30/4/10 Powerseller Profiteer Newsletter

Seven easy to use tools that will make your eBay business a success  

Hello! 

Well, after my recent travel escapades I’m pleased to tell you that normal newsletter service has now resumed and I’m hoping that you, like me, are ready to get back in to the swing of things and want to do some serious selling on eBay and make your eBay business in to a real success.

As you know, with the recent introduction of lowered criteria for becoming a Powerseller and reaching Top Rated Seller status, now is the time to really push your business and reach those goals as quickly as possible so that you can get all the benefits that come with them.

Reaching those goals though will mean an increase in sales and top customer service amongst other things and this in turn means that keeping on top of your eBay business is an absolute priority. Anything that can make your daily tasks smoother, easier and less time-consuming is obviously very welcome. That’s why you should seriously consider using some of the wide array of eBay tools that are available.

You may be surprised at just how many helpful tools there are out there to enable you to streamline your business, from making sure your customers are kept informed on the progress of their orders to saving money that you don’t really need to spend. Now, some of these are free tools which can be accessed on the eBay website itself and others are third-party applications that may require you to pay a subscription fee. But, what I will say is this and the same applies to them all; in the long run these tools will help you save time, streamline your business, make money and ultimately get things right.

So with this in mind, this week I thought I’d give you a brief run down of my own favourite eBay tools for you to consider using yourself and I’ve called this my ‘Super Seven’. Some of these you may already be aware of but are currently not using, others may be brand new to you, but my advice is to check them all out to ensure you are doing everything possible to make your eBay business a success. So here we go…

eBay Pulse 

Personally, I couldn’t live without this great free tool which you can find on the eBay site itself. Just go to ‘Site Map’ and then look under ‘More Ways To Find Items’ then click on eBay Pulse in the list. Or you can use this quick link

By utilising eBay Pulse you can find a very handy daily snapshot of current trends, largest eBay shops and the most watched items, all by the category of your choice - simply use the drop down list to drill down as far as you need to through the categories and sub-categories. This is perfect for research purposes because using eBay Pulse is a very easy way to discover the hot items that you can then source from wholesalers and resell on eBay yourself. You can also find out other important information such as who is the biggest competitor in your niche, popular searched for keywords and you can take a look at what the largest eBay shops are stocking and selling the most of.

By the very nature of eBay, trends change on a daily basis so it’s worth looking at eBay Pulse a few times a week when you are researching products to ensure you get the full, accurate picture.

Selling Manager Pro (SMP) 

Ok, this next one isn’t entirely free I’m sorry to say, but it does only cost £4.99 per month (you can currently get a 30 day trial and then it’s free if you have a featured or anchor eBay shop). I’ve been using SMP for over 4 years now and find it invaluable. What you’ll find is that as your eBay sales increase and your business grows, you will need an easy to use system that will track and manage your sales for you. And that’s where SMP comes in. It’s perfect for medium to high volume sellers and will help you stay on top of your listings, sales and general admin tasks that need performing including automating your listings which will save you bags of time! Here’s a quick run-down of some of the things SMP can help you with:

·      Manage all your selling activities

·      Manage your products including tracking your inventory and saved listing templates

·      Provide sales activity reports that you can download

·      Automate your dispatch emails and feedback

·      Automatically schedule your listings and relist any unsold items

There’s loads more to it as well - too much to list here, but you can find further information here: Selling Manager Pro 

Feedback Analyzer Pro 

We all know that to sell successfully on eBay, your potential buyers must trust you and that’s where your reputation or feedback come in to play. As you know, buyers can click through to your feedback pages and check out the comments by simply clicking on your eBay ID, however a much better idea is to place some positive feedback comments within your listing so that viewers can read them as they run through your description. This way, you are constantly reaffirming the fact that you are a genuine, honest, trustworthy seller. So, you could just cut and paste some of your feedback comments in to your listing description, but quite honestly that doesn’t always look good and can be a bit scrappy, so what do you do? Well, there is a better, more professional way to do this and that’s by using a nifty tool called Feedback Analyzer Pro. Sorry - it’s not free, but it’s only a small one off payment of $37 (about £25) and this small amount is definitely worth paying for the increase in sales it will bring and the added trust and confidence it will give to your potential purchasers. You can read more about it and see examples of how your feedback could look within your listings here: Feedback Analyzer Pro 

