Good afternoon and welcome to the forth of our PowerSeller Pointer Workshops. Last week's was on Book Keeping & Accounting and can be reviewed here.
The pinks, here at eBay UK, were approached by a group of PowerSellers who asked if they could use the Workshop Boards to host a series of workshops around the theme of good eBay practices for businesses on eBay. Individually they are PowerSellers who have each enjoyed (through tremendous hard work and skill) business success on eBay but collectively they want to share with you some of the pointers they picked up along the way, so who were we to say no to such a kind and thoughtful offer?
Today’s is on Advanced Shops and will be led by mountcomp and iron*lion*zion
Feel free to ask questions as the workshop runs but please be mindful of the fact that our two hosts will be doing their best to address many issues at the same time – such is the quick fire nature of forums! We learnt a lot from last week's session (hence why this is today being hosted on the appropriate board) but hopefully like last week it will be an informative and fun two hours.
Us pinks will also tag along for the ride and will be happy to do our best to field questions that perhaps our Pointers cannot. Finally we’d also ask you to respect the considerable time and effort that these sellers have put in. Their enthusiasm for eBay and the how to unlock the potential of the site knows no bounds and I would certainly like to start by thanking them for their efforts.
Hi, I’m Chris (eBay ID Mountcomp) and my co host today is Andrea (eBay ID Iron*Lion*Zion). I'm a PowerSeller, Trading Assistant and eBay eDucational Specialist. When I started trading on eBay I opened a shop and immediately saw the benefits through increased sales. An eBay Shop has other benefits too – I can control what my buyers see and guide them to purchase the products they're interested inh! Today I make my living full time on eBay.
Hi all I opened up a shop early in my ebay career too and now I wouldn’t be without it! I have learned bit by bit that there are many ways to increase your shop sales by using your auction listings effectively. I chose to brand my shop to reflect what I sell very heavily and it works well for me. I work full time for a market research agency but intend become a full time ebayer by the end of this year.
In the first Shops workshop we looked at the first steps to take when you open your shop. This week we will look at the buyer experience and how to encourage your buyers to browse longer and spend
more in your shop. We'll start with a couple of questions which weren't fully answered in the Setting up Shop on eBay workshop
Many people ask which level shop they should subscribe to. A basic shop (£6.00/mth) gives you all of the functionality that you need. There are good reasons for upgrading to a Featured Shop (£30.00/mth), not all of the benefits of a featured shop are listed on eBay in one place but they are Free SMP (Sales Manager Pro) Free SR+ (Sales Reports Plus) Priority Placement in Search and Browse Results ("Shop eBay Shops" Section) Better Placement in the Shops Directory More in Depth Omniture Statistics (Traffic Reports) More Free eMail Marketing (Basic 100/mth, Featured 1000/mth) 10 Custom Shop pages (5 with the Basic Shop) Option of Minimal eBay Header style
If you make use of SMP (£4.99/mth) and SR+ (£3.00/mth) along with the £6.00 you'd pay anyway for a basic shop then a Featured shop will only cost you an additional £16.01/mth. The additional Omniture statistics on their own are probably worth this!
An Anchor Shop (£300.00/mth) is a serious investment in comparison and gives 15 Custom Shop Pages (5 with Basic, 10 with Featured Shop) Premium Placement in Search and Browse Results ("Shop eBay Shops" Section) Showcase Placement of your logo in Shops Directory Pages (http://stores.ebay.co.uk/) More Free eMail Marketing (4000/mth) An Anchor shop is not recommended for the vast majority of sellers and is outside the scope of this workshop.
Which ever level of shop you choose budget it against your sales and the number of listings you have on the site. If you make 30 sales a month then a Basic shop will cost you £6.00/30 = 20p per sale If you make 200 sales a month then a Featured shop will cost you £30.00/200 = 15p per sale If you make 5000 sales a month then an Anchor shop will cost you £300.00/5000 = 6p per sale Check your margins, work out the cost of your shop averaged across your sales, and decide what's an affordable cost for your business. Do not make the mistake of thinking that paying for the most expensive shop will increase your sales significantly, as the chances are that it won't.
The other question asked was how to name your shop the same as your User ID. If you wish to do this then you need to choose your User ID first and THEN change your shop name to match. You can not name your shop and then change your User ID to be the same as your shop name. Many people don't mind having a different Shop Name and User ID and in fact if your shop name is long then it's better to have a shorter but memorable User ID (mountcomp is a shortened form of Mount Road Computers). However as eBay provide you with a unique URL for marketing your shop (e.g. http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Mount-Road-Computers) there is a lot to be said for marketing it with the name will know you by - your User ID!
