• Home
• About TameBay
  • Contact TameBay
  • Comments Policy
  • About Chris
  • About Sue
  • Guest Posters
  • Privacy Policy
  • Advertise on TameBay
• Archives
• Links
• Directory
• Forum

The honest salesman

As well as being one of our most prolific commenters, Lynne sells on eBay as josordoni. Today, she finds inspiration in one of my own favourite marketing gurus.

I have always been pretty laid back about eBay. I have never bothered too much about the various changes, just got on with listing and selling. However, the latest changes are making me paranoid. I watch my Dashboard and my 30 day DSR level with excitement and dread in equal measure – will it pick up or drop today?

All sorts of terrible things flash across my mind. Will my P&P drop below 4.6? Will I lose my discount? Will a couple of difficult buyers leave me negatives or neutrals so that I will lose my Powerseller status – or worse still , be suspended? Will Paypal suddenly take a dislike to something and take all my money and hide it away in a Swiss bank account never to be seen again?

The likelihood is that none of the above will happen. Although that doesn’t make the feeling any less unsettling.

But more importantly, how will this amorphous feeling of doom impact on my treatment of my customers? Can I manage to hold onto my courage sufficiently to believe that I will get back what I give them?

Well, according to Seth Godin, if I can stand back and run my company as if I am acting for my customers instead of for myself, I will knock the spots off my competitors. He wrote:

When a sales rep says, “You know, after hearing your situation, I think you’d be a lot better off with my competitor’s product instead, here’s her number,” it actually creates positive word of mouth and long-term growth. When a brand manager says to the product development people, “I’m not proud of this design, we’re not going to market it, so you better make something else,” it actually creates market share growth. And when a CEO says to Congress, “Our industry relies on chemical X and we’re going to keep using it as long as our competitors do, so please ban it,” she creates a long-term path to stability and growth.

If my buyers can see that I will be honest with them even if that costs me a sale, that will If I act in their best interests, they will trust me, and will behave better than I could ever hope for.

It is something I have always believed in, so I shall take a deep breath, close my eyes and ears to the naysayers, and hope that I can continue to act as if I am Seth’s Statesman.

(And wouldn’t it be nice if eBay would do the same for me?)

Whatever happened to eBay?

Mimi Jackson has been an eBay member, buyer and occasional seller for eight years. She’s not a professional seller, but someone who has enjoyed buying and selling, finding unusual objects and some bargains. Here she reflects on some of eBay’s recent changes and the effect they will have on her use of the site.

I have been a faithful member of, and true believer in eBay for about 8 years now. I have sold some things I thought could fetch a good price, and I have even built my collection of late 1800’s sewing, craft and etiquette books mostly by surfing ebay. Many of the books were lovely little gems from someone’s grandmother’s attic, or some dusty corner of a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. eBay has allowed me to find the things I never would have otherwise found, and connect with people I would never otherwise meet. It has allowed me to fanatically pursue and satisfy such a specific, quirky, and rare interest… affordably!

Now, I fear, that era is coming to an end.

I always thought that eBay was founded on the idea that people are basically good and honest, and are happy to exchange unwanted/extra goods for money, when mutually beneficial.

Just this week, I decided to sell an old Lenox China (Ceramic Arts Company, c. 1900) sugar bowl that we’ve been keeping, simply because it is beautiful. After I noticed the markings on the bottom, a bit of internet research showed that it might be quite a bit more valuable than I realized, and I decided that it might be better off in the hands of a collector.

So I took pictures, and got ready to list it on eBay. After signing in, I saw that due to my “limited” transaction history with eBay ( Me? 8 years? More than 50 transactions?), I would be required to accept Paypal as a payment option, and that the payment would be held until proof of delivery or positive feedback. Uh… okay… but, wait a second… I’m dealing honestly here… what if the buyer isn’t?

Many of my favorite purchases have come from people who aren’t sophisticated eBayers. It seems they just had a trunk of old stuff to clear out, and a need for some cash, in many cases. eBay won’t get those sellers (who are important!) with these new rules. Who wants the hassle of these new restrictions for something that might not even attract a good price? That leaves eBay selling to the businesspeople, those who know have more valuable items to sell, and those who are strapped for cash.

The whole idea of getting a good deal on eBay, in my opinion, relied on the fact that selling was cheap and easy, and that both parties were willing to take a bit of a risk, trusting someone they’ve never met to pay or ship as promised. In my case, I haven’t ever had a problem that wasn’t satisfactorily resolved, and have gotten some phenomenal deals, just because I bid on the right thing at the right time.

Okay, so I can see that there are some items on eBay that look too good to be true, and clearly there are dishonest sellers and buyers lurking about, but can’t we tolerate a bit of that for the greater good?

First posted on Mimi’s blog and reproduced with permission.

The rise and fall of Auctioning4u

There is a lot of discussion of franchised versus company owned trading assistant models – I believe that discussion to be beside the point; the real question is if one can run a commercially viable trading assistant business (we know it works as a hobby from home).

Our Consumer Segment

The initial idea was to help consumers sell unwanted possessions on eBay. We started the business almost at the same time as Auctiondrop in America and Dropshop in Germany. We became a Trading Assistant business in April 2003 and soon opened our first shop in West London.

At the height of our consumer activity we had 13 locations; 11 in Greater London, one in Manchester and one in Brighton. Some of these were 3rd party locations in storage companies, some company owned stores and two were franchised.

We also had a fleet of four home collection vans. We exited the business in 2007, the shops in the summer and the vans around October. We sold the brand Auctioning4u at the end of the year to the operators of Serial Sellers who trade on a smaller scale from South London.

Main Issues

• Consumer Acceptance

  In our experience there are principally two groups of users: those who don’t want to pay for a service they could provide themselves (even if more often then not do not follow through) and those who value their own time and therefore have no problem paying for services. The latter group however is time poor and/or cannot be bothered to bring their unwanted possessions in.

  The only attractive consumer segments are those that undergo a life changing event such as a move, relocation, death in the family or children leaving the house. Most of these are hard to market to; we found only the relocation market to be attractive – the target market is affluent, time poor prior to the move and everything has to go before leaving the country.

