listings dashboard. If you have high numbers for impressions and clicks with little or no sales, it’s time to examine your listing’s desirability. Use the tips in eBay Titles Matter Than Ever to upgrade your listing.
In closing, use the sales juice of eBay’s Promoted Listings to be your New Year’s eBay sales power. Watch your results and adjust as needed. Every eBay seller’s business is unique. Look at your results and make choices best for your business.
Enjoy a New Year full of sales!
by Kathy Terrill | Oct 27, 2019 | eCommerce Selling Tips, eCommerce Tips, Selling on eBay
Great listings starts with great eBay titles.
eBay titles hold the search juice you’re looking for!
Optimized eBay titles helps your listings be found in eBay and Google search results. Titles are key information for shoppers who increasingly buy on mobile. Furthermore, along with your hero image, or first photo, the title is what’s going to catch buyers’ eyes. Your title can inspire shoppers to click on your listing.
Yet many sellers are not optimizing their eBay titles!
Small wonder, since eBay’s own Seller Center doesn’t even mention titles in its enumeration of listing best practices. And eBay’s Help page about optimizing listings for best match just says, “Write a clear and concise title with correct spelling and no more than 80 characters.” Correct spelling should go without saying. But while “clear and concise” may be concise, it’s not particularly clear!
So just what constitutes an effective title for your eBay listing?
Let’s start with eBay’s stipulation of “no more than 80 characters.” To write an effective title, you should use as many of those characters as possible — at least 75, if not more. And those characters should comprise keywords: the words that buyers use when searching for your item.
Keywords are attributes that describe your item, such as brand, size, color, model, and, of course, “the noun”, meaning what the item is, such as a dress. They are terms that buyers will type into a search engine to help them find an item like yours. In other words, think like a buyer. What words would someone looking for your item, type into the search bar? Use THOSE words.
So it’s important to think like a buyer when composing titles for your listings.
Keyword order is important, too. In general, lead with the item’s brand name. But if there’s no brand name, lead with the keywords that most clearly and concisely tell buyers what the item is. For example, if you’re listing unbranded Thanksgiving place mats featuring a cornucopia design, don’t lead with the keyword “Placemats”. Instead you’d want to lead with “Thanksgiving cornucopia”, then”Placemats”. Why do this? Because the attribute of most interest to a potential shopper is Thanksgiving or cornucopia, not placemat.
Similarly, if the item is a no- name brand, don’t lead with brand in the title.
Rather lead with what’s of interest. Is it a cell phone case or a dress? Or perhaps the pattern of polka dot or plaid is most appealing. Use eBay search. See what eBay suggests when you type in relevant keywords.
You can actually enlist the help of eBay’s search engine, to help you determine the most important keywords for your item and in what order you should put them. To find out how, check out my YouTube video “How to Write Great Titles for Your eBay Listings Quickly” . This tip will save you time. Let eBay search tell you exactly how buyers search for your item!
Here are some additional tips for optimizing the titles of your listings.
Titles are not sentences; think “Keyword Keyword Keyword” Never waste valuable characters on words such as “L@@k” or “Wow” or “Beautiful”, because nobody searches for those. Using terms like these are “old school eBay” used in years past. They are not effective now.
Don’t include excessive punctuation such as exclamation points, quotation marks, commas, etc. It’s not needed and wastes valuable characters. Also avoid special characters, such as stars, hearts, or emojis. Style your title in conventional title case, capitalizing the first letter of each keyword. Avoid UPPER CASE TITLES and rAnDom UpPeR aNd LoWeR CaSe TitLeS as they are hard to read! Remember most of your shoppers are on mobile. Again, think like a buyer.
If you’ve got listings that have been up for awhile with no sales, try tweaking their titles using the tips in this post and in my YouTube video. HERE is some additional information to move your listings ahead in eBay search results.
Titles aren’t rocket science.
