Running a Profitable eBay or Online Business

You probably keep track of your personal finances, your car mileage, and if you’re selling on eBay your feedback score.

However, I find that many starting (and even seasoned) sellers that I talk to never thought of keeping track of their sales performance in a spreadsheet.

Keeping track of your progress towards your goal (you do have goals, right?) is the ONLY way you can tell if you’re getting off course, getting closer to your goal or even tracking backward and it provides great foundation for tweaking your goals.

It does not need to be anything fancy or high-tech, even a simple Excel spreadsheet will work. But keep track of your progress.

In case of eBay, that means keeping tracking of the number of listings you have open, your inventory level, listings that have successfully closed and whether or not the buyer has paid and you have shipped. Keep track of your shipping costs, you listing fees and final value fees. Only when you have all that info can you really know how profitable an item is and whether or not you should continue selling it or simply let it run out and remove it from your product line-up. One of the best pieces of information that I personally get from my dashboard is sell-through rate by item. I’ve had items that I thought were decent performers, but when I really looked closely at the numbers it turned out that the sell-through rate (number of items sold as a percentage of the number listed) was less than 5%.  On a per item basis, I actually made a LOSS every time I sold one. I pulled that item immediately from my product line-up (stopped listing it) and sold the remainder in a few bulk lots.

I use a spreadsheet that I’ve developed and tweaked over a number of years.

With it I even keep track of the time of day that an item sells, so with a little data manipulation I can figure out the best times of day and days of the week when to end a certain item. If anyone would like to have a skeleton copy, of it, just drop me a line and I’ll send one, free of charge.

Now that I’ve laid out the basics of selling on eBay (and many of those lessons apply to other sites as well, including your own!), let’s continue with specific tips and tricks I’ve developed, used and borrowed form others over the years. This is where the rubber meets the road, where you can really learn from my mistakes and my experience! My goal is to have at least 2 new selling tips every week, sprinkled with some off topic posts about whatever I think might be interesting to my subscribers. Once I figure out how to segregate those posts in different tabs in WordPress I’ll do that. (Anyone care to send me a “Wordpress for Dummies” writeup on how to do that?)

So check back often, or simply subscribe to get alerted when new posts arrive.

To entice readers even more to come and check back often, I will have the occasional discount code in the posts that can be used when making purchases from the site.  With the holidays coming up, that should be a good incentive!

Whoa! It’s been more than 2 weeks since my last post. Sorry ’bout that. My only excuse is that I’ve been battling termites that decided to take up residence in part of my house. Eradicated them and rebuilt that part. I’ve never had or fought termites and it’s amazing to see how much destruction those little buggers can cause!

Anyway….  on to the final post in my series on eBay selling.  How to increase the response and bids you get on your listing.

Here are some tips for increasing your eBay response

So you’ve got the buyer in front of your auction, and they’ve read the description. They must be interested, or they wouldn’t be looking… but just how can you push them over that line and make them leave a bid? here are some tips.

Improve your picture: In all that description writing, you might have missed the vital importance of your item’s picture. A picture with bad lighting or a distractive background looks amateurish and won’t make anyone want to buy from you. Believe me. I’ve been there and done that. I’ve had auctions where I rushed the picture and got no response. Took a better shot, jazzed it up in Photoshop and it sold for more than I had anticipated.

Add an About Me page: You’ll be surprised how much you can reassure bidders just by creating an About Me page and putting a little bit about yourself on your business on there. You can also have a few special offers there for people who bother to look at the page, and let people subscribe to your mailing list so that you can email them updates.

Write terms and conditions: Have the ’small print’ clearly visible on all your auctions, giving details of things like shipping times and prices, your refund policy, and any other business practices you might have. This helps build confidence with buyers.

Show off your feedback: Copy and paste a selection of the feedback comments you’re most proud of to each item’s description page, instead of making bidders go and look for it. If you have 100% positive feedback, be sure to write that on every auction too.

Add NR to your titles: If you have extra space in an auction title, put ‘NR’ (no reserve) on the end. Bidders prefer auctions that don’t have a reserve price, and doing this lets them see that yours don’t.

