The 2010 eBay Seller Success Paradigm

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If you haven't been buying selling on eBay the past several years, chances are you don't recognize it any more. What was once a vibrant and dynamic wild west auction service is now a place dominated by big sellers and fixed price listings. And the reinvention process continues.
To be a successful small seller in the "new" eBay, you really need to pay attention to both your reputation as a seller and where and how you sell on eBay.
Here are a few of my personal observations.
  1. You want to be top rated seller. There are many reasons for this. First, eBay gives you a 20% discount on your fees for being their highest rated seller. Second, they display a badge right on the top of all your listings to distinguish you from all the other sellers. And third, this will give you a boost in the buyer search results - which leads to more sales.
  2. If possible, you want to offer free standard shipping, This will give you a boost in the buyer search results. (You can offer other shipping methods and pricing but to get the boost, you must offer one free shipping method.) As an aside, many categories now have a maximum shipping charge for the standard shipping method. For instance, in the DVD category, this is $3.00.
  3. Good keywords in title - eBay buyers are using search more and more to find products. So it is critical that you include every useful buy word in your 55 character title that you can. This will expose you to more potential buyers.
  4. Category placement has become even more critical. Because of the recent change of moving all store listings into core listings, the number of core listings has exploded. This means that in some categories, you listings have a greater chance of being buried and never being seen - especially if you are not able to utilize all the search boosting methods available to you - free shipping, reputation, etc. So if you have a product that can be placed in multiple categories, it is a worthwhile exercise to test each category to see where you generate the most sales. We sell a lot of special interest DVDs and whenever possible, we place them in categories other than the DVD category as it gives us a higher number of sales - especially since DVDs was one of the hardest hit areas in the store to core change.
  5. Catalog matching - eBay is moving towards a catalog model in several categories - like books, CDs and DVDs. So if you have an item that is in eBay's catalog, it needs to be listed as that catalog item. This is the Amazon business model. If you have an item in that category that doesn't match a catalog entry, you can still list it. As this is still rolling out, its effects can't be evaluated at this time. But it is definitely shaping up to be a big change for both buyers and sellers. Pricing and reputation are going to be critical in making sales in this paradigm.
The bottom line is that eBay is a moving target. If you want to stay successful there, you need to be ready to invest the time to understand each of the published changes and adapt your business to the changes. And you also need to be aware that there are many unpublished tweaks going on all the time as they analyze their data and refine their rollouts. It can still be a great and profitable marketplace for you but it is becoming like the game of search engine optimization. The more vigilant sellers are the more successful ones.
#2010 #ebay #paradigm #seller #success
  • Profile picture of the author NewbiesDiary
    I left ebay land just after they changed the digital delivery and feedback rules a couple of years ago. I was making $2k + a week with my dd, but lost my business overnight when the rule change came in. They forced me to build my business in an way that I am in control of, not eBay and Paypal - real internet marketing with my very own website(s)... and I've never looked back!

    On saying that, the traffic generation benefits from eBay are massive - if used correctly.

    The way to look at eBay is as a traffic generator, not just a sales generator.
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    • Profile picture of the author schabotte
      eBay definitely killed lots of folks during the move away from digital product delivery... sort of funny when you consider Amazon loves digital delivery so much that they had Kindle built for them

      And yes, that is a very important point... eBay is a market, not a business.

      While you can build a very good income just off of eBay, a smart business looks for as many avenues to offer its products as possible.

      In our case, we use eBay, Amazon, several smaller product outlets like ioffer.com, our own website and a network of wholesale and drop ship customers.
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  • Profile picture of the author nyrsimon
    You know eBay is 'old' by Internet standards

    It is really no surprise that it has and will continue to evolve

    I love it when sellers complain and leave - it leaves more for the rest of us!!!!!!

    Simon
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