• VeRO

  The current VeRO programme (eBay’s programme to allow brand owners to stop sales of counterfeits and trademark infringing items) makes it impossible to run a sizeable trading assistant business. The combination of the sheer size of the problem (more than 18,000 firms monitoring eBay for alleged infringements), the lack of any incentives of those firms to show restraint in their take-down actions and eBay’s three strikes out policy are lethal.

  eBay closed our main eBay shop four times over the years meaning almost unbearable pain and costs for a trading assistant. As an emergency measure we had to stop taking fashion items in the summer last year making the shops unviable. But even non-fashion items will become a problem over time.

  I believe that as a matter of policy auction sites such as eBay need to be put on the same footing as ISPs; i.e. brands should be allowed to serve take-down notices but sellers should equally be able to defend themselves by declaring the item to be genuine or not infringing a trademark. If the brand feels strong enough they then ought to take the seller to court but leave the auction site outside. With the current legal framework it is just a question of time until general auction sites will have to close due to legal risks (try selling a Tiffany product these days on eBay and you will understand what I refer to). Unless the VeRO issues are going away I do not think that it is possible to offer services to consumers on a commercial basis.

Our Charity Segment

With Blue Ocean Solutions we had a strong partner in the charity segment and at our peak served more than 200 charity shops. However, the value of donations was never sufficient and training the charities proved too difficult (our charity shops had an average of 18 employees, most with very little IT skills). The fact that being a trading assistant is labour intensive and charities principally do not pay for their labour did not help. We started to close our programme at the end of 2006 and I do not believe that a charity programme can work on commercial terms.

Business Segment

Started in 2005 this segment soon became the most important part of the business. This month alone we sold more than £500,000 of eBay GMV. That being said we believe that the VeRO problems also impact this business. We have had significant problems selling fashion items or other luxury products for a number of our clients including department stores and jewellery companies (we even tried to sell a product for one brand owner only to be stopped by one of the same brand owner’s employee through the VeRO programme) and were so worried that we sold off all non consumer electronic and IT clients to XS Items, a competitor in late 2007. Another problem is the fact that eBay is only a partial solution for companies’ problem stock (returns and overstock); most of the times clients will have stock that either has no market on eBay or cannot be sold due to its low value.

The high number of Non Paying Bidders also added to our problems rising to 15% in the last few months (eBay sellers should be able to insist on immediate payment, which would be no different to any other ecommerce site).

This segment made profits for the company; particularly once we had specialised (in consumer electronics and other IT equipment through our brand Clocktronix and in vintage and collectible toys through our brand The Toy Auctioneer).

Closing

In the end our overhead costs put in place when we had wanted to built a national network, in particular our 45,000 sq.ft. processing centres and marketing costs to build the Auctioning4u brand and the relative low margins on the business segment made new investments into the company an unappealing choice and leave the board no other choice than to close.

eBay Tips 2008: Customer Focused Listings

For many sellers, listings are rather like the human genome. The template code resembles the full DNA sequence. It’s been tweaked and added to over time. A one-off problem occurs, so the seller adds a caveat or note to their listings. In the same way that we humans still have the DNA (I imagine) to develop gills or grow tails, lots of listings have extraneous details. It’s time to trim down.

To get a sense of just how long an eBay View Item page is, print one of yours out. It’s astonishing. Obviously, much of this is compulsory content from eBay, but you might be adding to sprawl.

Keep it Short

The one thing that most sellers know is that many buyers don’t spend a great deal of time reading listings. So make it easy for them. Key information can often be digested into bullet points or short, pithy sentences. Rambling paragraphs are a turn-off. Use bold and caps for emphasis.

Clearly Works

Clean, crisp, uncluttered templates and designs work. Garish wallpaper, zany text colours on bright backgrounds are distracting and potentially impossible for people with visibility issues to read. Stick to dark text on light backgrounds. And absolutely no bloody wizards tracking the cursor around the screen.

Be Friendly

Exhaustive Ts and Cs might make you feel better but they also serve to make you look slightly paranoid and unfriendly. It’s always possible to cut them down and DO check the tone. You may have had a bad experience with a tricky buyer 18 months ago, but your new customers don’t need to know about.

Tomorrow: Returns Policy

eBay Tips 2008: Pimp your Selling

Over the next few days I want to focus on ways you can ‘pimp your selling’. I tend to think that eBay buying has four stages from a seller’s point of view.

Bring ‘em in: Get a potential buyer’s attention so they’ll view your listing.

Convert ‘em: Once they’re looking, persuade them that you have what they want to buy and that you’re someone they want to buy from.

Process ‘em: Take payment, deal with queries, pack and despatch.

Satisfy ‘em: Most buyers are happy when they receive the goods and Robert’s your father’s brother. But sometimes you might need to sort out a problem or deal with a difficult or disappointed buyer.

With these stages in mind, your listings have two roles. Primarily, it’s a persuasion tool. Buyers are asking: “is this what I want to buy?” Your listings need to provide all the information they need. But don’t forget that you are also selling yourself as a trustworthy person to trade with.

Secondly, your listing is about managing expectations and solving problems before they occur. That basically means explaining the deal regarding payments, postage and other ‘boring’ stuff.

Two things often strike me about eBay listings that don’t ‘convert’ me. They haven’t been crafted to appeal to me as a customer. Rather their primary aim seems to be covering the seller’s arse. Moreover, they don’t give me the info that will make me say “Hell yeah. I’m buying this!” In short, listings that fail to make the grade aren’t customer focused. How do you think yours are doing?

Tomorrow: Customer focused listings.

eBay Tips 2008: Know the Marketplace

eBay is the biggest shop in the world and things change with dizzying frequency: it’s hard to keep up. But it’s important to raise your head above the parapet. You probably know your own corner of the Marketplace very well but a broader knowledge of what’s going on will help you take advantage of the eBay opportunity.

eBay Inc.

If you’re a professional eBay seller you’re staking a lot on a global business that you have no control over. So keeping tabs on what’s going in San Jose makes sense. At the very least, keeping an eye on the Annual Report and Quarterly Reports, that can be found in the Investor section of eBay.com, is time well spent.

