Good afternoon and welcome to the first of our PowerSeller Pointer Workshops. 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 on Shops is the first in a programme of member-led education workshops and I’m sure that many of you will find the events useful and entertaining. 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! They will also be answering many of the questions that were fielded in advance so look out for answers to your questions too!
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.
All the best Jamie
PS – If you can’t stay for too long today fear not, this thread will remain tagged to the top of the Workshops page until next week’s workshop. The remainder of the course runs as follows:
Apr 28th – Shop Basics May 5th – Postage & Packing May 12th – Book Keeping May 19th – Advanced Shops May 26th – HTML Basics
Hi, not at all! When you go to Manage My Shop there is a link right there on the right - Custom Pages. Just click and set up what ever custom pages you like.
Hi, my name is Chris, and Iron*Lion*Zion who is co-hosting this workshop is Andrea. I'm a PowerSeller, Trading Assistant and eBay eDucational Specialist. I opened my eBay shop almost as soon as I started trading on eBay and it increased sales immediately. eBay Shops can enable me to sell more, pay lower eBay fees, and keep customers shopping with me instead of other eBay sellers. Today I make my living on eBay and earn more than when I was in full time employment.
We are struggling to get our items to appear in froogle, the feed is available from our ebay shop, but none of our ebay items appear on froogle, Is their something else we have to do ? I thought once the feed was set up it should have been an automated process.
Shop Design
We are thinking of having our ebay shop redesinged professionally, moving away from the look and feel of a normal ebay shop. Do you think this would be a benefit or do most ebayers prefer the standard layout. We noticed that andrea (Iron*Lion*Zion) has had her shop templated, Have you noticed an increase in sales since the redesign
Hi all, Andrea here. I opened up a shop fairly early in my ebaying career too and now I wouldn’t do without it! I have learned bit by bit that there are many ways to increase your shop sales by using your auction listings well. I chose to brand my shop to reflect what I sell very heavily and it seems to work 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.
Just to say that during writing this with Chris I learned a whole bunch of stuff that I didn’t know previously or hadn’t thought of myself. (i.e. I didn’t know/think to have different marketing lists that my customers could sign up for…I only have the general one, which is rubbish, I really should have a Rasta specific list.)
Shona41 says she wants to open a shop selling records. Says she doesn't know where to start and wants to know the pros and cons of a shop. Worried that we anything we say here will go over her head, classes herself as a technophobe.
First, just to put minds at rest, we are hoping this will not go over anyones head. If anything is unclear please say so and we can explain in a different way. The first place to start is to go and open your shop. Simply go to the home page and on the right hand side is a link to ebay shops. Click that link and on the next page top right is an orange button that says open a shop. Go for it! No need to be a technophobe at all.
Remember that the first month is free, so use that month to find your feet and to experiment as much as possible. Opening a shop has many advantages which we will be going over in detail as this webinar goes forward. But in the main, it is an area on ebay that you call your own, if you like. Its an area that you can work on, to dress and design it to your own specifications, to try things out to enhance and increase listings and sales. I can't think of any disadvantages just now...
This webinar should cover your queries in more detail as we progress, Shona, but do ask if you want anything clarified more specifically.
This session covers Shops – the first steps to take when you open an eBay shop. In future sessions we'll look at how to customise and market your shop in more detail to really ramp up your eBay business. We're not going to give a step by step guide on how to open a shop but you'll find that really easy. (You can open a shop here)
This workshop is called "Setting up shop on eBay!" the topics we will cover are:
1) Branding 2) SIF 3) Categories 4) Choose how to display your items 5) Cross promotions 6) email Marketing/add to favourites 7) Keywords (get found!)
Implementing these tried and tested methods will significantly increase your business.
I will post in small sections as it is quite a lot to go through and to post the whole lot in one go might be way to difficult to wade through!
1) Branding
This section looks at the benefits of a ‘Brand’ for your business, and how an eBay shop can help you with this.
