The Top 5 Secrets To Selling On eBay

Lots of folks tell me they want to become an online seller. Too many try to tell you how easy it is and others don't want to put forth the effort to make a few dollars. In my experience, every dollar in helps out towards extras at home and with family.

Bottom line? It isn’t simple – especially the part where you actually try to make a profit. You have to keep up with changes in the marketplace — like shifts in consumer buying behaviors — study from tried and true experts, and practice!

The best place to get a feel for any online sales is to begin on eBay. I’ve written many bestselling books on the subject, and I’m a Top Rated Seller on the site. Remember that you can’t make a dime if you don’t actually list anything, and you probably won’t be successful without making a few mistakes.  My newest book, eBay Business All-in-One For Dummies 4th edition, answers just about any question you may have from sourcing products to staying in line with the tax man.

But, you can also learn from the successes and mistakes of others. So in this post, I want to offer some advice on how to create listings that sell – and how to earn the most profits from those sales!

How to Reinvent an Ecommerce Business in Less Than 90 Days

When I first started my mentorship with Pitney Bowes Smallbiz Mentorship Contest winner Julie Wiley, I knew it would be a challenge. Here was a woman with years of entrepreneurial experience moving from a full-time job to a home-based, online business.

Julie had been profitably selling on eBay since 2002 on the side, so a jump to a full ecommerce business was not a big stretch. When deciding about her business plan in 2008, she wanted to select a theme that was fairly recession proof. She reasoned that people were always getting married so she named her eBay store I Do Bridal and Gifts.

She also wanted her business to be unique in the marketplace so she widened her product offerings. Tapping her creative side, she began making varied custom items – such as canvas wall décor, glassware and creative bachelorette favors. These items not only build her bottom line, but require less inventory investment. Smart move.

Thinking further into the bridal idea, Julie came upon the thought that remarriage is almost as popular as first-time marriages, so she felt that second-time brides might enjoy a place of their own. She named her new website Second I Do’s.  Despite doing all that seemed right, she was struggling to turn a profit.

We dug in, and together we addressed many of the issues that face small businesses. Here’s what we changed:

• Mobile–izing the Website. The first thing I did was to check the Second I Do’s website. Although it was chock full of great merchandise, the layout was dated. Although the host told Julie her site was optimized for mobile. It clearly was not. We negotiated for a new template, but the template that was offered up was incredibly basic (but could be seen on mobile). After checking the latest from different providers, we selected a professional Shopify ecommerce website which offered contemporary templates and excellent mobile conversion. This also cut down Julie’s monthly expenses. The new version of the SecondIDos.com website will be live on Shopify by December 1st.
• Getting Centered. They are numerous popular ecommerce portals and Julie was trying hard to do a good job on many of them. It’s a lot of work to keep up to date on changes and relisting and listing the same merchandise on many sites. We looked at her monthly sales on each platform and evaluated the ROI. We narrowed her alternative selling platforms to the ones which performed best: eBay, Etsy and Artfire.

• Sharpening Keywords and SEO. When you have a lot of merchandise up for sale online, the mere act of listing many items makes it easy to let item titles get stale. I went over about a hundred of Julie’s eBay items and made suggestions on new titles based on keywords. In ecommerce, keywords are king. They are the SEO for your items for sale. I recommended she be sure to use words that fully describe the items and fill the entire permissible title space. We also went through and freshened up listing descriptions to answer any question a prospective customer might have.

We visited Google Analytics and checked visits, time on site, average pages viewed and bounce rates (how many people leave your site without visiting other pages). We discussed the factors that needed to be improved. Moving her main site to Shopify, with its open layout, should handily increase sales.

• Cash Flow. Many ecommerce businesses get weighed down in inventory. Unless the inventory is evergreen (and fashion rarely is), it’s time to slash prices and move merchandise. We also looked at monthly costs related to websites, subscriptions and payment providers and compared these to current options. We managed to pare down her monthly output significantly by using many of the lower priced and often free services.

For example, there was a paid store app on the Second I Do’s Facebook page, so we switched from that to Auction Items from eSoftie, a free solution that allowed Julie to send her eBay items to a Facebook store. Setup was simple and took only a few minutes for the entire inventory to populate.

