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7 Top tips to game Best Match with Recent Sales

Being at the top of eBay’s Best Match is a little akin to winning the blue Buy Box on Amazon, the listings at the top of eBay’s Best Match are starting to attract the lions share of the sales.

Some experimentation over the last week has revealed some great strategies to ensure your listing is at, or near, the top of search results. Best of all many of the tactics won’t cost you a penny to implement.

Recent sales are the surest way to gain exposure for your listing. The big question is how do you kick start sales to get to the top, especially if other seller’s listings have had sales already? Here are my 7 top tips to gain Recent Sales including two ways auctions can be used to boost a BIN listing’s visibility in search results:

1) Featured First

Featured First is the only sure fire way to the top of search results but it’s going to cost you (£44.95 for up to ten days, £134.95 for up to 30 days). Featured First is a great way to buy exposure but, as it’s success starts to be seen, more and more sellers are starting to use the listing enhancement.

If you’re one of just two sellers to use Featured First in a category then you’ll always be at the top, but as more sellers start to use the feature you listing will appear in a rotation and the exposure starts to fall.

This is a feature that should only ever be used once on a listing with good run rate, and then recent sales should be keeping you at the top of search. However, for slower sell through rate, high value items, Featured First is definitely worth considering on an ongoing basis.

2) Auctions to drive sales

Yes auctions are old hat, as a seller you probably prefer to know you’ll get the price you want and many buyers want to buy instantly rather than bid. Well that might be the case but auctions are still sorted using Ending Soonest and are still a great route to getting your listings to the top of search results.

Auctions at an attractive start prices will get buyers looking, strong links from auctions are a great way to kick start some sales on your main BIN listings. Look at the auction as a loss leader to gain attention and drive traffic from the auction to your BIN. Also consider trying an auction with a BIN price for an instant sale because….

3) Auction to Recent Sales Advantaged BIN

… It’s possible to gain a Recent Sales advantage in Best Match from an auction and this is the main reason sellers should be experimenting with the listing format. If your auction sells at a final value price that you’d be willing to sell at (or below), relist it but convert it to a BIN.

In testing it appears that Recent Sales advantage is transferred from a sold auction to a new BIN listing and can propel the BIN towards the top of Best Match at best, and above an identical BIN listing with no sales at worst. Auctions can be used to actively gain a head start for a multi-quantity BIN.

4) Best Offer

On your first listing of a new product always add Best Offer. It only takes a few sales to make a huge difference in search results standings. Some experimentation with this tactic has thrown up some interesting trends, the most significant of which is that early sales will tend to be Best Offers, but once an item reaches the top of search results buyers start to buy at the full price rather than making further Best Offers.

It’s well worth accepting the first one or two offers at less than you’d normally consider, in order to boost your listing in search results. Offers are worth accepting even if you make a slight loss on a couple of sales - it’s still probably still cheaper than paying for Featured First, to get to the top of the page.

5) Email Marketing

Get smart about your email marketing, use it to drive traffic to the listings you want to sell. Use emails to highlight new listings that you need to gain Recent Sales to increase Best Match placement.
Read more

Recent sales and auction/bin mix

Recent Sales

Multiple item listings with recent sales are working, and working well. I’ve watched one of my own listings with no listing enhancements (bar gallery) climb the search results pages. A search for KVM returns around 900 listing spread over 18 pages, by the time the listing ended late yesterday evening it was the third highest BIN with four auctions displayed above it.

I relisted the item with one edit, changing from a 10 day to a 30 day listing and within a minute the new listing was back in the same position (currently eighth from the top of the page out of 892 listings). Recent sales is working to gain visibility and the boost does carry over to a relisted item with no noticeable disadvantage to the new listing.

If you have any fixed price listings end which have had sales relist them as soon as possible to keep the search advantage. (The method I used for relisting was to synch in TL, relist from ended items, adjust the quantity down as some had sold, and upload back to eBay.)

The Blend

eBay have changed the order of search results to blend auctions ordered ending soonest with fixed price listings ordered by Best Match. The number of auctions displayed vs fixed price listings varies according to category. What is interesting to watch is, as an auction finishes and disappears from the page of search results, fixed price listing retain their position.

Each auction remaining moves up one auction slot with a new auction listing moving from page 2 to the bottom of page 1. The slots don’t vary so the only way a fixed price listing can move higher up the page is from recent sales or when a higher ranked fixed price listing ends without being relisted.

Featured First

There’s some interesting twists to the new Featured First listing enhancement. Sellers using the feature have reported an increase in questions from potential buyers and sales from the promoted listings. One seller of commodity products who listed a Featured First listing on Thursday, the day of the listing, watched his listing climb the search result pages as sales came in and within a couple of hours it reached the first page of search results with just a couple of sales.

Featured First definitely appears to be working if you can justify the initial cost, but should only ever need to be paid for once. So long as the listing attracts sales it’ll climb to the top of search results where it will retain it’s position naturally.

eBay have stated that “There are two Featured First placements, and the listings appearing in the slots will be picked at random“. These slots don’t appear to be dedicated slots, but are appearing in the space alongside where Featured Plus listings would normally be displayed. Featured Plus listings are only boosted to the top of the page the listing naturally falls on, but Featured First listings are boosted to the top of the first page of search results.

There appears to be a glut of old SIF listings which are being displayed alongside Featured First listings. It’s strongly suspected that these are SIF listings for which the Gallery Featured listing enhancement was paid prior to the 24th September. I wish I’d known, I’d have launched a load of SIFs with the Feature to get a boost in search!

The credit crunch and eBay selling

Hardly a day goes by without a news story covering the credit crunch, but what difference will it make for sellers on eBay?

Buyers

Buyers are likely to hold off purchases of luxury goods, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be spending. There will still be birthdays, anniversaries, people will still move house but more than ever buyers will be looking for great deals. Buyers can save money by shopping on eBay - buying second hand instead of new, shopping on eBay.com instead of eBay UK to take advantage of the weak dollar, buying last seasons model rather than the latest version. Buyers looking for bargains should be great news for eBay sellers.