Benefits not features: Make sure your description focuses on the benefits that your item can give to the customer, not just its features. This is a classic sales technique. If you have trouble with this, remember: ‘cheap’ is a feature, ’saving money’ is a benefit.

List more items: If you want more people to respond to your items, then list more items! You might find you have better like listing items at the same time, instead of one-by-one. There’s no need to use a Dutch auction - you can just keep two or three auctions going at once for an item you have more than one of in stock.

Accept unusual payment methods: To reach those last few buyers, accept payment methods that many sellers don’t, like personal checks. Although, I have to warn you.. eBay is going to stop allowing paper payments sometime this fall. Everything has to be done through PayPal or a merchant credit card account.

Buy some upgrades: The best upgrade is the most expensive one, which makes your item appear first in search results. In crowded categories, you might find that this is worth the money. If an item is going to fetch more than $500, it’s worth spending $20 to get the best exposure. Not all upgrades are worth the money, but if there’s one that’s definitely worth every penny it’s SUBTITLE. For 50 cents  you get a headstart on giving benefits of your item to the potential buyer.

This concludes my short course on becoming a successful eBay seller.
Over the next few months I’ll share some other tips and tricks that I use myself. eventually, all those and the preceding posts will be bundled in to a small eBook… for easy reference and reading!

Please don’t overlook my post from August 29…. WorldWideBrands is having a sale and they’re knocking off $100 of their service.  That’s HUGE.

Their wholesale research (whcih I use regularly) is worth every penny if you’re running abusiness, but at $100 off….    they must be out of their mind!

.

eBay Item Description Writing Tips
Back to class, boys and girls! Regular school is starting next week, and your eBay class gets back to business as well.

Once you’ve drawn the buyers in with your great title, the next thing to do is to tell them all about your fantastic item with the description. If you can write it in such a way that after reading it, they simply don’t see how they could have done without all those years, you’ve succeeded! But just what should you write in your description?

At its core your item description is really an ad. Without making it too obvious, you should be writing sales copy. You’re trying to get buyers excited about your products, and that’s usually hard - but on eBay, if you have the right thing to sell and give enough all-important details, the buyers almost excite themselves.

Technical Details
Include every technical detail you know, including the item’s manufacturer, its condition, the sizes (length, height, width and if appropriate its weight), where and when it was made, its history, and anything else special about it. Don’t be too boring, though: the best descriptions are written in a friendly, conversational tone, and show a real knowledge of the item. And whatever you do, make sure you tell the truth! Embellishing an item and making it look better than it really is backfires. Every single time. It’s one of the easiest ways to earn a (deservedly) negative feedback from a buyer.

Remember that most of the people who’ll be buying your item will often be just as knowledgeable about it as you are, if not more - this is their hobby, and they’re experts. Don’t feel like you need to explain the basics of the item: just go into as much technical detail as you can. As a rule, don’t write anything in the description if you don’t know what it means, as the chances are someone will, and if you’ve got it slightly wrong then you’ll look like you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Interesting Details
You might find that you enjoy writing a few things about how you got the item, why you’re selling it, and who you think might like it. This isn’t strictly necessary, but it gives your auctions some character and a personal touch, and can make people more likely to trust you. People might wonder what you’re doing selling 500 CDs all at once, and if you tell them the reason (”I copied them all to MP3 files”), then they’ll feel reassured that nothing dodgy is going on. If you’re selling them because you’re having a baby and you need the space, just say so.

Write as Much as You Can
Leave nothing out of your description, even if that seems to you like it makes it cumbersomely long. There is no way you can be too thorough: someone, somewhere will appreciate that you took the time to write the extra information. Take a look at other ads for the same item as you are selling or something similar and notice how many sellers are very sparse in their description. That’s an opportunity for you to stand out from the crowd and shine.

Don’t assume that anyone who wants extra information will email you to ask a question: many buyers are shy and won’t do it. (but if they do, answer their questions ASAP!) Think of questions that buyers might have and add the answers to your description, as people generally tend to ask the same questions over and over again.