Site Changes and News

The eBay UK Announcement Board is a must read, but do look at eBay.com too and other national sites. Much of the information is the same but you might get advanced warning of a change heading our way. Tamebay is, of course, a great source of information and there are lots of other handy blogs out there. Make it easier to keep up by using a reader, such as the Google Reader.

Trading Trends

What’s everyone buying? What’s selling like hotcakes? How does your conversion rate look against the category average? The Marketplace Research Tool will tell you all this. You probably keep a close eye on what’s going on around you anyway, but with hard numbers you can back up your hunches.

Carry on Spying

If you aren’t buying from your key competitors (incognito of course!) then you’re missing a trick. Are they doing anything better than you? See what they’re doing and do it better. You don’t just compete on price, after all.

Tomorrow: Pimp your selling.

eBay Tips 2008: Know Your Numbers

It seems to me that a great many serious sellers on eBay fall into it almost by accident. Perhaps taken surprise by a few good sales and the hope they can change how they work and live, they take the plunge. This is one of the reasons why the eBay marketplace is so vibrant: lots of people, perhaps new to running their own business, are learning as they go along and doing business in their own way.

A lot of serious sellers are running their own businesses for the first time and with that comes inexperience. One basic business practice that many sellers neglect is keeping a close eye on their sales and other business metrics.

Why is this important?

Understanding what’s going on with your sales is vital because it’s how you determine how much money you’re making and let’s face it, profit is why you’re in this game. On eBay it’s particularly important because it’s a cut-throat, competitive marketplace. It’s not an advanced skill or practice; it’s one of the fundamentals. You haven’t got time? You have to find it. Next time you’re hunched over My Messages waiting for an email to come in or checking your auctions for the umpteenth time that hour, consider if it’s really necessary and whether you could be spending some quality times with your numbers.

When you know the numbers, you will be able to make informed decisions related to stock, pricing and improving the health of your business.

What numbers matter?

Sales Data: First up, you need to know what you’re selling and for how much. This information can be found in the Sales Report in your eBay Shop. Something else to examine the number of unique buyers you’re selling too. Repeat sales and multiple purchases are a really good health metric: the higher the better.

eBay/PayPal’s ‘Take Rate’: What percentage of your turnover in general, and item by item, are you paying to eBay/PayPal? There’s no hard-and-fast rule but between 8% and 15% is pretty good for most sellers. Most importantly, is the ‘take rate’ changing over time? One way to improve your profitability is to maintain sales but cut what you’re paying. Or you could concentrate your sales on more profitable lines with lower ‘take rates’.

Conversion Rate/Sell Through Rate: What percentage of what you’re listing is selling? Are some of your lines better performers? Improving your conversion is a key way of improving profitability because you’re not wasting fees on items that don’t sell. What’s an ideal conversion rate? It depends. If you sell big ticket items, a conversion rate of 10% can be profitable and even a seller who has 100% conversion might not necessarily be making money.

Average Selling Price: What prices do your lines get? A vital metric on it’s own but more valuable as you track it over time. If you compare ASPs to the previous month, and also the same month the year previous, and they’re decreasing it’s a heads up that the market is saturated or demand has fallen and you might want to look for other lines.

Tomorrow: Know the Marketplace

eBay Tips 2008: End Times

One of the most basic factors that a seller has to make decisions about is the time they choose to end their listings. Equally, as we go ‘Back to Basics’, there is no topic open to greater discussion and speculation. If the question is “When is the best time to end my listings?” the not-very-helpful, but entirely truthful, answer is: “It depends.”

Casual sellers are probably wise to stick with the old orthodoxy, especially with auctions, of ten day listings, comprising two weekends and ending on a Sunday evening. Professional/serious sellers have to be more clever.

Different Goods, different times

Your most profitable ending times will depend on what you’re selling. Young mums, office workers, emo kids or militaria collectors will have different shopping habits, so you need to tailor your ending times to your key audience and experiment. Of course, that’s easier said than done (especially if you have a broad base of customers). Your Shop Traffic Report is an invaluable tool in gauging whether particular times are better for you and your listings. Set up a spread of listings and see if any preferential times emerge. Don’t just look at days and hours. Are certain weeks of the month better than others? For instance, do you get a ‘third/fourth week bounce’ after payday?

It’s about a mix

As a serious seller you doubtless want to be making sales throughout the week. So make sure you spread out ending times, especially if you’re selling numerous items in a single line. Needless to say, both BINs and auctions are most visible as they’re drawing to a close because most of eBay’s Search and Browse pages default to ‘Ending Soonest’. Try to avoid ‘clumping’ whereby you have lots of items ending very closely together. For instance, if your three beige widgets all currently end on a Wednesday evening, change them so they end on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. This should improve your visibility overall. Don’t forget that with Selling Manager Pro that listing scheduling is free.

Think about your whole catalogue

If you do identify a ‘hotspot’ it’s time to exploit it. Do some of your items ending at a particular time do especially well? If so you can use them to channel traffic to your other listings and your Shop. Use your ‘hero listings’ as signposts to other lines and your Shop by using the full gamut of merchandising tools available.

Tomorrow: Know your Numbers.Â

eBay Tips 2008: What’s in a Username?

Rumour has it that eBay will soon release millions of dormant Usernames. So it could be time to think about whether your Username is doing you justice as we go ‘Back to Basics’.

Your Username is the core of your eBay brand. It says something about the kind of operation you run and it influences your buyers. It’s also probably intensely personal to you. Which is quite right: you should be proud of it. But for many sellers, the choice of Username was not necessarily one driven by business reasoning and was in all probability done hastily, a long time ago.

You can change your Username at any time (but not more than once every 30 days) and you take all your Feedback with you. Find out whether a new name you like is available here.

What does your Username say about you?

Nicknames, pet names and humourous handles might be fun for you, but they are most likely meaningless to customers. Ask friends what your Username says to them. Of course, that’s not to say that a fun name isn’t right. Some very successful sellers have built their brands around cute names but those that do make it work ensure that their name is reflective in some way of what they sell or how they conduct business and they make sure that it’s pervasive their eBay activities.