Stock Profiles

Sellers should take a look at their stock profiles and only order in goods that are needed. Save your money for products which you know will sell and if you have stock of slow moving items consider listing them at bargain prices. Money tied up in stock isn’t working for you and even if you make a loss on stock which has sat on the shelf for a year you can reinvest in lines which will make a profit and sell faster allowing you to buy yet more stock. The faster you turn your stock into sales the harder you can make your money work.

Credit Lines

Don’t be surprised if your suppliers tighten up on credit limits and payment terms. They too will be looking at their financials and will want to collect debts as quickly as possible so that they can reinvest in new stock. Consider asking for a cash discount for advance payment even if you have 30 day credit terms.

Banks

You’ll find it harder to get loans and credit card companies may review credit limits. Banks may review overdraft limits so if you use these to fund your business make sure you can survive if your own credit is restricted. Cash flow and an available balance to meet debts on time is key.

Bankruptcy

Sadly not all businesses will survive, but for those that do there are rich pickings to be had from bankrupt or liquidation stock. Look out for bargains and keep an eye on what’s happening with competitors in your marketplace. As a seller of computer products I already have my eye out for Lehman Brothers to start selling off their London office IT infrastructure.

Cut Costs

Now is a great time to assess the costs you incur in your business. What costs can be trimmed and do you have unnecessary luxuries that could be cut? Look at bulk buying essentials such as packaging material if it can save you money but at the same time don’t over order on items you can do without. Economise were you can, for instance using a mono laser for printing invoices rather colour printers, that alone can save £100s on ink over the course of a year.

Cut a deal

As businesses prepare to tighten their belts it’s an excellent time to look for new suppliers. Negotiate your terms remembering that for a good deal both parties need to win. Suppliers will still have sales targets to meet so a large order with cash on delivery may net you extra discounts.

I firmly believe that recession is always a great time for small traders to make their mark. Larger companies with big overheads are less able to trim costs and switch product portfolios. Although tough trading times may be coming, if they prepare, eBay sellers should be well placed to take advantage.

If you’ve got any more tips for trading through the credit crunch add them in comments below

Where are your auctions today?

eBay have rolled out major changes to the site over night with the end of SIF and introduction of the new 30 day BIN listing format.

The big question is how will it affect your listings and in particular for the categories you trade in which selling format is most effective?

I’ve done a few searches of my favorite categories for buying and selling and the blend of auctions to BINs varies greatly. In Pottery Vases every fifth item is a fixed price listing, out of a page of 50 listings just 10 are fixed price. Switching to a search for AA Battery it’s a 50/50 mix of auctions and BIN but search for a Dell PA-6 laptop power supply this drops to just 13 BINs out of 50 listings on the page.

With the sort order now being Best Match and recent sales coming into play, auctions may be a great way to gain exposure especially if few of your competitors are using the listing format.

How are your categories affected? Do they have more fixed price listings or greater exposure of auctions? How will this affect your listing strategy for the future?

Third party ads removed from eBay Oz after member complaints

Late yesterday, Australian eBayers began to notice third party ads appearing on their auction listings. A graphic and text link advert for Foxtel digital television was shown directly underneath the “your maximum bid” box on listings in some media and collectables categories: Auctionbytes has a screen shot.

As we might expect, the Australian community boards began to fill up with threads from members incensed that this had been foisted on them unannounced. Several sellers expressed a concern that buyers would assume that this “first month plus installation free” television package was included with the item they were selling, and that they would be left with the customer issues and the negative feedback when buyers discovered it was nothing to do with them.

eBay Support had no information to offer. Members contacting Live Help were told that they had received many complaints and were waiting to hear back from the business unit. Then they were told that the ads were “part of a test being done by our product development department”. Other support staff said they were “the result of a known eBay site issue”. New advertising space, test or glitch? Your guess is as good as mine.

And so some canny eBayers began to complain, not to eBay, but to Foxtel:

Send your complaint to Foxtel. If eBay stick their head in the sand about this, Foxtel certainly won’t, especially if they get lots of negative publicity about their product.

wrote one poster on the Australian PowerSellers Board. And that worked. Members who had complained directly to Foxtel received this email from their Corporate Affairs Co-ordinator:

These ads were placed on eBay by a third party, and it was never FOXTEL’s understanding that they would be placed in this way. We have asked that they be removed immediately.

I’ve got to applaud all those Australian eBayers who made their voices heard on this issue. It’s another appalling example of eBay’s inability to communicate, not only with its members, but internally: anyone could have predicted that 3P ads on the view item page would have resulted in an outcry from sellers, and Support should have been primed with correct information about just what was going on. Better still, eBay Australia should have announced the new ads ahead of time, so that sellers could make an informed decision about whether they wanted to pay for an eBay listing carrying someone else’s promotional material.

We’ve already seen adverts on eBay UK view item pages: I’m sure this won’t be the last time this happens. eBay’s belief is that they own the view item page, and can put what they like on it: but for sellers, it’s the page we’ve paid for and it should be all ours. The way this issue is resolved is going to shape the future of eBay: will it remain a marketplace where individual sellers can shine, or become Amazon Lite where you barely notice who you’re buying from? We’ve won a battle, but the conflict is nowhere near over.

Skype look back on the first five years

Skype held a party at the Absolut Ice Bar in London last night to mark their fifth birthday. Josh Silverman, Skype CEO, and Scott Durchslag, Skype COO, were both in London for the event.

On show were many of Skype’s latest innovations, including a demonstration of the Skype 4.2 beta. This should be ready for release in the near future and builds on Skype 4.0 beta with a tabbed view for managing calls, chats and contacts. A welcome addition for many Skype 3.0 users is the ability to reduce the window size. Skype 4 will be all about making Skype easier and more intuitive to use and it looks like they’re succeeding.

Josh spoke of the history of Skype and his vision for the future where telephony is no longer in the grasp of the traditional telephone companies but is a software product functioning across multiple devices and your phone presence can follow you from work, to the car to home jumping from your PC to your mobile to your TV without interruption.