Each time a buyer does email you with a question, you should both answer their question and update your description so that it will include the answer next time or you can elect to have the question and your answer show at the bottom of the listing, courtesy of eBay. I usually edit the listing if it’s substantial. If people ask questions that are answered in the description, try putting these parts of the auction on a line alone, or in bold, to make them easier to notice.  If one person took the time and effort to ask a question that was obvious to you, there are probably 20 more potential buyers who simply moved on when they did not see the answer to the same question.

Writing good copy for your item eventually will become second nature. Like anything else: practice makes perfect. Read the descriptions of others and learn from them. note what you as a buyer liked, did not like and what you think was missing from their description. Then resolve not to make the same mistake in your own description.

In the last post in this series I’ll discuss how to increase traffic to your listing. There are a lot of things you can do in that respect.

Wholesale has never been cheaper..don’t miss out!

It’s almost here.  I’ve been counting down since July 4th. And now we’re only a few days away
from (drum roll, please)… Labor Day Weekend!

WHY am I so excited about that?

Simple.  Worldwide Brands is having their BIGGEST SALE of the year!  An exclusive, limited-time Get-More-for-Your-Money Sale, in honor of working men and women everywhere… If you’ve been following m,y blog posts yo know that I think they’re just about the best thing since sliced bread.

Their directory REALLY helps you kick off your online business the right way. When I started, way back when, there was no such thing as they offer. But if there had been, I would’ve invested my money in it and the start would have been a whole lot easier!

Now through next Monday (9.8), you can get $100 DOLLARS OFF the one-time super low cost of a Worldwide Brands Product Sourcing Membership and The Whole Sale Package Deal:

Worldwide Brands Membership
• Your Wholesaler Directory connects you with thousands of genuine suppliers and millions of quality products, with more added daily.

• Your built-in Instant Market Research Tool lets you choose the best products to sell and avoid costly mistakes.

Each time you search for a product within the directory, you’ll also get a Real-Time Market Analysis showing you how likely that product is to sell well in the current online market.
The Whole Sale
• Your total ecommerce Product Sourcing Educational Package breaks down WHAT to sell online, WHERE to find it, and HOW to sell it.

• Your Community Forum gives you direct connection to Worldwide Brands’ CEO, Chris Malta, and provides you with his personal support and guidance. (How many CEOs do you know who actively participate in their Members’ Forum?)

• Your Whole Sale Bonuses Area constantly offers new amazing tools, resources, educational videos and more, to help boost your online profits.

http://www.worldwidebrands.com/r/?r=60&kbid=22841

But this offer is only good through Monday, 9/8/08.  When the clock strikes mid-night PST, the sale price ends.  Don’t miss this window to THROW YOUR EBIZ INTO HIGH GEAR.

Get moving with Worldwide Brands exclusive Get-More-for-Your-Money Labor Day Sale.  Start sourcing products with ease - while this limited-time offer lasts.

Here’s to Your Online Success,
Richard

OK, gotta throw this one in here too….

From August 19 through September 9 Windmill Trading is having a Labor Day Sale: get $5 off your cart of $30 or more when you use Google Checkout. Simply load up your cart with at least $30 and you’ll get an automatic $5 off. No codes, no coupons, no numbers, nothing is needed. It’s all automagic. For new and repeat customers.

Limitations: 1 discount per customer, you have to use Google Checkout (not PayPal) and it expires 5pm PDT on 9/9/08.

Tips on writing your eBay title

Trying to help your buyers find your auctions can truly be a daunting task. Most people only search eBay by title, not by description, and that means that you only have those 55 characters of the title to cover all the possible search terms. That’s not easy. In this post, I’ll try to give you a few pointers.

Don’t bother with eBay clichés… There are plenty of eBay auction titles that state things like “Super rare camera wow look low price”. No one is searching for ANY of these terms, so they’re a perfect waste of your title real estate.

Think like a buyer… If you were a buyer looking for your item, what exactly would you type into that search box? If you think it would help, try searching yourself to find someone else selling your item. What were the first things you thought of typing?

Think like other sellers… Keep an eye on which sellers are doing best with items like yours, and try to copy their title styles - if it works for them, it can work for you. There are no eBay rules that state you can not use the same title.