Search Engines

Most people begin their online shopping trips with Google. eBay spends a great deal of time and money ensuring that the site is as sexy as possible to the search engines and in this context a sober, factual and descriptive Username can be beneficial. If someone is searching Google for ‘discount clothing’ an About Me page, My World page or Shop* (don’t forget the same ideas apply to your Shop name!) from a user with the words ‘discount’ and ‘clothing’ in their Username stand a much better chance of showing up than ‘wobbly-buttocks’ and ‘fredisflatulent’.

Get the URL

If you decide on a superior Username, run out and grab the domain. If your eBay sales are going well, or perhaps if they’re not, then you might well want to start your own website in due course. It’s only going to set you back a few pounds to squat the domain and ensure you can carry your brand and customers off-eBay.

Tommorrow: End Times.

* Don’t forget that if you want to change your Shop name too, change your Username first and then your Shop name, otherwise you might get in to a pickle!

eBay Tips 2008: Review Your Titles

The first theme I want to explore in ‘eBay Tips 2008′ is getting the fundamentals right by going ‘Back to Basics’.

The most important part of your eBay listing is the title. Why? It’s how buyers find you. To succeed you need to ensure that your titles are 55 characters of sexed up keyword bliss. Of course, other factors do influence your eBay findability, but if someone is searching eBay for something to buy (and remember that the vast majority of buyers do search rather than browse) they probably won’t find your item unless your title includes the search keywords they enter in to eBay’s search engine.

There is always room for improvement when it comes to your titles and your first step is to understand what’s working. To find out the keywords driving traffic to your items, use the Keywords Information in your eBay Traffic Report. It it’s working, make sure you keep doing it.

Stating the Obvious

You’re close to what you’re selling and probably well-versed in the specialist terms related to your wares but your buyers may not be and by omitting the obvious you might be losing viewers. A divan is still a bed. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles is still a CD. For inspiration check out pulse; it’s a good tool to make sure that you’re playing to the gallery.

Use Every Space

If you aren’t using every space available in your Item Title, you aren’t trying hard enough. Don’t forget that words like ‘new’ are valid terms and if you have space do include alternatives. Doctor and Dr. TV and Television. Plurals are worth considering too.

Needless to say, if you haven’t filled every space, splashing out on a Subtitle is a waste of money. In any case, remember that Subtitles aren’t searched by default by the eBay search engine.

Not Nice

Nice. Beautiful. Charming. Lovely. Pretty. Attractive. Good words but bad for Titles. Your Title is less about describing the item you’re selling and more about dragging in the eyeballs: you have the Item Description to wax lyrical. Your Title needs to be crammed full of what people are searching for. Go for brands, types and specs. Retro is better than old. Art Deco (where it’s relevant) better than ‘thirties’.

Tomorrow: What’s in a Username?

eBay Tips 2008: Are You Ready?

Every New Year is a time to take stock, plan and reflect in whatever you do. And for eBay sellers, it looks like 2008 will be a year of change and significant developments in the marketplace. Executives have already indicated that sellers should expect significant amendments to the fee structure, changes to the buying experience and greater use of DSRs in determining search and browse results. And these changes are probably the tip of the iceberg: the next twelve months will require every eBay seller who’s serious about increasing their business and growing profitability to be ready, nimble and creative.

But it shouldn’t just be a case of reacting to these changes and making the best of it: serious eBay sellers will need to take advantage of events and use them to gain a competitive edge over less-flexible sellers. And to reap the rewards you’ll need to ensure that your eBay selling is in tip-top shape.

To help you enjoy a successful year on eBay I’ve put together ‘eBay Tips 2008′: a month-long series of advice, tips and strategies. Every day in January, I’ll be blogging new material, ranging from basic housekeeping, efficiency ideas, off-eBay suggestions and marketing experience. There’ll be something for everyone but just one aim: helping you be a better, more profitable, more efficient seller.

So, tomorrow, when your hangover has abated, see in the first working day of 2008 with the first instalment of ‘eBay Tips 2008′.

Tomorrow: Review your Titles

Ask Dan: What percentage of my listings should sell?

Whirly asked: At what level would you deem an ebay business to be failing or in need of change or successful in terms of sold and unsold items, for example:
Ended listings in last 60 days: Sold : 10; Unsold : 40
Based on your experience, is there a level you should be achieving,, 50/50 70/30 ?? or at the end of the day doesn’t it matter as long as you are making a profit.

To my mind the question has the wrong focus. Conversion (the number of items you list that sell) and take rate (the percentage of turnover paid to eBay/PayPal) are hugely variable across the eBay site. There aren’t any neat answers as to what’s good or bad. But since you ask, it’s worth suggesting some general principles:

• You want to sell as many of the items you list as is possible.
• You want to pay eBay/Paypal as little as possible. (And Mountie is the expert on that!)

The nub of this question is really about profitability. A seller can list a fair few high value items consistently over a few months, not sell a thing, pay a whack in fees and then make a single sale and be profitable. Equally, another seller could list thousands of items, sell them all, pay a low percentage in fees and still lose money.

The bottom line is, to state the obvious, the bottom line. Your conversion rate and take rate are personal to you and they are just numbers you’ll need to inform your decisions because they help you assess profitability. This is business. Profit is sanity. Everything else is vanity.

If you have questions for Dan, post them in our forum.

eBay accounts made simple with Tradebox

Like many established eBay sellers, we are always looking for ways to streamline our processes and maximise profit. Whether this is sourcing our products from suppliers who can give us the greatest discounts or finding the most economical method of shipping, the need to maintain competitive pricing drives us to trim excess everywhere we can. Every aspect of our operation was placed under this ‘profitability’ microscope, including time costs. The most significant time cost was accounting for our sales, which had started to become a barrier to growth. Like many SMEs we used Sage Line 50, which gave us an impressive control over our stock and financials but required quite a bit of data input.