Your own brand tells customers that they are looking at one of your auctions or your shop. A memorable brand and colour scheme sets you apart from your competitors. Your brand will help customers remember that they’ve dealt before and give them the confidence to shop again – and tell their friends to shop too!
Take a look at my and Andrea’s shops - you'll see that they both look very different, but the one thing they have in common is that we both have a very individual colour scheme. This colour scheme is not only on our shop landing page, but carries through to our Auctions, About Me page, Custom Shop Pages, and eMail Marketing. This branding instantly tells our customers that they're still looking at our content on eBay. Use every customer communication to promote your unique brand/theme on flyers, packing slips, thank you notes, business cards, invoices - and anything else you can think of! What about framing your gallery picture with your brand colours?
Most people create an auction template, write an About Me page, open a shop and pick a standard eBay Shop Theme, and then get someone to design them a logo. Often they end up with very different colours, touch and feel for each part instead of one common theme. When you open a shop this is an ideal time to create your own Brand on eBay and tell customers who you are.
Start with your logo. A professional looking logo not only tells customers that you are serious about your business but is the basis for your branding. You can either use a professionally designed logo from those eBay offer, pay for someone to design you one, or use a program like http://www.aaa-logo.com. I started with an eBay logo but I soon decided I wanted one to reflect my company brand and had one designed for me
Once you have your logo choose shop colours to complement it, and then create your auction template, About Me page etc to match your shop colours. Don't forget that you can still use an eBay Shop Themes and customise the colours to match your logo, you don't have to know any HTML to do this.
If you look at my eBay shop you will see that my colour scheme carries across every shop page, my auctions, my About me page and email marketing. You may not like the colour scheme but it is chosen purposefully to be different. It isn't a "pretty" colour scheme and I wouldn't use it if I was selling jewellery for example. Take a look at Andrea's shop and you'll see hers is a very striking colour scheme. The colours, logos and symbols reflect what she sells. We both chose to make our shops unique and individual and by opening an eBay shop you can create your own Brand too!
Your Brand lets customers know they are still looking at your auctions, tells returning eBayers that they have found you again, and reminds them of the great buying experience they had last time they purchased.
To recap opening a shop gives you an ideal opportunity to establish your own Brand and constantly remind buyers who they're trading with.
soundpluslimited I would like to know more details on how to brand the shop such as logos snd how to drive more traffic to my listings. I hope that starts to answer some of your questions - we'll look at driving traffic shortly
Swat090346 I have a shop but it is very basic because I have no idea how to do things such as making and transferring a logo to my shop. Is there a step by step guide? I have no fancy programs on my computer only the normal ones which came with it ie paint word notebook etc can I use these to make a logo or do I have to get some other program to do it. You can create a basic logo with the programs on your computer, but programs like aaa-logo make it really easy. Once you have a logo again see http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/stores/contextual/store-graphic.html for instructions on how to add it to your shop.
Chris would be better to answer that one, Ali, but from what I am aware, your newletter will still go to all your subscribers regardless of how many times you change your shop name. But I do think that anyone that has your shop saved under their favourites, or have bookmarked you will need to rebookmark/add you again under your new name.
glosticks/ Froogle - We are struggling to get our items to appear in froogle, the feed is available from our ebay shop, but none of our ebay items appear on froogle, Is their something else we have to do ? I thought once the feed was set up it should have been an automated process. Shop Design - We are thinking of having our ebay shop redesinged professionally, moving away from the look and feel of a normal ebay shop. Do you think this would be a benefit or do most ebayers prefer the standard layout. We noticed that andrea (Iron*Lion*Zion) has had her shop templated, Have you noticed an increase in sales since the redesign I believe there have been some changes between Froogle and eBay recently, I'm not up to speed on this topic, so will have to leave it for a pink, or a later workshop I'm very much a believer in keeping customised shops as close to the eBay layout as possible Andreas is basically customised eBay layout with a custom landing page. I've seen some shops with totally different layouts and no eBay style categories. Unfamiliarity is probaly not a good thing for a customer buying experience so make sure your designer works to your specifications.