Auctiva 

This great site does have some overlaps with SMP but two of the best tools that you get when you sign up to Auctiva which aren’t included in SMP are some great, professional looking listing templates - over 1,700 in fact - and the very popular Scrolling Gallery which you can place within your listings to show off your other products to potential buyers. Auctiva costs from $2.95 (about £1.90) per month for their basic plan up to $19.95 (about £13.50) per month for their Premium plan but, don’t worry, they do offer a free trial so I would advise that you trial it first to see which plan it is that suits you. As I’ve mentioned, Auctiva will do many of the things that Selling Manager Pro will help you with such as listing scheduling and image watermarking but it’s worth comparing to see which suits you the best. Personally I use both! Full details are here.

Bay Estimator 

Do you know, I love this next tool because it’s so perfectly simple and can really help you attract more views and sales to your listings. What’s more - it’s free! Remember, your title is the most important part of your eBay listing because if you don’t get your keywords right, how is your listing going to be found? It’s not! Especially now with eBay's Best Match algorithms, it's extremely important to get your title absolutely right first time and this is where Bay Estimator comes in.

This is one of eBay’s little-known tools which will look at the relative popularity of your title keywords and then estimate how well it will work. Simply input your keywords and Bay Estimator will calculate how successful your chosen keywords will be in your listing title. An easy way to optimize your listings - genius! It is US based but don’t worry about that because the information it provides works with eBay UK with no problems. Try it for yourself

Photobucket 

Just a quick one this, because put simply, Photobucket is my hosting site of choice due to the fact that I find it so easy to use and navigate. It’s completely free, easy to upload my photographs and link them to eBay and there is tons of space available in my personal Photobucket album which means I can store literally thousands of pictures if I want to. Free hosting sites like this will always save you money on eBay because you won’t have to pay extra to use eBay’s picture services when you want to add extra images within your listings. Take a look.

Terapeak 

eBay used to provide what was always known as ‘Marketplace Research’ but this was retired and in its place we now have Terapeak which actually is also commonly known as ‘Marketplace Research’!

This is a must in my opinion for any serious eBay seller because the amount of information you can find through Terapeak is phenomenal. What’s selling, who’s selling it, who’s making the most profit - it’s all there and it is simple to use and will ultimately help you with your product choices and to run a better eBay business. There is a subscription fee which varies from $24.95 per month to $39.95 per month (approximately £16.70 - £26.75) depending on the package you take (you can also pay yearly), but in my opinion they are all good value. eBay research by Terapeak

Bonus Tip: Watermark your photographs 

And just a final bonus tool that you might not know about. Photobucket which I mentioned previously will let you watermark your pictures but if you are using eBay’s picture services you can now take advantage of their new watermarking service. It was only introduced just recently but if you have experienced another eBay seller steal and use your photographs in their own listing you’ll know how annoying this is. But now you can stop it once and for all. If you decide to add a watermark to your picture via eBay, you have the choice of using a camera icon, or using your eBay user ID and if your user ID is greater than 24 characters, it gets reduced to 24 characters. I’d go for the eBay User ID every time.

So, here’s how to do it:

·        On the page where you create your listing, scroll to the Bring your pictures to life section.

·        Click the Add or remove options link, and then select one or both watermark options

·        Click Save

Yes, it’s that quick. And when your photograph gets uploaded your watermark is applied. Perfect.

So there you have it, my ‘Super Seven’ tools plus a bonus tip for you to browse through. I’m pretty confident that these ‘Super Seven’ will be beneficial to your own eBay business and help you in the long term.

As always I wish you the very best of success,

Amanda

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I produce this newsletter on the understanding that these are my own personal opinions and experiences, which are as accurate as possible at the time of publication. I cannot be held responsible for any error in details, accuracy or judgment whatsoever. 

© Amanda O’Brien 2010 

 

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