 

Of course no party would be complete without cake, and TameBay managed to grab a Skype birthday cake which we’re auctioning on eBay for charity. If you want to bid all proceeds will go to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital and there’s a Skype voucher for 3 months of unlimited landline calls to 36 countries included in the auction.

Video for your eBay listings in less than 5 minutes

Is it really only a year since vzaar launched? Many happy returns to Ken, the big boss, and his super-talented, super-lovely team. They really are great news for anyone who wants to add video to their listings.

But vzaar’s greatest asset - as I’m sure they would be the first to say - is what their users are doing with video. Last week there were 10,000 listings on eBay with vzaar videos in them, from professionally produced glossies, to short films made on phone cameras. And it’s the latter group that always impress me: you don’t have to spend thousands on actors and lighting and studios, or hours on filming and editing and getting it perfect. Sometimes, just picking up the camera and spending two minutes filming is all you need…

Be demonstrative

It’s what eBay’s always been about: a person, selling their stuff. Don’t be afraid to get in front of the camera and talk about what you’re selling. You know it best, and you show your buyers you’re a real person.

Be an all-rounder

We all know the advantage of video is that you can show moving pictures; even if the thing you’re selling doesn’t move itself, an all-round view can show it off better than a dozen pictures.

Be simple

The bike starts: what more do you need to know!

Be imaginative

You don’t need a studio; you just need a little bit of imagination (and, possibly, an invisible subatomic particle that might not even exist).

And if you need a little more inspiration, here are Emma and Dan, with some thoughts on just how easy adding video to your own listings can be:

Read more

Under-99p BINs and relist credits cancelled

eBay have confirmed two changes coming into effect with the fee and listing structure changes on the 24th September.

Relist Credits

In the past, if a listing ends without a sale it could be relisted and if sold the second time of listing the insertion fee would be refunded. From the 25th there will be no more relist credits on fixed price listings, although they’ll still be available for unsold auction items.

Under 99p BINs

The second change is much more important and announces the end of sub 99p items on fixed price listings. From the 25th 100s of 1000s of items will no longer be available at their current prices. Sellers will have three options - increase their prices, bundle items to justify the cost or simply cease offering them for sale on eBay.

In a survey on TameBay 25% of sellers said they’d direct buyers to their own website for low cost items with a further 12% stating they’d simply stop selling them. These are products which simply won’t be offered on eBay in the future.

Buyers of items ranging from postcards, stamps, crafts and even mundane items such as electrical fuses and cables will be affected. There is an argument that sellers could simply raise their prices for many products, but why would buyers buy on eBay when they can buy cheaper elsewhere? Also raising prices simply doesn’t work for many pick’n'mix type products where buyers wish to choose a unique selection of items.

eBay need to realise that the avid postcard collector who spends his 20p/card with free carriage on additional items is the same person who’ll be browsing eBay for Christmas presents later in the year. If that buyer starts buying his postcards on eBay rival eBid, guess where he’ll probably be doing his Christmas shopping this year?

One of the greatest reasons for shopping on eBay has always been you could literally buy anything on the site. In two weeks time that will no longer be the case and eBay will be much poorer for it.

eBay.com turn on recent sales tracking early

The US fee and listing changes are to take place on the 16th September, but they’ve already started tracking recent sales.

The most significant change is the introduction of 30 day Buy It Nows, and although this listing format is not currently available US sellers can start to take advantage and this is how:

• Recent sales will be used as a measure of a listings popularity, listings with recent (last seven days) will be given a boost in Best Match search results.
• Listing a multi-item, 10 day listing on eBay.com now will ensure it’s live on the 16th. If it has sales between now and the 16th it will be advantaged over a similar listing without sales.
• Waiting to list on the 16th will automatically mean your listing is disadvantaged as it won’t have any recent sales.
• Recent sales are rolled over when a listing is relisted, even if you relist a few days later.
• When you relist it will be possible to edit the listing to the new 30 day Buy It Now listing (You can’t keep the recent sales boost if you make major changes such as to title, category, condition, or increase the price).

Recent sales tracking has started now for eBay.com, it’s time to ensure you have multiple item listings for each product and ensure that in the future if a listing ends with sales that it’s relisted rather than launch a new listing for the same item.

This change is currently for eBay.com only. I’m guessing that recent sales tracking will start a week early in the UK which means listings with sales from the 17th onwards should be relisted rather than a new listing launched.

Which eBay shop is best for you?

I’ve always believed that an eBay shop was worth more than the ability to use SIF listings, so the announcement that SIFs are to be retired in September is not going to convince me to close my shop.

In view of the fee changes and possible discounts which level eBay shop should you subscribe to? eBay have a microsite which goes into the changes in depth including a cute (and useful) shop fee illustrator.

What this site doesn’t cover is the added benefits of shops over and above pure fee discounts, however as a start point it’s worth looking at when BINs justify a shop on their own merits. The following table shows the level eBay shop you should choose based on the number of fixed price listings you have on the site.

Shop/Cost	No Shop	Basic Shop	Featured Shop	Anchor Shop
Shop Cost	£0.00	£14.99	£49.99	£349.99
BIN Insertion Fee	40p	20p	5p	1p
Number of BIN listings	0-74	75-226	227-7499	7500+

An anchor shop had no real advantage over a featured shop in the past, so it’s good to see real anchor shop benefits introduced. Anchor shops are still not suitable for most sellers, only those with over 7500 product lines (not listings!) will be able to justify the cost.

If you already use SMP and/or wish to make use of scheduling then the benefits of a featured shop really start to stack up. Sellers with a basic shop but subscribed to SMP should upgrade to a featured shop if they have more than 160 BIN listings live on the site at any one time.

Anchor and Featured Shop subscriptions will come with telephone support, a great bonus for non-PowerSellers who would otherwise be reliant on email support.

Which ever level eBay shop you consider remember that your listing strategy is likely to change.

eBay are encouraging sellers to list just one fixed price listing for each product line. In the past you may have listed the same item on a daily or even hourly basis. When choosing your shop subscription from 24th September you should factor in a reduction in your total number of fixed price listings.

It’s worth considering auctions, even if you don’t currently have them in your listing mix. Fixed price listings will no longer be sorted with “Ending Soonest”, but auctions will. The one way to ensure visibility of your items on the first page of search results is to run auction listings.