The main focus of this workshop is to look at your shop from a buyers perspective, and to look at strategies to ensure the buyer is presented with the products they are searching for, to pre-determine their buying behavior when they arrive in your shop, and encourage them to either bid or to make immediate purchases. Many sellers don't realise that they can customise their shop to the extent that two individual buyers will have a totally different shopping experience controlled by how they enter your shop
There are two main sections - First we'll look at the static sections of your shop and how best to utilise them. In the second section of the workshop we'll look at how you can dynamically alter your shop to tailor the buyers experience!
Promotion Boxes Promotion Boxes are a fantastic way either to capture a buyers eye with your latest special offers and products which make you the highest margin, or to deliver information to buyers such as highlighting your Postage and Payment Policies. There are five placements for promotion boxes and ebay have created content which you can automatically insert, or of course you an create your own content. (Promotion Box Options). The areas you can place them in are shown below: Think carefully about what information you place in these boxes - Don't put your Postage Policy in the top centre box - this will be one of the first things a buyer sees - save this placement for showcasing the products which are best sellers, bargain prices, or that make you the best profit. Think of the top promotion boxes as the "Specials Display" that large supermarkets have just inside the entrance so that everyone sees them. This is the first part of your shop you can use to enhance buyers interest in your shop and to encourage them to look further at your auctions!
Shop header Your shop header is where your logo and keywords about your shop are contained. As discussed in the previous workshop - Setting up Shop on eBay (http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Setting-up-Shop-on-eBay_W0QQugidZ10000000000899455) the keywords are essential to attract bidders to your shop. You can minimise the "clutter" at the top of your shop with the minimal eBay header (Featured shop required).
On the subject of ID's when did ebay remove the dashes. My shop name and url used to be Chickenpie-Records. It has now been changed to ChickenpieRecords. It doesn't matter though because no-one can access it because I was one of the shop owners who used the Store Tune Up on the .com site and now my store icon & logo's don't work. And i'm now registered as a U.S store
gamesbuyer_uk - Can you tell me what the key advantage is that justifies the extra cost of a featured shop over a standard one. Secondly, anchor shops are expensive, but some bright ebayers have them, again could you explain the principal advantage.
Hopefully we've answered your question with this and the information above, please feel free to ask if you need more input
I wasn't aware about the dashes being removed. However I have heard about the Store Tune up issue (UK shop owners please do NOT use it). The solution appears to be to close your shop and reopen it making sure you're logged into the UK site. Sorry to hear you've had problems
Custom shop header display Your custom shop header is placed immediately below the eBay header, This is the equivalent of posters in a high street shop window. A customer is looking at your shop and now you want to entice them in. I tend to advertise special offers and popular items in this section to attract buyers to click through to shop categories. It's also a great place to highlight any marketing campaigns you are running - such as combined postage, free postage for orders over a certain value, charity auctions etc. If you offer a gift wrapping service or express delivery let customers know!
Hi. I was told not to close it. I closed it at the request of .com and reregistered as UK store (lost 2500 store listings). Within 3 hours it was automatically transferred to the US site again. They're still working on it
krythy - Promotion boxes. I'm not using these like I should. Do I need to code them in html or can I just tell the box which listing to keep in there?
It really depends what you want to display - if you want eBay to automatically update them you can just set up promotion boxes with default settings. If you want to highlight one particular product you may want to consider your own HTML - next weeks PowerSeller Pointers Workshop is on HTML so make a date in your diary!
Custom pages Custom pages are an ideal place to hold additional information such as your Terms and Conditions of Trading and WorldWide Postage and Packing details. However they are also a fantastic way to add value for existing customers and find new customers from search engines like Google. Search engines will categorise your custom pages so ensure content is relevant and full of keywords.
Some examples could be if you sell say DVD's create a custom page with details of regional codes and the differences between PAL, NTSC and SECAM, if you sell clothing consider a sizing guide with UK, European and US alternatives.
Even for more mundane items like batteries you could create a custom page with the differences between NiCd and NiMh and include comparisons between the duration of a 2500mAh and 900mAh.
If you can optimise your Custom Shop Pages to have the most relevant content to your products then search engines on the Internet will direct browsers straight to your eBay shop!
Don't forget that if you wish you can set a Custom Shop Page as your Shop Default Landing Page. If you do choose to do this it's a good idea to set the Left Navigation Bar (list of your shop categories) to be viewable on this page so that buyers can easily access your auctions.
A Custom Shop Page used as a Landing Page gives you full control of the buyers experience when they enter your shop from any of the links eBay provide on the rest of the site.
raptordinosaur: Hi. I was told not to close it. ... They're still working on it
If you have specific advice from eBay on this issue, then the best advice we can give is to follow their instructions. What an absolute nightmare for you: I hope they get it sorted soon.