#54 Andrea, I can answer that one. I changed my name about six months after I started selling full time, and my sales increased. I think the better branding was far more important than the changed name. I had lots of auctions saying "look at my new shop name", email marketing covered it too, and I had no problems whatsoever. If you handle it right, neither will you, Ali
In Chris's abscence ( and I do feel for you right now M8 )
I can help with one thing that has been asked, will changing the shop name make any difference to sales?
Last year a Lot of us had ID changes thrust upon us, and no it didnt cause us to lose sales, if you hover your mouse over the shops logo, you will see there is a number at the end of the URL, that is your shop ID number, and no matter how many times you change name, as long as you always reference that number when pointing to your shop in url's, you will always be found.
2) SIF SIF stands for SHOP INVENTORY FORMAT. This is a special type of listing which you can only use if you have an eBay shop. We are going to look at how SIF can help you sell more
SIF like eBay auctions and eBay Buy It Now (BIN) will appear in your eBay shop. They will also appear in search and browse results, but they will appear at the end after all matching auction and BIN results. SIF costs much less than an Auction or BIN to list (only 3p) but you will pay a slightly higher Final Value Fee (6.75% of the initial £29.99, plus 3.75% of the initial £30.00 - £599.99, plus 1.75% of the remaining closing value balance.) SIF listings run for a minimum of 30 days or can run for longer periods including Good Til Cancelled (GTC) which means they run until you stop them. It's worth noting that if you use listing upgrade features like Gallery a 90 day listing works out more cost effective than GTC as the upgrade fee is only charged once, with GTC the fees are charged every 30 days.
One of the most powerful ways you can use SIF is to run a normal 10 day auction maybe with a 99p start price and no reserve but with a big link saying "Buy this item now in my eBay shop". You can create a link to your shop where the SIF listing is available and if it is priced correctly you can sell many items to people that don't want to wait for the auction to finish. I use this method all the time to sell multiple quantities incurring very low listing fees. Even with the slightly higher Final Value Fees incurred by SIF you save money, except on high priced items. So, do your sums!
Because SIF listings can run for long time periods you can also link directly to them because they keep the same item number. If you had a link to a BIN it would only run for up to 10 days and then you would have to edit your listings. If you link to a SIF you could leave it running forever if you had enough stock. Personally I prefer to link to a Shop Category where the SIF is listed. We'll look at Categories in the next section.
Another great feature of SIF listings is when you are selling rare items. If Search or Browse don't have any (or many) results then your SIF listing will be near the top of the results. A rare item may not sell on a 10 day BIN if not many people are looking for it. At the same time search engines like Google catalogue eBay listings, the longer a listing runs the more chance search engines will find it and direct people to your items. This is a great way of getting new customers so on a SIF listing it's important to have the right Keywords and Part Numbers.
If you have more than one of an item always have one on an auction and list the remaining quantity as a SIF listing. When the auction finishes start another, and reduce the SIF quantity by one unit. If you buy more stock increase the SIF quantity by the amount of new stock you have. Unless you run out of stock you should always have SIF listings to point buyers to from your auctions! Don't forget sometimes a buyer will want more than one of the same item and with SIF you can let them buy as many as you have in stock!
We've seen how SIF listings can save you money on eBay fees, sell more product by links to them from auctions, and find you buyers from search engines.
Terry6082 I've just set up a shop to sell books and I'm trying out different types of listing. Do you have a view on whether shops are best to list 'sale' items or 'harder to sell' stock or if it's better to list premium items at a high price and wait for customers willing to buy at that price? Terry that's a tricky one that you'll find out best with trial and error. I don't know the books categories, but in computing I list the rare high value items as SIF. I might have to wait several months for a buyer to come along but when they need the item they'll pay a premium. Also someone searching for a rare item probably won't find them in normal listings so the SIF item will be at the top of search and browse results anyway!