The discovery of Tradebox Finance Manager for eBay removed this issue, literally overnight. Tradebox links directly with our eBay account and automatically compiles our sales data in Sage saving us about 2 days administration every week. Tradebox creates all customer and invoice records in Sage, depletes our stock for each product we sell, downloads all our eBay and PayPal fees, automatically calculates the VAT liability and provides us with separate analysis on our eBay sales.

Because of the automation and time savings, Tradebox has allowed us to really enhance the power of Sage Line 50 which has now become central to our sales operation. We now synchronise Tradebox with eBay twice a day; once in the morning and once in the afternoon. All new sales which are downloaded are allocated for dispatch, a delivery note and invoice printed and the product shipped to the buyer. At the same time our stock is depleted, allowing providing us advanced warning of when to re-order from our suppliers. Using Tradebox and Sage also allows us to automatically categorise our sales to separate categories within our accounts, as well as providing us with a raft of analysis which examines and compares monthly sales income, monthly unit sales, individual product performance, analysis of income against fees, a breakdown of fees etc. We have used Tradebox for nearly 2 years now and it has had a significant impact on our eBay sales operation. The support is excellent and new features, which are intelligently thought out to enrich the solution, are routinely released.

Ask Dan : eBay or Adwords?

Question from Sue: Given that eBay are now displaying third party ads above shop results and “next page” links in search results, what percentage of my eBay budget should I be switching into Adwords?

Dan says: Of all the changes we’ve seen on eBay in the past few years, it’s fair to say that the increased display of third party ads in Search and Browse results (I’m less concerned about the ones in My eBay) is one of the most interesting and potentially damaging to eBay sellers. That said, to answer the question, I’d say, for the time being, none.

We really don’t know what the impact of the display ads in eBay search results is yet. And whilst, of course, Shops items are relegated it’s still true that ‘core’ BINs and Auctions get top billing so this is where I’d be concentrating time and energy. Are your non-Shop listings working hard enough? In many cases it’s a case of ‘back to basics’: are you listing enough ’signpost’ listings that drag traffic to your Shop, are your Item Title keywords ship-shape and Bristol fashion, have you got your items spread out over the week to get maximum exposure?

On the general issue of these Ads, two things strike me. I really, genuinely think that buyers are clever enough to see through the tactic and give more attention to eBay items. That’s why they came to eBay, after all: to buy from eBay sellers. Equally, some of the ads I have seen have been very poorly targeted and matched to searches. Secondly, eBay might like the extra revenue from the ads but they won’t want to cannibalise their core market and revenue stream: I imagine they’re testing the waters to see how far they can go. It would be foolish to plan around any changes that haven’t been finalised.

To finish, running headlong toward an Adwords campaign isn’t something that you should take lightly. It can be complex process and you’ll need to spend time understanding how Adwords works, what works best for you and then spend time optimising your campaign. As with eBay, a bit of research and preparation time is essential to get it right so get tooled up with the info before you get your wallet out and hand it to Mr Google.

Are off-site ads really worth their price?

Picture the Scene:

I arrive at my local market on a crisp Monday morning to purchase my fruit and veg and as I slowly wander around I start to notice something strange. Above each stall is a large BIG BOLD advert, which I have to read twice as its import catches my attention:

“Have you tried the new OUT OF TOWN shopping centre? Morriscos sells these oranges MUCH cheaper than this stall!”

As I wander around, I notice more and more of these strange adverts:

“Buy this item at our new shiny OUT OF TOWN shopping centre… Morriscos!”

“Do not buy this kettle here; Morriscos will sell it to you at cost!”

As I am a long-standing regular customer of the market, when I spot the owner walking around, I go to find out what he’s playing at.

“Why do you tell your customers to go elsewhere?” I inquire with much curiosity and incredulity.

“Well,” he replies, “after much in-depth calculation, we have realised that we get £100 a week from our stall holders. The advertising will generate an additional £10 a week, so our revenue will increase to £110. We have a hundred stalls, so now we are making £11,000 a week instead of £10,000 a week.” Looking at me smugly, he goes on to say, “Don’t you think that’s a stroke of GENIUS?”

I decide not to discuss an obvious flaw in the plan and continue to listen to his rationale. After a little while, I find out that his big brother owns an advertising firm, “ShippingOverThereAdvertising.com”, which also gives another insight into the decision that has been made.

As I wander out of the market, many dark looks and unhappy faces meet my inquiring gaze.

So not thinking much of it, I come back a couple of months later (The new Morriscos really is superb you know, it sells all of the same stuff, maybe at different prices, but they just LOOK so much more professional) and I see my friend the advertising guru looking not quite so smug.

“What’s wrong” I ask, “you don’t seem as happy as last time I saw you…”

To which he responds with a pained expression, “Well I have to be honest, you know that advertising trick I tried?” He continues after a nod of ascent from myself, “Well those traitorous stallholders of mine took advantage!”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Twenty of my stall holders went over to Morriscos and opened small shop units over there! So now we have £8,800 as revenue, and more of them are threatening to move as they say there are fewer established customers here now, and people like the air conditioning and gentle music over THERE!”

The conversation carried on for a while, but the owner finished on this interesting observation:

“Why oh why did I let Morriscos have a foothold in our marketplace, we had a captive loyal customer base of shoppers, but now they have all deserted us and saying we are old hat, not only that we are bleeding sellers faster than we can replace them as they are moving over to Morriscos where all the customers are…”

This would be the obvious flaw in the plan that I did not mention earlier. So I wander away and consider the moral of the story…

Don’t tell the cows the grass is greener on the other side, as they tend to jump the fence when they find that out!

UK Best Offers missing the point

Many of you are probably aware that on eBay.com the Best Offer function has counter offers available. This basically means that you can negotiate a price with a customer who is interested, if there first offer is a little low.

Now in the Antiques Trade this is so inherent in the culture that to not have it is like setting out a stall at a fair with a big sign saying:

“PLEASE DO NOT NEGOTIATE MORE THAN ONCE WITH US, IF YOUR FIRST OFFER ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH, THEN PLEASE LEAVE THIS STALL, WE WILL NOT NEGOTIATE WITH YOU OR DISCUSS OUR DECISION, SO GOOD BYE!”

Now that makes no sense does it? Yet eBay UK have adopted this sales strategy with their version of Best Offer.