• Social Media Marketing. We went over the best practices that I lay out in my book Social Media Commerce For Dummies and gave her tips on how to better engage and build a community of customers.

Julie had a nominal presence on most of the social sites. Since social media seems to be everywhere these days, we examined the demographics and decided in which sites Julie would put the most effort – and agreed to focus only on those.  We also set up Google Alerts so she could monitor mentions of her brand and industry on the web and take best advantage of sales opportunities (as well as to derive content for sharing).

Setting up a social media plan can take a while and generally done after the ecommerce platforms are mostly complete. So it might be a while before Julie’s Twitter feed ramps up. I suggested Julie use Buffer to better organize the timing, so as not to send out tweets and posts in rapid fire fashion, leaving room for responding and connecting.

In the three months I worked with Julie, we covered more than I can possibly list here (I can’t give away all her secrets)! In doing so, I was reminded that mentoring is a two-way street; a partnership. When mentoring, you always gain a new point of view on many things. A recent post of Julie’s on Facebook signaled to me that we’d been successful:

“I have never been so busy working from home. Part of it is due to my mentor, Marsha Collier who has given me many “tools” I can use to become a better ecommerce business. Unfortunately, with the new tools comes time spent learning and utilizing them and when you are trying to sell to generate income, it can seem like these tools take away from your selling. I am learning that in order to be successful at selling, I need to have the proper foundation laid. Thanks, Marsha. I know next year my business will be positioned so much better for success!”

Thank you Julie. It was a great experience for me as well!

This article originally appeared on the Pitney Bowes blog

5 Essential Tactics for Maximizing your Profits For eBay and Online Holiday Sales

        Post by Marsha Collier

Want to succeed as an online seller? Too many folks try to tell you how easy it is. Bottom line? It isn’t easy – especially the part where you actually try to make a profit. You have to keep up with changes in the market— like shifts in consumer buying behaviors— study from tried and true experts, and practice!

The best place to get a feel for online selling is on eBay. I’ve written many bestselling books on the subject, and I’m a Top Seller on the site. Remember that you can’t make a dime if you don’t actually list anything, and you probably won’t be successful without making a few mistakes. But, you can also learn from the successes and mistakes of others. So in this post, I want to offer some advice on how to create listings that sell – and how to earn the most profits from those sales!

• 1. Listing title. Nothing is more important than your title. You’ve no doubt heard about SEO (search engine optimization). Well, you can apply these same practices on eBay to increase sales. It’s all about “keywords” – the terms people will use to search for your item. Note that rarely would anyone search for a “beautiful” sweater. More than likely, someone would search for a sweater in a certain size, color, fabric, brand name, sleeve length – get it? Do not waste your 80 characters (total allowed on eBay for your item title) on fluffy adjectives or adverbs. The item title does not have to be a proper sentence; instead, be sure to make the verbiage descriptive with practical details. Since eBay buyers see less than the full title listing when browsing (mobile only shows 25 characters), keep the less important words at the end. Search will find the matching words anywhere in your title when someone searches for them.

Bonus Tip: Use tools like Google’s Keyword Tool (used by advertisers who place ads with Google) or Title Builder, an accurate eBay-centric search tool to identify top keywords people search for.

• 2. Pictures. You may post up to 12 pictures at no charge, but most new items can be illustrated completely in just two clear, well-lit photos. Be sure the photos you upload are at least 500 pixels wide or you run the risk of eBay rejecting them. Use multiple photos if you are selling a collectible or rare piece so that you cover every possible angle. Be sure to photograph any flaws so the customer can effectively evaluate an item’s condition before bidding on or buying vintage items. If you would prefer to show images within your description, go to the HTML description builder and use the code <img src=”URL of the photo on the web” height=”height in pixels” width=”width in pixels“>. When shooting images of jewelry, coins or anything detailed, use your camera’s macro setting. Do not use any fancy backgrounds that may distract from your item. 

Bonus Tip: To accurately portray colors of metals, use a Cloud Dome (or Cloud Dome Nimbus for smartphone cameras). It holds your camera steady and uses a mathematical formula to reflect light at exact angles for the best images possible.