Myforumforidposting Just wondered what people thought of the changes to shop searches now they show at the end of listings. Did it help initially, was there an increase in sales, how are things now? Just wondered what your experiences were given that many people are now complaining, the higher price of shop fvf's and that the USA is going back to the old system. Just thought - I could add a question about what ratio auctions or buy it nows to shop listings that you've discovered works best for you.
People have had varying experiences, but the main change appears to be an increase in sales from SIF items. I tend not to worry about what the USA do or compare to the old system (I wasn't in favour of the change as it happens). However I will work within any given framework to maximise sales and minimise fees. The new systems is better (fee-wise) for low cost items, no change in fees for sales around £80-£100, and for high value items (£100s) you're better off listing as a Buy It Now as the £3 is more than offset by lower FVF than a SIF. The ratio of normal listings to SIF isn't something I worry about - I tend to have one of each item on an auction with the remainder as SIF for instant sales. However if you experiment you'll find that too few normal items and people won't find your shop, too many and SIF sales will drop. Try to have items ending every day as then you'll always have some items at the top of Search and Browse results to drive traffic to your shop!
Ascon99 Any chance of some statistics - e.g. comparison of broad sell-through rates for auctions, BINS and Shop inventory; or best categories for shop items (in terms of sales success rate; etc ?
This varies so much between categories that only experimenting with your listings will give you the answer. It also depends how well you drive traffic to your SIF items from your auctions.
hcthornton I've noticed that most power sellers seem to be using the "fixed price" format in addition to store listings for their items. Now that store listing show in searches, albeit at the bottom, is it still worthwhile doing "fixed price" listings for every item that you have in your store, or is there a recommended ratio?
They still get higher exposure in search and browse results, and for higher value items (or a high number of sales of lower value items!) listing and final value fees can work out lower than SIF fees. With the higher exposure it can make good business sense even if the fees are slightly higher. Again for a recommended ratio you need to experiment.
Gazlannathai Can you prep something about "Signposting" - a lot of discussion has been surfacing about it and how it's against eBay rools
Signpost listings (listings purely to point traffic to your other listings) are not allowed on eBay. What is allowed is cross promoting say accessories from clothes, batteries from cameras etc. You need to be careful that you don't break the keyword spamming policy, but a great way is to use the listing frame to show your shop categories at the lefthand side of your listings. There is nothing wrong with saying "This toy requires three AA batteries available from our eBay shop" with a link to the batteries. However a list of every type of battery you stock would probably be going too far.
blainee000 Some stats on BIN's, shop listing, auction listing would be great? Which do you prefer to use and what sort of mixture (percentage wise)? Also would be great to know what postage prices you use? Do you sell with a high postage cost to cut down on the FVF's or do you set a price at the actual P&P that it costs you? Which one do you feel works best?
I use a mixture with most items on auction and SIF/BIN. Choosing SIF or BIN will depend on fees and the exposure in search and browse that I'm looking for. We'll be covering Post and Packing in next weeks Workshop so be sure to make a date in your diary! High postage costs to cut FVFs breaks the Fee Circumvention policy for which could cause your account to be limited. We'll look at how to work out what to charge next week, but there are costs that need to be covered other than the cost of the stamp. It's worth experimenting with "Free" carriage as it does attract buyers. In reality of course it's just included in the item price!
#76 No it deters sales, if you search for Gucci handbags and find a load "like Gucci" you're likely to leave eBay and shop elsewhere. At the end of the day buyers get frustrated
Keyword spamming simply frustrates people who are looking for a specific item and find that they have to plough through an awful lot of NOT items to find the thing they are looking for.
To me, its important that ebay buyers have a good experience when shopping on ebay, not a frustrating one. They can get that out there in non cyber land!