Be specific… Be sure to write the item’s brand and specific model number in the title, as people will often search only for this information. Make sure that you also say exactly what the item is.

DROP THE CAPS… oh, sorry. Seriously, having a title in ALL CAPS does NOT make it easier to read, will NOT get more attention and often achieves quite the opposite effect. Sorry, apparently the human brain is trained to find it easier to read and comprehend a sentence types in upper and lower case.

A few examples:

“Dell Latitude Laptop P3 500mhz Notebook PC Computer”

If you know about computers, you’ll know instantly what this auction is selling. It has manufacturer (Dell) and product line (Latitude), followed by a few technical specifications (P3 500mhz is the processor type and speed). Notice also that the title includes the four words ‘laptop’, ‘notebook’, ‘PC’ and ‘computer’, as the seller wants people looking for any of those words to see his auction.

Another example…
“OASIS Don’t Believe the Truth CD Album (New)”

This auction for a CD is well formatted: it gives the artist name in capital letters, followed by the album name. It then manages to include the two key words ‘CD’ and ‘album’, as well as the word ‘new’ - that means that anyone searching for ‘new oasis cd’, ‘oasis new album’ and so on will find this auction. On the other putting parentheses around a word does not serve any purpose than visually setting it apart. this listed could have used asterisks, hyphens or any other punctuation mark just as well. eBay totally ignores those during search. Searching for WII NEW will bring the same results as WII ***NEW***. (Off topic: Actually, there’s on exception to this rule. Quotation marks serve to “link” 2 terms together. Searching for “NEW WII” (with the quotes) will NOT bring up a result where there there’s any other word between WII and NEW.)

Last example:

“1840 Penny Black stamp, certificate, four margins”

Here’s a slightly more obscure one… If you’re a philatelist you know that a Penny Black is one of the oldest and most famous stamps. It uses a few key words that collectors will consider important: ‘four margins’ indicates that the stamp has been cut out with some margins around it and so isn’t damaged, and ‘certificate’ tells you that the item has a certificate of authenticity - it’s a real Penny Black. This title can be improved with the addition of at least one more character: the numeral 4. Many buyers will look for that instead of writing out the number. Remember to use every bit of space to squeeze in as much important information as you can in the title.

So now that you’ve written a winning title, you need to start on a great description.
But that’s fodder for a new post…

Some people think it’s easy to choose the right eBay category, and often it is. Just as often, though, it might not be quite clear exactly where to list your item.

Why is it even Important?

Plenty of people use the category system on eBay to find items, when they’re not looking for something specific. They’ll just be browsing, either to kill time or simply because they do not know exactly what they’re looking for… but they do know they need or want it when they happen upon it! If your item is listed in the wrong category - or you’ve just given up and listed it in ‘Everything Else’ - then these people aren’t going to find your auction.

Also, listing items in the wrong categories is against eBay’s rules, and supposedly they will remove any auctions that are categorized incorrectly. In my experience they’ve never actually done this, but it’s not worth the risk - especially since breaking any rules can cause them to mark your account, which means - if you rack up too many “flags” - you could lose your PowerSeller status, get a lower search ranking or even not get reimbursed for any listing they yank. The PowerSeller pages detail how transgressions they will allow you to have within a 60-day period before they will take punitive action.

So what can you do?

If, when you sell your item, you type in a few words on the category selection page to describe it and click ’search’, eBay will suggest categories for you. You can make the best of this feature by typing in exactly what your item is, complete with brand name and model number (if any), so that eBay can find the best category for you.
Alternatively (and this is a something you should do anyway), you can research the competition by searching for items like yours, and see where they are listed. Pay attention to which category most of them seem to be in (you can see this near the top of each item’s description page). Try different words and see which ones come back with the most results. Then list your item in that category (and do a better job than your competitors did in describing the item, including pictures and other aspects).

Of course, you can also simply browse through all the available categories from eBay’s front page and although that could be come quite time-consuming it also allows you to come upon categories you had not though of before.