• 3. Price it right! Check eBay’s completed listings search to see if your item actually sells well on the site and how much similar ones have sold for in recent auctions. Prices and trends may change by the minute and there is no point in listing when an item isn’t selling well. Check current listings too: How many sellers are selling your item? And at what price? As with any market, eBay items sell based on supply and demand. Choose your items carefully, price strategically and put slow selling items in your store. If you have a bit of wiggle room in your pricing, consider using eBay’s “Make Offer” option when listing. This way you can determine the sale price based on a customer’s offer. You can make up to 3 counter-offers to a buyer. Free shipping is also a good strategy for attracting customers and can make your listing seem more appealing than another seller with the same or a similar item – buyers feel like their money is going further, and there’s no guessing as to what cost the final invoice may reflect.

Bonus Tip: Double check your profit margin before you list. Although eBay has fee calculators, one of the best I have found is at http://salecalc.com/ – this tool takes all fees and expenses into account and gives you an accurate picture of how much you will make on your item if you sell it at a certain price point.

• 4. Don’t ignore the value of Customer Service. Good customer service will set you apart (and give you a leg-up on the competition from big brands) by letting the customer know you care. Communicate with your customer, even within your description. Let the customer know you are invested in their happiness with the purchase. Sell to international customers; American goods are very popular overseas. Putting the customer first through stellar customer service promotes repeat business and helps you reach the goal of Top Seller Status (where you receive a 20% discount on final value fees and are advantaged by eBay’s Best Match search algorithm). Find out more about Top Seller Status here.

Bonus Tip: Print out “thank you” notes and include them in your orders. Include information about you, your website or other merchandise you carry. Consider also offering customers a discount on their next order.

• 5. Ship the item out FAST! Know when your auction listings are scheduled to end, and be prepared to immediately pack and ship any items that have sold. For “Buy It Now” listings, set aside a few minutes each day to take care of shipping needs. Once the customer has sent you money, the item belongs to him or her – it no longer has a place in your inventory area. Keep a stock of shipping supplies (padded envelopes and free Priority Mail® packaging here) that match the items you sell. Use First Class mail whenever possible for items less than 13 ounces and send them in a bubble wrap envelope to save on weight. When it comes to shipping costs, box weight can make a big difference, so you might consider Priority Mail® Flat Rate Boxes, depending on the size and shape of the item. Priority Mail® Regional Rate Boxes can also be an economical option, depending on your shipping destination. Use the postal zone charts at this link to calculate shipping rates from your ZIP Code. Remember, Top Seller Status, which can increase your profit margin, is impacted by how buyers rate your shipping time and shipping costs.

Bonus Tip: As your business grows, no doubt you will sell on other sites like Etsy, Amazon, Facebook or your own website. Keep all your shipping records in one place: on your computer. Use this link for a 60 day trial to DYMO Endicia and see how easy postage and shipping can be. http://bit.ly/free60days    

via thinkingforward.tumblr.com

 

Small Business: 7 Essential Elements of Effective Social Media Marketing

How are savvy businesses using social media effectively to find more customers, boost their reputations, and make more sales?

Here are the seven essentials that will turn your social media marketing from an annoying time-waster to an effective bottom-line booster.

1. Get your home base together

Your home base is your blog or web site. It’s on a domain you own. You control the user experience — from the content to the site design to the user interface.

This is where you show that you know your stuff. That means building a nice cornerstone of high quality content that demonstrates your expertise in a likable, accessible way.

First impressions matter, so make sure the design is clean, professional, and smart. It can still be stylish or funky, if that’s your thing, but it shouldn’t look amateurish or confusing.

Your home base is where you post content to answer your readers’ questions, give them interesting tips, and help solve their annoying problems. When someone wants to know more about you, this is where you send them.

Your home base is a marketing tool, which means you need to be communicating primarily with customers, not with other experts in your topic. Don’t just pontificate to show what you know — tie your news and opinions back to how those things affect your customers.

2. Who’s the face of your business?

If you want to use social networking platforms like Twitter, Google+, or Facebook, you need a human face to make your social media marketing work.