But they can mean the difference between an item that sells and one that doesn’t. Because so many shoppers are on mobile know that your pictures and your titles are what shoppers see first. Done right, they land you in front on more shoppers and the RIGHT shoppers. Titles are THAT important.
Attention to titles pays off in better eBay and Google search ranking. And that means more sales!
When creating your title, it pays to think like your potential eBay buyer!
by Kathy Terrill | Oct 21, 2019 | eCommerce Tips, Selling on eBay
It’s always been good to be a Top Rated Seller on eBay.
You want to be an eBay Top Rated Seller!
But since new Seller Protections for a Top Rated Seller (eTRS) went into effect on October 1 , 2019 , it’s better than ever. So if you’re not already a Top Rated Seller , now it’s time to step up your game. You don’t even need a store to qualify!
Why should you strive to become Top Rated Seller?
Consider the benefits:
- Newly enhanced Seller Protections (more about those in a moment)
- A boost in search results
- Increased credibility with buyers
- $30 quarterly credit for Promoted Listings
- Eligibility for meeting Top Rated Plus standards, thereby getting the Top Rated Plus seal on your listing(s) along with a 10% discount on your selling fees
With all those goodies to be garnered, why wouldn’t you want to be a Top Rated Seller?
And with a bit of effort —plus perhaps some tweaks to your business practices — you can and will be!
To further whet your appetite for eTRS, let’s take a quick look at the new protections enjoyed by US-based Top Rated Sellers as of October 1st, 2019.
They can be broken down into two categories:
- Protection from abusive buyers
- Protection against events beyond your control
Whichever it is, eBay will automatically remove any negative and neutral feedback, defects, and/or open cases in service metrics. The new protections were first announced at eBay Open 2019.
eBay Open 2019 announced a multitude of updates for sellers!
To qualify for these newly enhanced protections, you must be a Top Rated Seller.
Also you need to reside in the USA and offer 30-day or longer returns. Easy-peasy! And they apply whether you ship the item to a domestic buyer or internationally, with or without the Global Shipping Program (GSP). Get the details here.
You don’t need an eBay store; all you have to do is to consistently deliver outstanding customer service and a great buying experience. That’s your goal in any case, right?
However, eBay has very specific criteria for “outstanding customer service” and “a great buying experience”. First, your eBay account must have been active for at least 90 days. You’ve also got to have racked up a minimum of 100 transactions and $1,000 in sales with US buyers during the past 12 months.
Once you’ve qualified in those two respects, there are more detailed requirements to be met. You can find them by going to ebay.com/TopRated.
There’s only one thing as important for your business as achieving Top Rated Seller status, and that’s maintaining Top Rated Seller status. You especially don’t want to lose it right now, going into Q4! So keep a sharp eye on your Seller Dashboard (linked from Seller Hub or your Feedback Profile page). Monitor it on at least a weekly basis, and nip any negative trends in the bud ASAP.
By the same token, if you haven’t yet earned eTRS, take a close look at your business practices as reflected in your Seller Dashboard metrics.
Figure out what’s holding you back. Are you chronically late shipping? Perhaps you should adjust your handling time. Do your buyers frequently open INAD cases? Maybe you need to improve your photos and/or descriptions.
Once you’re Top Rated, consider qualifying some or all of your listings for the Top Rated Plus seal by offering same- or one-day handling plus 30-day or longer free returns.
The extra effort needed to up-level your customer service will be amply repaid by a 10% discount on your final value fees and the extra traffic that the TR+ seal will drive to your listings.
Don’t be intimidated by eTRS. Achieving and maintaining Top Rated Seller status is imminently doable. You’ve got this — now go get it!
Are you missing out by NOT being Top Rated on eBay?!
by Kathy Terrill | Aug 11, 2019 | eCommerce News, eCommerce Selling Tips, eCommerce Tips, Selling on eBay
Good news from eBay Open 2019: Policies and initiatives announced at the conference place sellers front and center! These policies impact sellers at all levels.