It seems to us that not allowing counter offers is madness of the most incredible kind, the sales leverage they give us on .com is astounding, the results fantastic. This is one reason why eBay.com is so much better than eBay.uk is for selling Antiques and Collectables on.

It is a shame that eBay UK have been so determinedly head stuck in the sand with this one. Is it because they do not really believe that “People are basically good”, and that to allow this would allow back door transactions offsite? If that is the case, the only thing that a buyer needs to do is send an email, and the off-eBay sale occurs. If this is the reason for eBay UK’s rationale, it seems a shame that their mistrust of their customer base, over-rides a negotiating feature that is second to none on the Internet.

Is this a case of eBay UK’s not seeing the wood for the trees?

So well done eBay.com, for providing such a fantastic feature. A big round of applause!

Thumbs down for eBay UK, (mild booing would be acceptable and probably beneficial at this point).

“I have to question their timing”

Julianne Moleski runs Toy Town Express eBay Shop and website, as well as having a B&M toy shop in South Shields. Today she gives us her thoughts on eBay’s recent changes to fees in the Toys category.

When last week Ebay held a ‘backstage party’ it was mentioned that the fees for Toys categories would be changed. As an old dog it’s hard to adjust your business plans to change but also exciting. Especially when the word reduce is mentioned.

It has been a long hard summer in the toy category, to the point on occasions fees outweighed the profit. A lot of the long standing toy businesses operate where you tread through 9 months of the year and make your profit in just three months. eBay is an ideal platform for part time sellers who can just sell for those three months. Some of us are in it all year. The satisfaction you get from that is you do have return customers who do buy all year long, or have a birthday in say March to buy from, they can come back to you. Good Old Toy Town Express will have it in stock, and be open!

When the fee structure was announced this week, my stomach dropped as I read the FVFs’ increase.

The initial shock comes from the dates that are announced. Even before doing number crunching in your mind it goes “if I sell such and such, great I save 10p on the listing fee, but in those months I know it will sell so it’s actually going to cost me more.”

After a few (ok a lot) of deep breaths and quite a long conversation with my eBay account manager, I started looking at my figures and working it out.

As with all things, some it will work in favour of and some it won’t. What will make the difference is whether this is just until the New Year, or whether it will become a permanent change.

If this was announced in June, I would have likely said eBay, you are wonderful! Announce it in October and I wasn’t best pleased. Spread this over a year and yes, it will be a benefit to me.

So, although I resist initial changes especially when this time of year comes around, I can see the logic behind it, but I really do have to question their timing and wording…. “Selling fees are now more closely based on your selling success in the Photography and Toys & Games categories.” From my workings, the more success the more you pay BUT under the current climate if a lot of us could be more successful we would be willing to pay that bit more.

Another question that has to be raised is, it will encourage a lot more inexperienced sellers on eBay, whilst at the same time, Amazon have implemented stringent criteria for sellers on their site over the Christmas months. I have to be honest, what Amazon did not only make me feel a little bit special but it gave me something to strive for. It has also reassured me that at my busiest and hair-ripping-out time, they are looking out for my customers.

I think the clinch will be to see whether the dates for these fee changes are extended or not.

Royal Mail Account Holders – Watch Out!

On the 1st of September 2007 Royal Mail will be introducing surcharges for their Epro and “Posting Cheque/Docket” Business Account services. Our current understanding (after talking to the Business Unit) is that if you use the paper based system (posting cheque/docket); you will be held to a minimum of £20.00 on an order. If you use Epro you will be held to a minimum of £5.00 on an order.

But wait a minute, you say, I send £50 a day in total with Royal Mail, so I will be alright, right?

Wrong.

If you only send one item First Class Recorded you will be charged the surcharge. This is because it is on its own “docket”, so you will be charged the minimum order.

For Example:

If I send £45 of postage in one day through Special Delivery, and £2.30 on First Class Recorded, the First Class Recorded will be rounded up to £5.00 in charges on Epro and £20.00 in charges on a Posting Cheque/Docket. It’s the service that gets rounded up, not the day’s postal costs.

So it does not matter your total for the day, it is done by docket. Though the docket to you and me is a line on a piece of paper, to Royal Mail it is an individual service. We learned all this by speaking to the Business Unit at Royal Mail.

Now there is a solution thankfully…

If you migrate across to the new Online Business Account, you can register for a new service which has no dockets and is fully online. Your current postage rates will be the same as before, so it is just a change in system for you. This service will not be subject to minimum orders as the rationale is that you do all the administration according to the Business Unit. You do have to register though.

So our advice is get yourself registered and save yourself a little money…

Ask Dan : how to keep business growing

Sean asked: “With bricks and mortar businesses there is a recognized time when the business will peak and unless either change of direction or additional outlets are added trade is likely to decline. In our experience this happens on the third to fifth year of trading. My question is does this happen with e commerce and in particular eBay businesses, and is there any suggestions to keep growth going, i.e open another eBay shop or website?”

Dan says: One of the brilliant things about trading online and the internet in general is that we can chuck out all those old business orthodoxies. Like reaching a peak in 3-5 years or that it’s normal not to turn a profit until year 4 of operation or whatever. Online you can set up, sell and profit in days rather that months or years.

If you’re not flexing, changing and adapting on eBay you won’t last long, let alone 3-5 years before hitting your stride. You actually need to be constantly reassessing and planning your next moves and having new ideas from day one. If you do keep on top of your business I see no reason why on eBay you shouldn’t hit a peak and keep that going for as long as you want. The difficulty, if I’m honest, is finding the additional opportunities for growth once you’re at your peak.

On eBay, I reckon that sellers don’t find additional growth for two reasons. Firstly, an unwillingness to change is the most worrying and prevalent attitude amongst eBay sellers and there’s frankly not a lot than can be done about that.

The other barrier is inefficiency. Many eBay sellers hit the wall because their working methods are not making them as efficient as they can be. It can be a case of reorganising your workspace, reviewing your work practices or just being more disciplined. Ditching bad habits, such as checking your auctions every two minutes, could save you hours every week.