The mix of auctions and fixed price listings on the first page of search results will vary by category. In collectible categories I’d expect to see more auctions and in commodity categories it’s likely a higher percentage of fixed price listings will be displayed. It will be worth experimenting to see if auctions attract more buyers both to bid and to drive traffic to your fixed price listings.

We are aware that the changes to shops are making it unprofitable for sellers of low cost, low sell through rate, unique items to list their inventory on eBay. Currently there is no easy solution and it’s hoped eBay will address this situation prior to the changes going live on 24th September or hundreds of thousands of products will disappear from the site.

For sellers of higher priced items the reduction in listing fees and change of listing strategy should make it economically viable to list more product lines in greater quantities.

Finally there are still some notable holes in the fee structure to take advantage of:

• Technology and Media products have lower final value fees
• Multiple quantity fixed price listings will now have lower insertion fees than Dutch Auctions
• Listing enhancements will cost up to 3 times as much for 30 day listings - consider shorter fixed price listings if you have limited stock.

No more under-99p BINs on eBay UK

eBay UK have stated that after 24th September, it will no longer be possible to sell buy it now items for less than 99p on the site. In a post on the PowerSeller Board, Community Manager James stated that:

Concerns around feedback manipulation have prompted us to review this area and after 24th September, the minimum BIN price will be 99p, for single and multiple quantity listings. The minimum BIN price for an auction + BIN option listing will also be 99p. Sellers with lower value items will still be able to list in auction with starting prices lower than 99p.

There was no mention of this in the official announcement of changes last week, which seemed to imply that BINs from 1p would be permissable. And there has still been no official announcement on a forum with universal access. Yet again, eBay communicate essential change by accident, by rumour and behind closed doors.

Sellers in many categories have been used to Shops’ listings which allowed buy it now prices for multiple items as low as a penny each. In my own Crafts’ categories - as, I’m sure, all across eBay - this allowed buyers to choose a selection of items, matching exactly what they wanted, combine postage and not spend a penny more than they needed to. With the new 30 day BIN format, that can’t happen: sellers will have to list larger quantities of very cheap items so that they total 99p or more, or stop selling them on eBay altogether.

This is not, I hasten to add, just about Crafts. Right now, there are more than 400,000 items on eBay UK with buy it now prices below 99p. There are 75,000 books under 99p, for example: where do eBay think those buyers and sellers are going to go? That’s a vast amount of inventory to sacrifice. Of course, some categories are going to be more heavily impacted than others: in Collectables, it’s 16% of the category; in Crafts, 11%, and in Stamps, it’s just under 10%. If anyone’s thinking of setting up a niche marketplace in one of these areas, now would be the time to do it.

But the real tragedy is that killing sub-99p BINs will harm hundreds of sellers and annoy thousands of buyers, but it won’t achieve what eBay have allegedly set out to do and stop feedback manipulation. Accounts which need a quick feedback boost - whether for legitimate or more nefarious reasons - will be just as happy to pay a couple of quid per feedback as they used to be to pay 10p per feedback: any seller of low-priced items could have told them this.

So, my Crafty and other chums, what will you do now? Leave us a comment; be part of our poll.

Updated to add: Lest I be accused of unfairness to James, there is now a post on Q&A too. However, as Pinks are fond of reminding us, only a tiny percentage of eBayers frequent the boards. Therefore, the question of where the official announcement is on this issue remains valid.

eBay UK fee changes : goodbye SIF and Gallery fees

It’s the news everyone has been asking for: Gallery on eBay UK, which has been free for the summer, will remain free forever instead of returning to the 15p per listing of the past. But that’s the least of the changes eBay UK are announcing this morning.

SIF replaced with 30 BIN

Shop Inventory Format is to be retired and replaced with a 30 day Buy It Now listing format. There will also be an option for Good Til Canceled self-renewing 30 day BINs.

Fixed price insertion fees fixed at 40p

Pricing is changing yet again. From September 24th all fixed price listings, regardless of quantity or value, will have an insertion fee of 40p (previously varied up to £1.90). This might not sound great news when compared with SIF insertion prices (previously varied from 3p - 11p) but there are discounts available, 30 day BIN will appear as standard in search results and of course it includes free gallery.

FVFs increase

Selling price	Old FVF	New FVF for auctions	New FVF for BINs
No sale	no fee
£0.01 - £29.99	7.5%	8.75%	9.9%
£30.00 - £49.99	4.5%	5.25%
£50.00 - £599.99			5.9%
£600.00 or more	1.9%	1.5%	1.9%

Despite this increase, most sellers of fixed price listings will be better off or at least fee-neutral under the changes. The big opportunity is of course to increase the number of product lines offered for sale taking advantage of lower fees.

FVFs are only payable when a product sells, so fixed price sellers will be able to budget for this up front in their pricing. The sellers most likely to be disadvantaged will be those who run auctions with low start prices as their insertion fees are already low but FVFs will increase.

Shops subscriptions increase, but offer discount on BIN insertion fees

For professional sellers, eBay shops now have a real tangible benefit. The price of a basic eBay shop rises to £14.95 but fixed price insertion fees are then halved to just 20p. A featured shop will cost £49.95 and benefit from fixed price insertion fees of just 5p, and an Anchor shop will cost £349.95 with 1p insertion fees for BINs.

DSR requirements for Shop owners

This is exactly what sellers have been asking eBay for - less up front risk enabling them to place more inventory on eBay. Only sellers who reach certain standards will be entitle to Featured (DSRs above 4.4) or Anchor shops (DSRs above 4.6), ensuring that those placing large quantities of listings on eBay maintain high standards.

Changes to search

One significant change is that listings with sales will be promoted in search. This means for the future, listing strategy should be to place your entire inventory of a product line onto a single listing, rather than use multiple listings to ensure exposure under ending soonest.

International visibility will not be available for Buy It Now

That’s not going to be very popular.

