Hello fellow eBayers!
Allow me to share with you a few selling tips that’ll improve your success on eBay.
Don’t worry – these are not the banal tips of “use high quality photos” or “use optimal titles” that
you can find all over the internet.
These are advanced tips for professional eBay sellers that aren’t available out there for free!
Ready? Let’s go…
Tip #1 – Get rid of competitor’s ads inside your own listings
eBay, not so long ago, started adding INSIDE everybody’s listings a strip of ads that suggest
other items to the potential buyer.
That strip goes under the title “People who viewed this item also viewed”, as you can see
in the screen shot below:
Not only that the attention of potential buyers is diverted someplace else rather than the
“Buy It Now” button in your page, it is also done right at the beginning of the page, while
the user has to browse OVER that commercial strip to actually read more about your item.
Fortunately, there is a way to get rid of that annoying and harmful commercial strip!
Most people don’t notice it, but when you add store promotions to your item, it puts a
different strip that comes INSTEAD of that “People who viewed this item also viewed” strip.
So, go ahead and do it, and hope your competitors stay ignorant about it.
If you need a “how to” guide – take a look here:
http://ebaybusinessbuilder.com/promotions/
Tip #2 – Understand when to “quit”
Many sellers on eBay keep too many GTC items listed without giving them a second thought
after listing them. They rather sell good, or less good, or not at all.
In fact, if you listed a GTC item and it hasn’t sold even 1 unit – it’s best if you end that listing
and re-list it.
Instead of your item being buried in search results, marked by eBay as a “not selling item”,
you’ll get the boost of the 1st 24 hours that every item gets in search results and your item
will get a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) chance in succeeding.
There’s no point whatsoever in keeping GTC items that don’t sell and haven’t sold for 30-45 days.
Tip #3 – WATCHERS, my friends… WATCHERS!
Did you know that one of the most important factors in how your items rank in search results
is the number of “watchers” they have?
Well, you’re no rookie – you must know that…
But did you ever think about “helping” your item’s watch count grow a bit?
First, you can ask friends and family members to watch all your items once in a while.
Then, you can join groups of sellers on Facebook and offer them to collaborate and watch each
other’s items.
Lastly, you can actually BUY watchers to boost your item’s rank in search results.
Here’s our own offer:
http://www.followermarketplace.com/ebay-item-watchers/
Tip #4 – Diversify listing methods!
Working many years with hundreds of eBay sellers on boosting their success made me realize
something. eBay looks completely different to a seller in one niche compared with a seller of
a different niche.
I discovered that for some sellers of some kinds of items – GTC listings work best.
This is true especially when the items are relatively cheap and you can get them always.
There is a huge advantage in getting your “sold” count up and making your listing stronger with
each purchase.
On the other hand, for unique items, especially expensive ones – it’s much better to list BIN
for 3 days and re-list every time the listing ends, until the item sells.
This is mostly due to the fact that each listing gets a boost in search results in the first and last
day. With this strategy you get the boost for 66% of the time and since we are talking about
unique items – you won’t have more of it to sell anyway, so “sold count” is non relevant.
What wrong could it do if you TRY both strategies anyway, regardless of what you are selling?
Many sellers I’ve worked with were surprised by the outcome of that little test.
Go ahead and test it for your own business – you have nothing to lose!
Tip #5 – NEVER buy traffic!
I’ve seen many sellers out there looking for traffic they could buy, thinking that it will somehow
help sales. In reality it is the exact opposite!
Buying random traffic will actually HARM your sales and here’s why:
One of the most important factors eBay take into consideration when deciding how to rank your
item in search results is the buys⁄views ratio.
If 10 people viewed your items and 5 of them bought it – that’s very good! That’s a 50% ratio, and
eBay will push your item to the top of the search results.
Doesn’t it make sense? This item sells! Let’s promote it!
On the other hand if 1000 people viewed your item and 5 bought it – that’s only 0.5% ratio.
eBay WILL NOT see your item as a “trending” item just because people find it easily and it get
lots of views. They will see your item as an item that there’s no use in pushing and promoting
because people don’t tend to actually buy it…
So, it would be safe to say that you actually want to minimize the number of views that don’t
end up in sales. Bought traffic will NEVER be targeted enough to result in actual sales.
A huge portion of this traffic would always be:
* Underage children
* Adults with no credit card or PayPal account
* People who have zero interest in the item you are selling
* People who do have some interest in your item, but are not in a “buying state of mind”
* People from countries you don’t even ship to and so on…
You’d be lucky if you bought 1000 views and got 1 sale.
So, to sum it up – it’s almost always extremely harmful for your item’s ranking if you get lots of
views that don’t end up in sales.
Conclusion: NEVER buy traffic for your eBay items.
Summary
That concludes 5 useful tips that most of your competitors are unaware of.
Go ahead and utilize them for your own advantage over your competition.
Good luck and may the force be with you!
Have some more useful tips to share? Do comment below…