If you’re efficient and willing to adapt, there are a wealth of opportunities. I think that every serious eBay seller should be setting up a mailing list, building a website, branching out into new lines and exploring other sales channels and sites to find the growth. In fact, I firmly believe that the demand is there if a seller has the products and the willingness to pursue the opportunity.

If you have a question for Dan, post it in our forum. You can visit Dan at wilsondan.co.uk.

Auctions On Ebay – Do We Need To Rediscover The Format?

The correct question would probably be: Do auctions work?

The answer then would be: Yes and No…

With 4 years of selling on Ebay (3 years full time) collectables and antiques, we have come to some very definite conclusions about our area of selling.

1. Low start Auctions work when your item is rare and desirable.
2. Low start Auctions “do not” work when your item is not rare (but possibly still desirable).

Point 1 is quite simple, if demand for an item is there (i.e. there is not 50 of them listed on Ebay or “elsewhere”), then an item will find a good price using the Auction Format.

Point 2 is also quite simple, if demand for an item is not there (i.e. there are 50 item listed that week and only 10 potential buyers), then you are going to sell at pretty much what you list at.

To sell a “genuine” auction item is quite easy, you list it correctly for the longest term possible and people bid. Nothing complicated…

Now to sell an item that “demand” is not there for, we have BIN and SIF.

This means we can now market to a different customer base. This customer base is not looking for the thrill of an auction but the means to buy something NOW (for various reasons).

Two completely different subsets of customers, with two completely different sets of needs.

So can we just use auctions? What purpose does it serve? It might make Ebay attractive to a buyer, but if you have just lost £150.00 in one week in listing (if not more), how have you benefited?

Auctions are not for everyone or everything in our opinion, what about you?

You have to make up your own mind…

Some final mysteries to ponder whilst we consider selling on Ebay:

• Mystery no 1: Why is that Ebay.co.uk do not have multiple offers like Ebay.com (we use both sites so tend to notice which system works)?
• Mystery no 2: Why is it that when no search results return on Ebay.com, Ebay Shop items are not shown (before people are whisked away to various other websites)?

Ask Dan : bringing users to your auction site

Question from 0ctavia: Do you have any advice to offer non-eBay auction sites / niche markets which you think could make them more attractive to potential users?

Dan answers:
Building any online community is dependent on two things: people and the platform. Perhaps ironically, eBay has proved that people are in fact more important than the platform (the website). eBay has never been the whizziest, sexiest most beautiful site but it did attract people and the people attracted more people and the virtuous cycle of buyers attracting sellers attracting buyers was established.

With the new sites emerging it’s noticeable that they seem to focus on what they don’t like about eBay and that typically means fees. The sites crow about how they are cheaper but the simple fact is they’re only going to get traction if they concentrate on what people like about eBay.

It’s too easy to say “the fees are too high” but with circa 10 million live listings and hundreds of millions of pounds of sales a month it’s fairly obvious that they are tolerable. Lower fees might attract some sellers, but it’s irrelevant to buyers: one eBay-a-like site actually has their ‘low fees’ message in the most prominent placement on their homepage. If I was a seller on that site I’d be crying out that they change that to a message that spoke to buyers. (Could eBay fees be lower? Certainly, but that’s a discussion for another day.)

So my advice to sites that want a bit of the eBay action is to form a plan and understand what sellers AND buyers like about eBay and take it from there.

Buyers First!
When envisaging your site do it from a buyer’s perspective. There’s very little point building a site that’s suited perfectly to sellers or based around sellers’ grievances.

It’s about sales, stupid.
People care about sales and will pay for sales so how are you going to attract them? Very few of the ‘pretenders’ have managed to get cut through on a marketing front and it’s essential because eBay is a world-class marketing machine. PR and word of mouth are the most powerful levers.

What can you do better than eBay?
You can’t out-eBay eBay, so don’t try. But you might be able to do something better. Is it about going niche? (Etsy is a good example). Can you enhance the experience of buying?

Listen
eBay are actually very good at understanding their customers: from the community boards, using research such as focus groups and surveys and also by analysing site usage behaviour, they are pretty switched on. Make sure that you’re listening and most importantly be prepared to make changes.

eBay University update!

eBay University and the timetable in particular has always been and will always be an iterative process, based on the feedback we get both on and after the day.

There was a big change in how the event was run in 2006 and now in 2007 – namely that last year those that came to University had a choice of just three classes, which ran all day. The challenge with this is that not all of the content will be relevant to all of the people all of the time – maybe a panacea to try to aim for this, but we wanted to. This led to the decision in 2007 to offer a variety of ‘select yourself a class’ where an attendee can choose which session to attend, and although indicating at the time of booking, they are free to change their mind, even during the class!

Coventry was the first ‘run out’ of the new format and from this we learned a great deal. Primarily that most people want to attend the ‘Power Hour’ at the end of the day, so it doesn’t make sense to run other sessions at the same time – and aside from that it’s a great way to end the day. We also found that running the same class twice resulted in a much lower turnout the second time round – and when you have lots of content to try and cram into one day, for London we decided this no longer made sense. We also dropped the Selling Manager Pro session, as this was covered elsewhere on the day – but not to such depth – although as University is an iterative process it may well return.

The one challenge that will always remain is that someone cannot go to all of the classes in one day and this is why all of the content (and more) is on the disc that you get when you attend the event. Of course, it’s not quite the same as having a presenter walk you through it but it is better than missing out on it all together.

I am sure that the timetable will be tweaked for both the Glasgow and Manchester events in the second half of the year – both to meet the demands of those that attend and as we bring out further products and information that we think our community may want to hear about. We will always notify those who have already booked and the information will be on www.eBay.co.uk/university, and we shall let Tamebay know, of course!

The reality of the loss of eBay.com visibility

US Visibility, two words that now send a shiver down my spine and bring me out in a cold sweat.

Let me take you back a couple of months to February. Our eBay sales were growing by 20% on the previous year and we had just had our best Christmas sales period since I started the business in 2003. Plans were in place to increase the product range on offer to our customers and maybe employ some staff to cope with the expected growth to come. In short everything was going as well as we had hoped and planned for.