Featured First : the new “featured plus”

There will be a new feature to bump listings to the top of search results for the first 7 days, or first 30 days. Fees are £44.95 for up to ten days, and £134.95 (ouch!) for up to 30 days. Although the cost for this appears high, if you have sufficient inventory to justify the costs it’s a great way to jump start sales which will then cause your listing to be promoted. You’ll still be able to add more inventory to the listing without losing the search advantage gained so for a 30 day GTC BIN the benefit could conceivably run for months if not years making the initial investment worth while.

Tech and Media Categories

Good news for Tech and Media categories - final value fees are not changing but Insertion fees are - that means it’ll cost you less to list but you won’t pay more when you sell.

Irish Fee Changes

There are similar changes for eBay Ireland, see the new Irish fee schedule for details

The changes fulfill the promise made by Mark Lewis earlier this year “to get to the point where there is no reason you wouldn’t put all of your inventory on eBay“. For those sellers with sufficient product lines, the 1p insertion fees with unlimited multiple items lowers the risk of listing a full range of products in unlimited quantities.

This set of changes will benefit many sellers, and should encourage sellers who have previously listed a limited range on eBay to offer a much larger inventory to buyers.

Beat the credit crunch with Small Business 2.0

If you want to expand your online selling beyond eBay, need imaginative ideas to survice the credit crunch, or you’re just missing see friends at eBay Universities this year, you’re going to be interested in Small Business 2.0, a one day event being held this October.

I spoke to Dan Wilson, ex-eBay community manager, blogger and chum of TameBay, who’s organising the event. Dan told me, “I’m putting together the speaking programme and thinking very hard about how we ensure that people who attend get the most out of the day and, most importantly, value for money. With a recession almost certainly around the corner, it’s important that people understand that ecommerce is forecast to grow year on year to 2012.” It’s an opportunity not to be missed.

Who should be at SB2.0? Is it just for eBay traders? No, says Dan: “we’ll obviously be taking a look at eBay and what it has to offer, it remains one of the great ecommerce opportunities for every small business in Britain. But a lot of established eBay traders want to diversify. So we’ll be looking at Amazon, Google, establishing your own website and online marketing. I’m also thinking about small businesses that have a website, selling goods or services, and who want a bit more out of the web. So anyone interested in improving their website, advertising on search engines or plugging into social networks will be catered for.” And of course, those who don’t have any web presence at all can find out just where they need to start.

Even those famously cynical about the value of eBay events are being provided for. Dan says, “if Northumbrian wants a free ticket, he can have one on me, and I’ll even buy him a pint of Deuchars afterwards. Out of my own pocket.” How could North resist? The rest of us will naturally be popping over the road for a drinkie or three afterwards too.

The event’s being sponsored by Royal Mail, who will be showcasing their latest products designed specifically for small businesses operating online, and by BT Tradespace, perhaps best described as “like Facebook only with business, not zombies” - it’s well worth checking out if you’re not already on there. PayPal, ChannelAdvisor, Frooition and others will be there: new exhibitors will be announced over the next few weeks, so keep an eye on the website.

Small Business 2.0 will being held at the New Connaught Rooms near Covent Garden in London on Saturday 11th October, and you can book your ticket through www.smallbusiness20.co.uk.

First impressions of the new My eBay beta

The new My eBay beta is now available for users to check out and is looking great. The clunky headers from the old eBay are gone and have been replaced with a newly-,designed tabbed page complete with drop downs to access the key sections.

However when it comes to using it, it’s not nearly as feature rich as the old My eBay. While the aesthetics have obviously been given a high priority, it doesn’t appear that enough thought has been given to how people use the site.

My eBay beta positive changes

The entire My eBay look and feel has been updated; the graphic designers really have done a good job in making the page easy on the eye with newly designed icons and section headers.

The introduction of lists is a great new tool. You can create lists for gift ideas, products you want to research, a wish list of items to buy, in fact a list for pretty much anything. The only drawback is that you can only add items to a list if they already appear in My eBay. Do I really want to add things I’ve already added to my watch list or already bought? Apart from that the only items I can add are those I’m actually selling - not a great source of gift ideas, but I’d hope it’ll be expanded to enable items to be added from elsewhere on the site in the future.

Shortcuts replace the links section of My eBay, but they’ve been expanded so that you can now add your own links to this section. Do you want instant access to your blocked bidder list? How about a link to the PowerSeller board? You can even add links to sites off eBay: maybe a link to your online banking would be useful?

The ability to customise My eBay to display the information that’s important to you has always been great and the new My eBay allows you to do this. The new My eBay takes customisation even further to the extent of allowing changes the colours of the page headers.

Sidebar adverts have been removed from My eBay: no longer are they slowing down the page load and hopefully it’s not a temporary move. Adverts in My eBay have largely been irrelevant to users and leave parts of the page unusable until they have loaded.

My eBay beta neutral changes

The summary page is simply a summary of summaries. It adds nothing and doesn’t give enough information on anything to be useful. This is a page that might as well not exist bar the fact that it displays buying and selling totals and they’re no longer available anywhere else. The only thing it might do is scare buyers into curtailing their spending as it highlights how much they’ve already spent.
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eBay, Facebook and statistics.

As every avid viewer of Yes Prime Minister remembers: “statistics can be used to prove anything. Even the truth.” And whilst the headline from Hitwise (respected ‘internet numbers’ people) is accurate, “Facebook overtakes eBay to become third most visited website,” it only tells half the story.

Facebook has enjoyed an irresistible rise in the past two years and in July overtook eBay.co.uk, with 2.75% of UK internet visits, to become the third most visited website in the UK. Google is #1 and so far in the lead that it’s (quite literally) off the chart. Microsoft’s ‘mail.live.com‘ domain (Hotmail, MSN etc. to the rest of us) has benefitted from consolidating URLs and remains firmly established in second place, with a just over 3% of net visits.

And what of eBay? As you can see, it’s been on a largely static course for the past 24 months (note the summer dips and the Nov/Dec peaks) and that’s no real cause for concern. As is pointed out, these are the visits for eBay.co.uk and visits from UK users to eBay motors or the eBay.com domain are not included. Would it make a difference if UK visits to all eBay domains were totted up? I reckon.

