Get an Edge on Your eBay Listings

As you develop your eBay sales plan, there’s a lot you can do to set yourself apart from the standard eBay seller. Use these tricks and tips to get an edge on your eBay listings:

1) Research good keyword phrases and use them.

Be sure to look at the research you did earlier in the program to find the best keywords (demand AND competition) and keep a running list that you can use in your eBay titles and descriptions.

I’d take a look at eBay’s What’s Hot list at http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/hotitems.pdf. This will not be an all-inclusive list of what has potential, but it will show several of the hot items for last month. You could use that to get some ideas, or start brainstorming some niche ideas of products you would be interested in.

2) Set your products up right to keep fees low.

Keep in mind that eBay has more than just auctions. A store is better for dropshipped items because you can close and start up a store for cheaper than ending and adding multiple items. Also, the cost of the item won’t matter, it’s a flat low rate for each item listed. There’s just the store fee per month. A lot of people who are successful with eBay will list about 95% of there items in a store, and only 5% as fixed price listings and auctions (to promote the store).

If you do decide to stick with a closely-related niche of dropshipped items, I suggest putting all your items in an eBay store, and selecting only a few most popular items to list as auctions (it can be expensive to list all of them). Those few listed as auctions will pull interested customers to look at your store.

3) Make your product descriptions unique.

Along with using “good” keywords you find in your research (from the introductory lessons), I would include unique descriptions, especially in those listings you decide to do as auctions. There was an example of a set of pokeman cards a few weeks ago that went for something like $160-190, all because the auction started at a low price and was titled something like “pokeman cards my kid tried to sneak past me.” The seller then went on to describe a hilarious story about the dialog between parent and child at the store, and life as a parent. A few people found the post, thought it was funny, and started emailing it around. Before long, the post had thousands of hits! Try to put your own spin on products and what they mean to real people. Let us know what your seller name is and the number of a few of your auctions, and we’d be glad to give individualized feedback on that.

Also, check out our department’s blog at http://blog.prosperlearning.com/ecommerce. Janet Meiner’s September 18th post, “Product Descriptions — a Key to Online Success,” would be a good resource to read through for additional insights to creating good product descriptions.

4) Use the About Us section to your advantage.

If you haven’t already, be sure to listen to the conference call Vince Blackham did on the About Us section in eBay in March 2007. The About Us section is an appropriate place where you can link your eBay front to your own website. I would listen to that call for details, and keep updated on this issue as the policy may change in the future.

5) Write guides to establish yourself as an authority.

You already know a lot about your products. Why not share this knowledge AND get your name out more by starting writing guides for eBay. You can learn more about this at http://pages.ebay.com/help/specialtysites/rev-guide-writing-guide.html. Think of this opportunity kind of like writing articles on your own site, except remember that eBay users will actually be rating the quality of your guide. You can write on just about any topic you want!

6) Open up lines of communication.

Customers always like to know there’s a real person behind a store when they need help. Provide contact information and consider setting up a Skype account if you haven’t already to help out with the cost of international calls. Read up on this option at http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/managing-skype.html. One coach here, Peter, always recommends thanking people for calling, and giving them a small discount for calling in. This builds loyalty and will usually transfer to better ratings too!

This is a good starting point. If you want, we’d be glad to give you more specific advice on how to improve any auctions, store items you have set up already. Also, I’d keep creating your own website in your long-term goals. Let us know when you’d like to move on to that area.

Happy Selling!

by Lisa Ballard