Remember that the more specific the category is, the better - use as many subcategories as are appropriate. Don’t just list your HP laptop in the ‘Computers’ category, for example - list it in ‘Computers > Laptops > HP’. Don’t worry: your item will still appear in the ‘Computers’ category, as well as ‘Computers > Laptops’, because items listed in subcategories are always listed in every category above.

Take some time to look through all the categories and get familiar with the way eBay as a whole is laid out. That’s better than muddling a few months down the line and finding that you still think of eBay’s category system as some kind of scary jungle!

What if more than one category fits?

For an extra fee, you can list your item in a second category, to increase the number of potential buyers who will see it. This isn’t always worth it, though - some items only really fit properly in one category, and listing them in a second is just a waste. I personally never list in multiple categories with one big exception: at Holiday time. I carry some items (like golf range distance finders, universal remote controls) that could be conceived as a gift item. Starting in November I not only list those types of items in their appropriate niche, but also in the Gag Gift category. It’s under the “Wedding & Party Supply” main category and every year I’m amazed at how many listings in that category actually result in a sale. Plus.. remember… there’s no rule that says you have to charge the same amount in every category. I usually end up charging anywhere from 10% to 30% more in the Gag Gift category. Try it!

Once you know where to list your item, the next step is to write your auction’s title. The title is the most important thing about your auction - the difference between a good title and a bad title can be the difference between $10 and $100. To learn why this is the case… come back soon!  That’s fodder for a next posting. Consider subscribing to this blog so you’ll be notified when news posts are published.

How to think like an eBay PowerSeller

As I explained earlier, PowerSellers are the people on eBay who’ve passed certain hurdles, and they recognizable by the little ‘PowerSeller’ badge next to their name. You’ve probably seen these people around - and to succeed on eBay, you want to think the way they do.

How do you get the right to call yourself a PowerSeller?

eBay gets to decide who can be a PowerSeller and who can’t, and they have very strict requirements. To get in at the minimum PowerSeller level, you must have a feedback rating of at least 100 (minimum 98% positive) and sell at least $1,000 worth of items every month for three months in a row. There are different levels of PowerSeller membership as you sell items of greater value: $1,000 total is Bronze, $3,000 is Silver, $10,000 is gold, $25,000 is Platinum and $125,000 is Titanium. Alternatively, sellers can also reach the various levels by maintaining an average of 100, 300, 1,000, 2,500 and 15,000 items sold for 3 months in addition to the feedback requirements. On top of this, all PowerSellers need to keep their DSR ratings (Detailed Sellers Ratings, the star-system) at a minimum of 4.5 stars for all four categories.

If PowerSellers ever fail to meet the required amount or number of sales, their feedback falls below 98% positive or their DRS drop below 4.5, then they lose their PowerSeller status. In short, the only people who get to be PowerSellers on eBay are the people who have been successful for a good while, and are on track to stay that way.

On a side note, being a PowerSeller does bring some very real advantages, including better PayPal protection and access to eBay’s own Reseller network for product sourcing.

The Shop and the Marketplace

This is the most important part of understanding how PowerSellers think. PowerSeller don’t see what they’re doing as being some random bazaar, garage sale or a hobby - instead, they see themselves as a business. And they act that way.

Put it like this. If you run a stall in a marketplace, the chances are that you have a general area of business, but you mostly just sell whatever you can get your hands on that week. If your dodgy buddy got his hands on a job lot of something at a discount, then that’s what you’ll be selling. This might be fun - and when you have a good week, you’ll have a really good week - but it’s no way to run a real business in the long-term.

PowerSellers think far more like shops. They sell the same items again and again, every week - regular stock for regular customers. They do ‘boring’ business things like keep inventories and have budgets. They know what they’re going to be selling, how much they buy it for and how much they expect to sell for. Just like a physical shop, there can be hard times sometimes, but their income is stable and their business grows slowly but surely.

The best advice I can give you on thinking like a PowerSeller is this: don’t take long-term risks for short-term gain. Look after your reputation, manage your selling properly, provide good customer service and the rewards will come to you in due course. And you’ll get a little badge next to your name that makes people trust you more!