This is a good news story for eBay and eBay sellers. Internet visits are on the rise. Newcomers (like Facebook) are going to emerge and, in the face of those, it is remarkable to maintain such a strong percentage share of visits. In real terms, it would seem, eBay.co.uk is seeing more traffic than it did two years ago. Critics will remark that June 2008 was eBay.co.uk’s low water mark in the past two years and, frankly, only time will tell whether that’s a blip or the start of a trend. For the time being, eBay.co.uk remains the British ecommerce toppermost of the poppermost in terms of visits. Not ‘arf.

Dan Wilson is a writer and consultant and the bestselling author of ‘Make Serious Money on eBay UK’.

25% of listings hidden on eBay.com

I’ve been looking at how listings are presented in the new search results on eBay.com to check how they’ll affect sellers. Up to 25% of listings in some categories are hidden which leaves some current listing strategies no longer cost effective.

I searched for a “Laser Printer” with the brand “HP” in the “Computers & Networking > Printers” category and was presented with 813 printers to choose from, except I wasn’t shown 813 printers.

Closer examination shows that with the default 50 results per page and 12 pages there are a maximum of 600 items returned in the search - less than 75% of the available items. The remaining 25% plus items are hidden from view and can only be seen by clicking the “To view all identical listings” link.

Other searches produce similar results - searching for media such as writable “dvd disks” displays 923 items with less than 600 viewable.

Many large sellers have in the past relied on prominence in listing results to achieve sales. They’ve scheduled listings to ensure that they will always have items ending soonest, and the largest sellers literally have items ending every hour of the day in the categories they trade in, especially in consumable and commodity products.

Under Best Match, the default search on eBay.com sellers will no longer be able to rely purely on swamping their categories with listings. Buyers simply won’t see them, it’s time to use new tactics to ensure your items are presented to buyers.

One of the most important factors in Best Match will be listings with sales/bids. Multiple item listings with the most sales or auctions with the most bids will be considered better matched than those with few or none, so longer listing durations Shop/Store Inventory Format (SIF) could become more important and it’s not unthinkable that SIF in core will re-appear on eBay in the near future.

One thing is certain, flooding eBay with listings will no longer be a guarantee of success. New listing strategies will emerge but sellers need to be wary they don’t fall foul of the Search & Browse Manipulation policy. Listing items across multiple User IDs in order to gain more then 10 items per page of search results is likely to be considered manipulation.

Currently there is no indication that the choice and multiple item policies will be implemented in the UK. It’s been stated that eBay UK “don’t have the product solutions implemented in the UK” (PS log in required), to enable the policy changes to take place.

If anything these changes should benefit the smaller seller, as the dominance of larger sellers will be restrained compared to the past. How larger sellers adapt to maintain their market share is yet to be seen, but from now on it’s a whole new ball game on eBay.com

eBay UK set to limit postage charges?

In June, eBay Germany introduced maximum shipping prices in the 34 categories where they believed buyers were most likely to be overcharged on shipping. Now it seems that eBay UK may be considering similar steps. A post from Richard Ambrose on the PowerSeller Forum (PS sign-in needed) asks:

(I’ve copied the whole post in case of later disappearences.) Richard then goes on to clarify that this will apply to the basic domestic shipping options only.

eBay don’t know what they don’t know

The most common complaint against the policy, and it’s an entirely reasonable one, is how can eBay possibly know what shipping will cost for any particular item? I remember a listing of Chris’s, for five car hands-free kits; he was charging exact-cost £12 to deliver the 3kg parcel, but eBay pulled the listing twice for excessive P&P charges, because it was so far above the average for the category. Category averages are not always a relevent measure of reasonableness, and eBay have neither the staff nor the expertise to judge in this area. eBay Germany’s compulsory pricing will often not cover insured shipping, yet the policy affects jewellery sellers. This will be another quagmire of pulled listings, restricted accounts, and annoyed sellers with their livelihoods damaged. Dolphin salad, anyone?

Like several posters on the PS thread, I thought that detailed seller ratings were intended to combat excessive shipping. Sellers who overcharge will be marked down by their bidders, they’ll be disadvantaged in the search results, and therefore will be unlikely to sell much any more. They’ll either mend their scamming ways, or leave the site. So goes the logic.

Do buyers actually care?

If the DSRs haven’t achieved this, I can only come to one conclusion: that the DSRs in this area are not working as eBay think they should. Even sellers who offer free P&P frequently do not have 5 stars: I’ve done some experimenting recently with free P&P on some of my listings, but my P&P DSR for that account sits unmoving at 4.8.

There has been ample evidence that the postage DSR behaves differently to the other three scores: it is routinely lower for almost all sellers. Top sellers on eBay.com have scores for P&P on average around 0.15 lower than for item as described.

I’ve speculated before about why this is. I still think it’s because P&P fees are stated right there in the listing. They’re never a “nice surprise” for buyers, and therefore they’re more likely to be marked with a “good” 4 than an “outstanding” 5. My belief is that buyers are not as stupid as eBay think they are: they know that “free P&P” means it’s been paid for somewhere.

What buyers really want is not free, but fair P&P. I’d like, for example, to see the end of “standard shipping”, and for it to be compulsory for sellers to state what service will be used. Being charged £5 to post a t-shirt is excessive for second class, but quite reasonable for Special Delivery. Shouldn’t I get to know what my £5 will buy before I spend it?

And perhaps more than anything, buyers want combined shipping if they buy more than one item. If every item has P&P included in its listing price, then where’s the discount for multiple purchases? You alienate as many buyers as you please with free P&P.

Is free P&P normal?

There are arguments to be made for free P&P, and arguments to be made against it. The variables are many: not just what you sell, but how you sell it, where you sell it from, your routines, your buyers’ especial foibles all play a part. To charge or not to charge should be a decision sellers make for themselves.

But Richard says in his post - and he’s said it on several occasions before - that free postage is “becoming the norm” for ecommerce. Looking at things I’ve bought from the internet recently, I would say free P&P is most definitely not the norm.

I’m prepared to be proved wrong on this point though, so I’d like to conduct a little poll. Amongst sellers who have websites (and therefore don’t have to consider eBay fees on those sales), do you charge for P&P, and under what circumstances?