They are set at the defaults at the moment but sometimes I have an item I put as a featured plus, I would like to be able to keep this item at the top of my shop page.
diknik - I've been thinking about redesigning my bog-standard eBay shop for some time, developing a unique branding / logo / colour scheme etc. However, the only thing that has put me off so far is personal experience of 'designed' shops as a dial-up user. As far as I am aware, only around 50% of the UK is currently on broadband and, whilst I personally admire the smart colour coded / branded shops, I find they take ages to load on a dial up connection and, as a buyer, I find myself hitting the back button. (Even now I have broadband, I still have problems with logos, Auctiva and moving script etc.) I know that I get a considerable number of e-mails from buyers who choose my plain shop over others simply because it loads quickly. So, my question is, is there a valid argument for sticking with simple eBay designs or does a recognisable branding really increase shop sales? Or is it just a case of 'suck it and see'?
There is an awful lot you can do to customise your shop simply with the eBay default options - have a look at "Setting up Shop on eBay" (http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Setting-up-Shop-on-eBay_W0QQugidZ10000000000899455) for branding strategies. HTML loads quickly - the only thing that will slow a shop loading are pictures so compress them as much as possible.
A fully customised shop is something which needs to be considered carefully - some like Andrea's (Iron*Lion*Zion) although customised still have the "look and feel" of eBay, others totally alter the standard layout which can be effective but could be offputting.
Before you consider a fully customised shop I'd recommend implementing the stategies in this workshop, especially the second half - you may be surprised just how powerful standard eBay shops already are!
krythy - They are set at the defaults at the moment but sometimes I have an item I put as a featured plus, I would like to be able to keep this item at the top of my shop page.
That could be done very simply with HTML by inserting a picture and link to the auction - We'll definately be explaining how to set that up next week in the HTML Workshop!
What’s your opinion on promotional add-ons like Auctiva?
Do you think they encourage or discourage buyers?
ARN
Hi I think Chris and I differ on this particular issue , I like Auctiva, Chris doesn't.
I personally think it adds to my listings, but some people can't see them depending on their settings. They can also slow down the download time, which can be a pain for those using dial up - so I might be shooting myself in the foot. But I haven't seen an abatement in sales so don't think its had an adverse affect.
Its a matter of opinion as to whether it looks better or not.
cwmbedw: On the dashes in shop names, I opened a uk shop 2 days ago which has dashes, so that maybe just on .com? Mine has dashes and works on .co.uk and on .com; I don't think there is an issue with dashes, I think it's unfortunately the Shop Tune Up which has messed up Raptordinosaur's shop.
#30 in agreement, there's a lot you can achieve without going overboard, and you're right some of the heavily customised shops (I plead guilty) can be a tad slow for dial up users. If your shop is very graphics heavy though it is possible to optimise the graphics with your graphics application (PaintShop Pro/ Photoshop or whatever) so they are smaller files (bytes wise that is) which helps. There's even some dedicated applications which can batch/bulk edit graphics files such as Advanced JPEG Compressor.
accounts_reminder_notice - Hi, What’s your opinion on promotional add-ons like Auctiva? Do you think they encourage or discourage buyers?
Experience from sellers that use add-ons like Auctiva and Vendio to show-case products appears to be very good, so on that basis I'd have to say go for it! The main disadvantages are with some you have to pay, and with a large number of auctions this can add up quickly so keep an eye on your bill! Also insert the code manually rather than allow it to be autoinserted, then you can place it exactly where you want it
Listing Frame The Listing Frame comprises of two sections - Your Shop Listing Header and Left navigation Bar. The Shop Listing Header can contain your logo, a link to add you to their favourite sellers, and a link to sign up to your eMail marketing. The Setting up Shop on eBay workshop (http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Setting-up-Shop-on-eBay_W0QQugidZ10000000000899455) workshop looked at the importance of encouraging buyers to agree to receive future marketing from you.
The listing frame is an important tool to ensure each of your listings contains an automatic link to enable them to do so! The Left Navigation Bar holds a search box specific to your shop and some of your shop categories.
he listing frame serves two purposes, firstly it attracts buyers looking at a particular auction to your shop - both from tempting category names and by displaying shop pages (which can be custom shop pages with rich content, or could be links to your top selling categories. The other important addition is that it holds a shop search facility. By having this placed next to your item description if a buyer decides the product offered is not quite what they want and go to search eBay for an alternative there is a good chance they'll use your shop search and end up with listings soley from your shop, not from eBay in general.
The listing frame is a fairly new feature for eBay shops, but one that we strongly recommend you explore. Remember that only the top 30 categories in your shop will be displayed in the Left Navigation Bar section of your listing frame so order the most important to be at the top - we'll look at optimising your categories next.
I also use the shop cross promotion, and include a reminder in my listing, to use the scroll bar to view all 12 items in the cross promotion box. I did this after a few customers informed me that they didn't realise that the promotion box could contain more than 4 items.
ARN WARNING!! Most Scam Listings are listed for One Day Only
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