We all sign up to eBay and list our items and then because we have paid our listing fees, shop fees if we have a shop and then when the item sell our final valuation fees we just sit back and wait, for good old eBay to sell the items for us. Well it is true eBay will work hard for us and will market our listings for us while they are on the site, but they are also doing this for millions of other people at the same time. Yes they do a good job, but this is a business we are in either a part-time or full-time, we also need to do some work.
Right now I can hear some of you moaning and saying “Hey Andrew, I have taken those pictures and written a quick listing, what else, it is now up to eBay” when I hear this I tell them that I understand where they are coming from, but point out to them, that if they just spent a little time each day or week in tweaking their listings they would help them in eBay search and also in Google and the other search engines. And it is nothing hard or complex, you just need to get serious about your business and say yes, I am willing to go the extra mile with it and that you are prepared to put in just 30 minutes a day to help those items sell for a higher price and sell on a regular basis.
The first area you need to look at, and again being open and honest with you here, you should have done this action way before writing or re-writing a title or description and that is research. Yes I want you to have this engraved on your mind 24/7………………………………. Research, Research, Research. If you can get this part right then you are a good way in to making a success on sites such as eBay. Research in your marketplace, Research your product, Research the competition, and Research those keywords. In fact each one of those is a serious of articles on their own, but for now I want to talk about Research the competition.
You can do this the hard way by looking at the different websites and eBay shops where they sell the types of items you are interested in selling. Make a note of :
- The colours they use in sales letters
- The words they use
- The types of pictures they use
- A long or short sales piece
- And the type of keywords they use
Now before I get any complaints I do not want you to copy, I just want you to look and see what these top sellers are doing and only look at the sellers who are selling multiple items a day in your niche or are regular sellers in your niche. You may remember that that I said hard way just above and yes there is an easier way to do some research and that is with some eBay research software from a company called Terapeak. eBay Research by Terapeak will give you some of the answers above and will present it to you in away you can understand and then put into action. But remember you need to do the work and then put it in place and take the necessary work to carry it out.
Andrew Milburn Is An eBay Consultant Based In Lichfield Staffordshire