Then, overnight our US sales stopped! This was a serious blow as 30% of our sales went to our US customers.

Faced with the real possibility that my business would not survive a 30% drop in sales I contacted our auction management provider Marketworks for a solution. I was informed that it was not possible to list items to both eBay.co.uk & eBay.com with the same eBay user name with one Marketworks account.

I then contacted Channel Advisor (CA) as I had already made contingency plans to change our auction management provider from Marketworks to Channel Advisor due to support and reliability issues.

CA confirmed that it was possible to list to both sites with the same eBay user name with one CA account. So I decided to jump ship and move the business to CA. This was not an easy decision to make bearing in mind the huge amount of extra work this would entail.

I am happy to report that we now have our US customers back. Sales are back on track but there are still issues.

As we are listing items in both Pounds Sterling and US Dollars, customers that buy multiple items in both currencies find that they can’t checkout. This means a lot of extra work contacting customers and manually adjusting orders.

Our UK sales have also dropped. I am not sure why this as happened but I suspect that some UK customers now think that we are based in the US as many of our items show a Dollar price.

The financial cost to my business has been very high. Lost sales for two months, set up fees for Channel Advisor and our merchant account. We are also duplicating listings as our most popular items are being listed on both sites, which of course means, an increase in our eBay fees.

We have been trading on eBay long enough to know that eBay policies and the market changes frequently but we usually get some period of notice. On this occasion eBay did not inform its sellers or buyers until after it had taken place! Which quite frankly is unacceptable.

I watched the interview with an eBay representative on the BBC Programme working lunch but I am afraid that the reasons behind the decision and worse, the lack of notice just did not stack up for me.

Fairness. UK sellers were getting two bites of the cherry.

First of all, this has been the case for years so why dump it on the community without any notice?

Secondly eBay.com has far more registered users than eBay.co.uk so many of us could not survive by selling on eBay.co.uk alone. Sellers based in the US have a much larger customer base so being able to sell to the UK is not an issue.

Looking after US Buyers. The .com site is being flooded with unwanted UK goods.

Again, no real reason to bring this change without notice.

If the .com site is being flooded with unwanted items eBay could simply make a small charge for opting into US visibility. This would cut out most of the unwanted items, as no seller would willingly pay extra to have items listed if they were unwanted and were not going to sell.

I do hope that eBay changes its policy. To allow UK sellers, which have a demand for its products in the US, to sell to that market.

Finally, if I could, I would give eBay a negative and zero stars out of five for its lack of communication and forethought.

Are Auctiva spamming your customers?

Steve Seddon sells audio books from his eBay shop, Okantfoss Audios, and uses Auctiva to showcase his entire range on individual listings. But they’ve been causing him problems…

Many sellers use Auctiva’s services, whether for picture hosting, scheduling, templates or just - as I do - the free scrolling gallery. Recently Auctiva launched a new service: after a sale, they email the winning bidder to confirm the sale and request payment.

Most professional sellers will already be using either eBay’s order confirmation & request for payment emails or their own system, particularly if the only service they use is the scrolling gallery. Another email from a company the buyer doesn’t recognise (maybe we’re getting to the point here) can only be overkill.

Auctiva have by default opted every user “in” to this new service, even if they only ever use the scrolling gallery. They have not publicised the launch to their users, or told users that they need to go into their Auctiva account and disable the setting if they don’t want these emails to be sent to their buyers.

If Auctiva sending spam payment request emails without your permission to your customers isn’t bad enough, these emails are going out weeks after the sale was concluded. Understandably, buyers receiving reminders about orders they’ve paid, received and almost forgotten about, are not happy. Even after opting out, (remember these emails are going out weeks late) the emails keep going right up until the date you switched them off. So, in my case, that’s two more weeks of time wasted answering worried buyers’ emails.

There’s little that can be done now except to switch the emails off and keep reassuring the buyers. But I’ll think twice before allowing a third party free access to my buyers again.

Evil Superman Costume on eBay.com

Aaryn Warner and her sister Delfi run Pimp My Strides, a boutique filled with gorgeousness. Today she’s spotted something a little less trendy (though it does involve big pants).

Valued at between £25,500 - £35,500, the late Christopher Reeves’s evil doppelganger Superman suit from Superman III is being auctioned off by heritageauctiongalleries on ebay Live Auctions this April 14th.

Unfortunately the movie costume isn’t complete, missing the boots and belt. But the all important red cape and pants are present.

Perhaps the winner will finally be able to reveal the mystery of exactly how Superman managed to keep his tights on, and ladder-free, at the speed of light.

Next Page »

• Recent Comments

  • ebuyerfb: @ # 6 I’m more confused about # 3.
  • Mike Searles: Guy Kawasaki - granted, he’s one of the only names Infopia can tout for the Leadership Summit...
  • LordBevan: Your Analysis is dumb at its best for 2 good reasons 1)Sellers with free post are getting higher sales...
  • whirly: I got charged 91p for subtitle on a GTC yesterday, Yours, Confused.com
  • Chris Dawson: #2 The original terms of the promotion clearly stated GTC was not included. If sellers had stuck to the...
  • Ed (BuildaSkill): …. or should that be - “Not like that, like this”?
  • Ed (BuildaSkill): Pantomime season in the UK right now - shame Tommy Cooper passed on many years back - he’d...
  • ebuyerfb: @ # 1 I suspect it is the way the mouse is rendered on a desktop that is causing the problem. Have you...
  • ebuyerfb: Maybe I’m not following this right, but basically sellers are unable to remove subtitle which costs...
  • whirly: erm, Ok. Makes perfect sense,,,I think.

Recent Forum Threads

• Help with a Trademark Violation Issue
• Stupid new eBay email system
• Making plans in case of emergency
• Ebay Account
• ME>YOUTUBE
• seen this?
• COLLAPSE OF FEEDBACK SYSTEM TRENDS FOR NEGATIVE POSITIVES
• Bargain DVDs at DVDSETPRO
• Seller meetup - London - 3rd Thursday of this month
• Ebay PowerSeller making a full time living, 4 years now

Copyright © 2006 - 2009 Chris Dawson