And in the meantime, what do you think of Richard’s proposals? A great way to keep happy buyers coming back for more, or a step too far for eBay? Leave us a comment.

Thanks to Steve from Kingsbridge Karaoke for the heads-up.

eBay limits items from a seller to 10 in search

There are two changes rolling out on eBay this week (or at least eBay.com, there’s been no announcement for the UK as of yet): the removal of the choice listing policy and the removal of the multiple item listing policy.

The reasoning behind this is that Finding 2.0, the technology that presents search results to buyers is now smart enough to remove duplicates from search results and limit the number of items from one seller shown to buyers.

This limitation will affect the listing strategies of many sellers who have in the past ensured their listings all finished at peak times, or who listed multiple identical items to ensure they were always at the top of search results.

If you list multiple identical listings only one will show in search results. It doesn’t matter how many identical listings you launch, buyers will only ever see one, although which of the identical listings they see will vary according to how they sort search results.

An important factor to bear in mind is that under Best Match auctions with bids or fixed price listings with sales will be considered better matched than those without. Once auction listings have bids and different prices they will no longer be considered identical.

There will also be a limit on how many different (not identical) listings will be shown in search results from a seller. No more than 10 items per page from a single seller will be displayed, if a seller has more than 10 items the remainder will appear on subsequent results page, still at no more than 10 per page. Removal of the choice policy allows sellers to offer more options than previously so that buyers can still access their full inventory.

One important change which has hitherto not been spelled out is that these policy changes apply to ALL sort orders, not just Best Match. Even on “Ending Soonest” no more than 10 items per seller and only one identical item will be presented to buyers. When listing products sellers will need to space out start times to ensure products aren’t removed from buyers view just as they’re about to end.

There are however still some questions which need addressing. The FAQs state “If you sell computers, you can offer a specific brand and model laptop with a choice in components such as hard-drive size, processor speed, etc.” This however doesn’t explain how sellers should allow for price differences if a buyer selects a larger hard drive, more memory or a faster processor. Whilst the choice policy goes some way towards more flexibility (e.g. for a choice of shoe size, colour) it doesn’t lend itself to products where there is a price differential.

Finally there is a new policy to be aware of - Search & Browse Manipulation Policy. This prohibits sellers from any activity which could be interpreted as gaming the system, including but not limited to keyword spamming, inappropriate titles and “any other activity that eBay deems as inappropriately diverting members to a listing or harming the finding experience for buyers.”. This should be interpreted to include listing identical products on multiple IDs as eBay have indicated their technology is capable of detecting it.

Overall these changes should benefit both buyers and sellers. Buyers will be ensured a choice of products from multiple sellers whilst sellers should be able to save fees by no longer needing to flood eBay with listings in order to compete with other sellers that do.

eBay.com abandon new links policy

The saga of eBay.com’s changes to the links policy has come full circle tonight, with an announcement that there will be no changes at all at this time. Email addresses are still allowed on listings; website links are still allowed on ME pages.

Whatever the reality behind the change of mind is, it’s being presented by eBay themselves as “listening to sellers”: John McDonald writes “we received questions and concerns from sellers about this change … we’ve been reviewing all the different types of situations that our sellers have brought to our attention”. eBay had previously said that the implementation of the new policy would be delayed by a month, and at Live, Brian Burke said that the original announcement had probably been made prematurely. Certainly those who have spent hours and days editing listings to comply with a policy that’s now been abandoned, will wish it had been given a little more consideration first.

Will the Skype dance come to a club near you?

Most people know how to type an emoticon without even thinking about it. They’ve become so ingrained in our lives from IM to email and even on mobile SMS text messages that :-) is pretty much universally understood.

In recent times :-) automatically displays as (can any one still remember the early days when they didn’t?) and some emoticons are even animated such as

That’s about as much thought as I’d normally give emoticons until I saw on the Skype Journal that some guy has actually gone so far as learning the Skype Dance. Skype Dance is just one of the emoticons for available for use in Skype chat but this guy would like to see people doing the “Skype Dance” in clubs. If you’re out clubbing at the weekend keep an eye out for people doing the Skype Dance

Find your best match on eBay.com

I heard Stephen Fry tell this story, so it must be true: when Louis Daguerre invented photography, one of the first things he did to celebrate was to persuade a local barmaid to pose for some topless photos. The association between photography and naked ladies has been there from the beginning, so perhaps we can forgive eBay for making the connection too.

Doug’s been researching photography for sale on eBay. He says “the search results returned a variety of items for sale - mostly pictures of celebrities, nature, and vintage images. I was actually surprised at how few dirty pictures showed up in the search results,” and swears he never clicked on anything naughty. But the next time he went back to browse eBay, here’s what greeted him:

As Doug says, what’s his wife to think?

A search for photo prints doesn’t show up any great number of naked lady gallery pictures. Searching for “photograph”, in the other hand, turns up a fair few “fine art nudes” and some frankly pornographic ones (is anyone policing this?!). But there are plenty of other photographs on eBay.com too: why show Doug this particular selection? I can only assume that this is an unintended result of Best Match: eBay are perhaps suggesting the most clicked-on items within the categories you’ve been searching - so now we know what eBayers are looking at

Royal Mail add postcode verification for recorded delivery

eBay sellers sending recorded delivery items will find the process has changed when they visit the Post Office today. As part of Royal Mail’s initiative to introduce better tracking to their services, Recorded Delivery items will undergo post code verification. This is a similar process to that for Special Delivery which was introduced in January of this year.

The Royal Mail are exceptionally good at delivering mail which has a typo in the address, sadly computers aren’t at all forgiving on address verification - it’s either right or it’s wrong. The Post Office queue is possibly the most frustrating point of the delivery process to discover a buyer’s mistake.

Postcode verification will slow posting time down considerably, although there is a bulk process with a Bulk Posting Certificate (PDF document).

You’ll need to print out and complete one of these for every ten parcels you post. It appears that if you use the Bulk Posting Certificate that the address verification is bypassed which will at least save some time.