First, these new policy updates and initiatives unveiled at eBay Open 2019 are important. Furthermore, there are fine points to them that you might overlook.
For all sellers, with or without stores
- New photo-editing tool! eBay has launched in beta a new photo-editing tool that whites out the background of your pictures. But please note the following important caveats:
- This useful tool is still in beta. That means it’s not yet perfected. It also means that not everyone can use it yet.
- Only eBay Open attendees currently have access to the beta. To get it, you had to sign up in the Seller Hub area. If you neglected to do so, reach out to customer service to see what, if anything, can be done to enable you to access the beta.
- You can only use the white background photo-editing functionality through eBay Mobile for the iPhone. Once the background is whited out, your listing can be saved as a draft and then completed from your desktop or laptop computer. The new whiteout tool will eventually be available on those devices as well. As of right now, the beta version is in a very early stage.
- Multi-User Account Access! All sellers — with or without a store — can now utilize eBay’s new Multi-User Access (MUAA). Right now, the only part of your account to which you can apply multi-user access is listing. This means you can give an assistant access to the listing section of your Seller Hub.
eBay will add more areas as Multi-User Account Access rolls out, e.g. shipping and customer relations management. The company plans to include all aspects of selling in future iterations of MUAA. The steps to grant access to your seller account are in my complimentary Exclusive eBay Open Update Guide.
Complimentary Exclusive eBay Open 2019 Update Guide!
New and better seller protections!
- The biggest news for sellers is the MASSIVE improvements in seller protections. ALL sellers have new protections.Top Rated Sellers have BIG protections that actually put money in those sellers’ pockets.
Top Rated Sellers who offer 30-Day Returns get TWO financial as well as other protections.
Please note that for the following new protections, you DON’T need to offer free returns. However, you must be TOP RATED to receive these protections:
- If you get a false Item Not As Described (INAD) return, eBay will credit your invoice up to $6 to cover the cost of return shipping.
- If an item is returned in a different condition than when you shipped it (returned without tags, damaged, etc.), you may issue a partial refund for up to 50% of the item’s price.
- Negative feedback, defects and opened cases in Service Metrics connected to false INAD claims will be removed.
- Negative feedback and defects for transactions in which you give a partial refund will be removed.
- This process will be automated in your Seller Hub.
- You’re always welcome to call customer service. However, IF YOU’RE A TOP RATED SELLER, it’s not necessary to do so in order to receive the aforementioned protections.
For small to large sellers with eBay stores
Terapeak Product Research! Terapeak has rolled out to ALL sellers subscribing to a Basic or higher-level store. This justly popular and beloved marketplace research tool offers incredible data that will help you with your listings in a variety of ways. Different sellers are finding Terapeak via different routes, as simple access via Seller Hub seems to be in some kind of gradual roll out:
- You may now have a Research tab (replacing the Growth tab) in your Seller Hub; you’ll find Terapeak in the drop-down menu under the Research tab.
- Google Terapeak, then log into Terapeak using your eBay user ID and password. You’ll see prompts for doing so on Terapeak’s website.
- Some sellers can log in through My Account > Subscriptions.
For Large Sellers With eBay stores
eBay Managed Delivery! For large sellers looking for an end-to-end fulfillment service, Managed Delivery is now available in beta to select sellers. eBay plans to roll it out site wide starting in the US in 2020. Managed Delivery is intended for very big sellers. My best understanding is that you’d want to have more than 1000 SKUs of inventory to send to the various fulfillment centers to make this option cost effective for you. I know one seller in the beta, and he is very, very happy.
Multi User Accounts are live on eBay!
In closing, Devin Wenig and his team have knocked the ball out of the stadium this time around.
There is excellent news for all levels of sellers! eBay leadership clearly has been listening to the seller community. At the same time, they also are responding to the needs of shoppers.
Finally, what is a savvy eBay seller to do now?
With my complimentary Exclusive eBay Open Update Guide. Dig in and study the policy changes. You’re on the fast track to equip your business for more sales!