So does that mean potential customers want to know about your personal struggles finding high-quality organic dog food? No. (Unless your company sells organic dog food, that is.)

Just like people have always done in public settings (work, church, volunteer activities), you’re going to adopt a persona — a selected range of your thoughts, emotions, and observations.

You’re going to be social and informal, but in a way that’s relevant, appropriate, and interesting to who you’re talking with.

Just like you don’t (I hope) wear your “I spent the night in Paris, Hilton” t-shirt to your grandma’s house, you’re also not going to share absolutely everything about the “real” you with your social media connections.

That doesn’t mean I want you to be a fraud. I want you to be friendly and genuine. Sound like a human being, not a corporate robot. And you certainly don’t have to stick to business all the time. It’s fine and good to show that you have a life. It’s not so good to show the world you’re careless, rude, or boring.

The truth is, the definition of “appropriate” depends on your audience. Lisa Barone has a very different persona from Ann Handley’s. If it works for your customers, it’s appropriate.

Authenticity for a business doesn’t come from oversharing or boring your audience to death — it lies in doing what you say you’ll do.

3. Who else has your customers?

Social networking platforms were designed to make it easy and fun for people to hang out together. That means you’re going to use them to build relationships that will help your business.

Look for people who have healthy-sized audiences who are a good fit for your product or service. They may be bloggers, they may be authors, they may have a popular podcast or column in mainstream media. They may simply be social media mavens who have lots of friends and like to share good stuff.

These are the people you want to share and promote your excellent content.

Cultivating professional relationships isn’t rocket science. Stick to the basics — link to them from your content, comment intelligently on their blogs and on social platforms, and be a nice person.

Don’t think that picking fights or manufacturing controversy makes you stand out. It doesn’t, it just makes you look like a troll. If you’re going to take a controversial position, make sure it’s one that really matters, and express it with respect.

4. Pick a primary platform

Again, think about where your customers are.

If you love Twitter but your customers spend hours every day on Facebook, you need to recognize that Facebook is probably a better venue for your business. It may not be as fun for you — but that’s why they call it work.

Only move beyond your primary platform when you’re sure you’re handling it well. A lot depends on the industry you’re in. If you’re a copywriter, social media consultant, or online marketer, your customers spend a lot of time in these venues, which means you probably will, too.

5. Manage your time

If you don’t decide how much time and focus you’ll put into social media, the default will be “all of it.”

Sites like Twitter and Facebook are seductive places to drop in and just check what’s new. When your five-minute check turns into 25 minutes, and you’re doing that 4 or 5 times a day per site, you’re going to find your productivity taking a dive.

Remember your home base. That (and actually delivering whatever it is you do) are where the bulk of your time and energy need to go.

The best tool I’ve found for managing social media time is a $3 kitchen timer. Decide in advance how much time you’ll spend checking in and being social, and stick to that.

6. Content first, conversation second

You’ve been told again and again by social media “experts” that your entire business should revolve around something called “The Conversation.”

Too often, this form of Conversation leads to business owners spending hours every day chattering with potential customers and hoping someone will buy something. (Or, more often, chattering with peers and friends and hoping this counts as work.)

Yes, be personable. Yes, keep an ear out for customer complaints so you can respond appropriately. And yes, network with peers in your industry to keep your links healthy.

But if it feels like goofing around all day instead of working, it probably is.

Instead, spend the bulk of your time on content, whether it’s on your own base or used as a guest post to find a wider audience. Use content to educate your customers about what they need to know to make an intelligent purchase. Focus on customer objections, questions, and problems.

When you find someone else’s content that your customers will find valuable, share that too — and add a few insights of your own, if you like.

Even a 100-character tweet can have content value. Think about what you can say that makes readers’ lives better, rather than just filling up time before you run to Starbuck’s. Make sure your reader has a good experience every time she hears from you. Keep it both useful and entertaining.

Social media conversation is a seasoning that makes your content more appetizing. It’s not the main dish.

7. Don’t forget SEO

Too many people think that social media sharing means they don’t need SEO any more. The fact is, social media marketing is a superb complement to SEO.