The Bulk Posting Certificate isn’t an ideal solution, as well as the limit of ten items per sheet the time taken to complete it will slow mail preparation time down.

One other change is that Post Offices can no longer print more than 10 labels at a time for the bulk process. If you have 11 or more identical weight and size parcels it will mean Post Office counter staff have to go through the label printing process at least twice.

For eBay sellers who want to speed the process up in the short term there is a solution. Post Office counter staff have access to a bypass option - I’d highly recommend asking them to use it until such a time as you have a Bulk Posting Certificate process implemented.

As sellers visit their Post Office at the end of the today on their way home I’m guessing there’ll be a fair amount of frustration at no advance warning of the changes. If I’d known on Friday that a new system was to be implemented I’d have had the Bulk Posting Certificates ready to go instead of being faced with a new system at the Post Office Counter.

If you use Recorded Delivery and mail items at the Post Office let us know how you get on with the new procedure and how counter staff are coping with the changes.

Amazon, Etsy, eBay and the eCommerce Land Grab

With much doom and gloom pervading comment about eBay, it’s easy to forget that ecommerce is still a frontier. The IMRG forecasts year on year ecommerce growth (in Britain, Europe, America and Asia) all the way to 2012. And even the very real threat of recession in the UK and US doesn’t seem likely to dent that. Even though eBay is languishing, Amazon has proved that the old guard can still find accelerating growth. The ecommerce land grab is still underway and there’s everything to play for.

With that in mind, an article from Y Combinator (a respected venture capitalist firm) called ‘Startup Ideas We’d Like to Fund‘ makes for interesting reading. Not only does the piece prove that there’s still money out there for winning ideas but the comments regarding online auctions will be familiar to eBay sellers:

“Online auctions have more potential than most people currently realize. Auctions seem boring now because EBay is doing a bad job, but is still powerful enough that they have a de facto monopoly. Result: stagnation. But I suspect eBay could now be attacked on its home territory, and that this territory would, in the hands of a successful invader, turn out to be more valuable than it currently appears. As with dating, however, a startup that wants to do this has to expend more effort on their strategy for cracking the monopoly than on how their auction site will work.”

Y Combinator thinks that eBay’s dominance can and should be challenged. But it’s the belief that only the monopoly stands in eBay’s favour that should be most disquieting. eBay doesn’t have brilliant marketing, a superior product or a vibrant culture of innovation to protect it from an onslaught, it would seem.

One company that certainly can’t be criticised for lacking innovation is the crafts marketplace etsy, which has been in the news this week. Chad Dickerson, a former Yahoo executive, is joining etsy as Chief Technical Officer. Much of the coverage, mindful of Yahoo’s current difficulties, make much of this being a blow to Yahoo. And while that’s true, it’s also a huge boost for etsy: they’ve hired a talented operator from a big firm and that can only a be a vote of confidence. Even before this, etsy has been encroaching onto eBay’s territory and doing it with style, inventiveness and generating not a little admiration.

What does all this mean? Whilst eBay is struggling to find a little bit of ecommerce growth, expending a great deal of energy tinkering with feedback, search and fees, Amazon is successfully taking a good chunk of the fixed price action and attracting professional eBay sellers. Auctions are, it seems, up for grabs and yet eBay isn’t defending this flank and is concentrating on the faster growing But It Now business. Critically, eBay seems to be losing the battle: Amazon is growing faster than ecommerce and eBay isn’t. As for etsy, they’re a shining example of a specialist site taking some of eBay’s action and looking at a bright future.

eBay Inc. might be enjoying great results from Skype and PayPal but meagre growth in the marketplace business should be sounding alarm bells. eBay’s challenge is not just defending existing territory but squaring up to the frontier again and aggressively joining the land grab. Regrettably nothing in the Q2 results, report or investor call suggested that was the plan.

Dan Wilson is a writer and consultant and the bestselling author of ‘Make Serious Money on eBay UK’.

Essential apps for running an eBay business

Recently I’ve switched to a new laptop and had to take stock of the programs and hardware I use to run my eBay business. Hunting for install disks, drivers and trying to remember passwords is always a challenge and I thought it would be interesting to find out what other sellers consider essential software / hardware.

Apart from the normal operating system (WinXP - I refuse to go to Vista), Office (MS again), AV (AVG from Grisoft), Turbolister and printer drivers (I use the HP Universal driver which works for any HP printer so you never need another) these are my top five essential apps:

Fluid Mask

Fluid Mask is the ultimate photo editing sofware enabling you to cut out unwanted or cluttered backgrounds and produce professional looking product shots. It’s a tad expensive and made more so by virtue of the fact it’s a Photoshop plugin - Photoshop itself isn’t cheap.

However there is a budget version in the form of Bling! It which is in some ways even better for producing product shots. No where near as complex as navigating your way through Photoshop, it uses the same technology and is highly recommended.

Google Store Connector

Top tip for getting your products listed on Google Product searches is to use the Google Store Connector. This will extract your fixed price listings from eBay and post them to Google Product, and includes all BIN and SIF listings compared to the eBay prepared Google Feed which only exports SIF listings.

Google Store Connector costs nothing and there is no fee for listing your eBay items on Google Product (which is essentially a shopping comparison site). If you’re not already using it install and run it today.

uConnect USB Skype Adapter

I don’t know how I’d cope without Skype and my USB Skype Adapter which enables me to make and accept Skype calls and connects them to my normal landline handset.

The uConnect adapter turns my phone into both a land line and a Skype phone in one, and because it’s permanently connected to my docking station as soon as I turn my laptop on either at home or in the office Skype is up, running and connected to my landline handset.

CutePDF

What do you do when a buyer asks for an invoice? SMP invoice printing enables you to simply print invoices and printing to CutePDF creates a PDF document you can email to the buyer.

Although I enclose a VAT invoice with all shipments, often an accounts department won’t receive them. CutePDF enables me to quickly and easily provide them with duplicate copies by email.

3G Broadband

There are few locations that a mobile phone signal can’t be accessed in the UK, and 3G broadband enables you to connect to the Internet when you’re away from home or office.

Currently I&