3) Categories We're going to look at the basics of using shop categories and how you can make it easier for your customer to buy from you
Shop Categories allow you to display the items you have for sale in the same way when you go to the supermarket. Similar products are placed in the same aisle. Categories make it easy for you to guide your customers through your listings. Categories are all about making it easy for your customers to buy from you and showing them more products that they may like to buy!
Always rename the default shop categories. When you first start using them look at your current stock and decide which products go together. For instance if you sell clothes you may have mens, womens, boys, girls and babies clothes. If someone is buying ladies clothing by looking at the 'Womens' category they won't have to browse through the clothes they're not interested in.
When you list new items you can choose which of your shop categories the item is to be displayed in, similar to choosing which eBay category they'll appear in. Sometimes you may have items which suit more than one of your shop categories, and eBay allow you to list them in both with no increase in fees. This is great because if you list in two eBay categories you have to pay double - you don't with shop categories!
When you have a link in an auction such as "Buy this item now in our eBay shop" I always link to the shop category the item is in, not direct to the item. This means the buyer is presented with all the similar items I have for sale - they may find a more expensive (or cheaper) item, one with more features, or they may find two items they like and buy them both!
We'll will look at shop categories in more detail in a later workshop but start using them as soon as you open your shop. If you show your buyers more items similar to the first they looked at there is a good chance they will make multiple purchases!
The great thing about having an eBay shop is that you can choose and experiment with how you organise your items to get the best results. You can't do this with the 'View Sellers Other Items' link as eBay set the defaults for this. By opening a shop you can not only use your own categories to help buyers find the product they want, but also present similar products to the customer – tempting them to make multiple purchases. 'View Sellers Other Items' is the standard eBay look and feel, whereas when searching your shop they are constantly having your unique brand embossed and embedded in their minds which will help them remember you later, at Christmas for instance!
Shop Categories make it easier to direct customers to your products - give categories meaningful names and use them to drive customers to the product they're interested in.
Hi everyone. I am looking into setting up an ebay shop and would be grateful for any pointers as what are the best products to sell on ebay. Also I am having great difficulty find wholesalers. Initially I am looking for small cash outlay for stock as I am using my salary to start of for buying stock.
Josordoni What are your views on multiple shop categories? I have split mine down quite tightly, and now I am wondering if I have just made a rod for my own back. I am contemplating moving all my categories to level one only, so that they can be more clearly seen, and to keeping the number lower so that the chances of most if not all of the categories appearing on the left hand menu list is higher. I would appreciate some other viewpoints.
We'll cover this in more detail in the next shops workshop in three weeks time. Briefly though don't have categories with only a couple of items in - people like to browse. Equally it's hard for a buyer if you have a category with 100s of items in. Don't forget you can choose whether to display just level 1 categories, level 1 and level 2 or all three levels. In my shop as default I shop level 1 and 2. One tip is if you are using the listing frame in auctions only the first 30 categories/subcategories show, so organise them so your best sellers are at the top! On mine things like cables are towards the bottom as they're lower value accessories!
83 The best products to sell are things you like and are interested in and of course that you know something about. It's hard to find good suppliers... but once you find one that's good because it'll be hard for others to find them as well!
It totally depends on what you are selling, what you want for your item and many other variables. All I can suggest is that you experiment as much as possible until you find what is best for your particular offerings.
I tend to use my shop for Buy it Nows and Auction format for regular listings.
I also add Buy it NOw options to SOME of my regular auctions. But that is me!
Hm. You are probably right with that. In this case I have simply used the manufacturers description of the item. But I guess I will need to rethink as I certainly do not want to frustrate ebayers.
your images etc, give a really professional edge/ finish. have you found that spending the extra for the professional touch has made a difference to sales?
When you open a shop you can choose how your customers see your items. This gives you control of the best way to display them, and you can decide what's best based on the type of customer you are looking to attract.
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