Play the long game. The same elements that make social media work (content that’s both useful and user-friendly, doing what you say you’ll do, healthy relationships with others in your industry) are the elements search engines would prefer to serve up. Search engines want to find the content that’s a widely-valued resource, and one of the signals they use for that is social media sharing.

Twitter and Facebook are already search engine signals, and there’s no doubt that Google+ is, too.

For too many businesses, social media is a time-wasting ego game. But use the tools strategically, with a focus on content and on getting a useful message in front of a wider audience, and it can be brilliantly effective.

via copyblogger.com

Never take your eye off of the prize: A happy, loyal customer!

How Being “Friends” On Google+ Leads To Better Rankings through Social Search

Want to rank better on Google? Get people to add you to their Google+ Circles, and that seems to be a potentially huge boost, based on a search I just did.

I’m Friends With Ford

When I looked for cars about an hour ago, I found a listing for Ford at the bottom of the first page of results, in the 10th position. In addition, there was an enhancement telling me that Ford had shared this link:

Interesting. Why is Ford showing up and with that enhancement in my results? Hovering my mouse over the Ford Motor Company link displayed this:

Indeed, I am connected to Ford through Google Plus. Ford is one of the very few brands that Google has allowed to maintain a brand page on the new Google social network. That connection is allowing Ford to rank better in my search results.

Content From Friends Has Long Ranked Better

In many ways, there’s nothing new here. Google’s Social Search results have, since October 2009, allowed content from people you know to rank higher, if you’re logged in.

That’s what’s happening here. I “know” Ford, which is why Ford’s page is showing up in the top results. When I’m logged out, and Google can’t tell that I know Ford, the page doesn’t appear in the first 50 search results that I reviewed, which means it’s effectively invisible.

Side Note: Social Search Seems Sort Of Screwy

As an aside, Google Social Search’s connections seem to be radically screwed up, at the moment. Consider:

In the first example, you can see that I’m told that Jason Kincaid shared a link, but then I’m also told he’s Michael Arrington. In the second, Matt Cutts is also apparently Google Webmaster Central. My favorite, found by Andrew Bleakley, is where David Harris is apparently me.

I think what’s happening is that the indirect “friend of a friend” connections are being shown. I might be connected to Mike from TechCrunch, which is why I see in turn something Jason shared, for example. Or maybe things are just broken.

Brands Are Newish To Social Search

Back to the Ford result. Why did it surprise me so much to see it today, when Google Social Search has long worked to boost content from your social connections?

Until recently, the social connections that Google Social Search uses have been mostly actual people. While brands were allowed to have Google Profiles until March of this year, few of them did. That meant relatively few brands were available for direct connections through Google.

It was possible to connect with brands in Google Social Search if you followed brand profiles on Twitter, Facebook or some other ways. However, it was fairly unusual for me to spot that something was getting a boost in Google’s search results through that type of connection.

Coming: The Google+ Brand Boost

Bottom line: being a brand on Google+ will mean people can make a direct connection to you, and that’s going to result in an increased chance that you’ll rank better for those people, when they’re logged in.

Of course, right now you can’t be a brand on Google Plus. Only a tiny number of brands are being accepted, with the promise that everyone will be allowed to have brand pages around the third quarter of this year.

I’ve asked Google three times for a list of all the approved brands in Google Plus. So far, it still hasn’t provided one. But Ford carries a big “Test Account” label like this:

If you see a brand with “Test Account” label on it, then it’s likely part of the program. If not, then it’s likely hoping to stay under the radar but might get pulled at any time.

While Brands Wait, The +1 Button

While brands can’t be part of Google+, they can take part in the entirely separate Google +1 program, which allows for anyone — even if they’re not in Google+ — to indicate that they like a page directly to Google.

Google has previously said that gaining +1s can help improve your ranking for those who have directly +1ed your content, as well as for those they are connected to. In addition, it can show even those who aren’t connected or using +1 an overall count for your page, should it appear for them naturally.

About The Author: Danny Sullivan is editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also oversees Search Engine Land’s SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He maintains a personal blog called Daggle (and maintains his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan. See more articles by Danny Sullivan

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