eBay Sellers - Tips & Chat

[Elton]

Sean,

 

I've said it before, I love looking at your listings

 

We must have a chat some time - I'm only down the road from you and am looking to get out of 'current production' giftware and into something more interesting.

[Severn Wolf]

Saturday and Sunday auctions do seem to be less productive than ones in the week but I still list them just to be strong in the category, when you`re number one you get the lions share of the market. Leave any holes and someone will try to plug them.

 

One of the main things that improved my sales was to start using an auction management sytem. I chose Marketworks. Ok, they take a 2% cut but the advantages are that you don`t have to mess around every 21 days relisting through Turbo Lister. If you`ve got say 100 of an item then you can programme it to start every day or once a week or whatever you fancy and it will keep launching until the inventory is depleted. Theres acution templates that are customisable to give auctions your own look and feel but the number one for me is that you don`t pay any extra for multiple photos. I normally use six shots per auction and go up to eight if I feel the need. eBay would murder you for listing fees if this was done through TL but I get a better looking product and as such get fewer questions for seller as all the relevant information is there to begin with.

 

I`d say 50% of my business goes out of the country, the US and Canada being two strong markets but Europe and Australia are starting to grow slowly.

 

Price wise its a tough call. 1p N/R auctions always seem appealing as a seller but in time they do backfire on you, especially if you`ve got a few of the item and they appear every week on the site. Folks get used to it and sneak last minute bids in. I`m changing all my auctions over to minimum opening bid and a BIN price, too many folks are aware of sniper programmes these days.

 

Summer, I know folks who`ve used Spoonfeeder but changed within a few months. I`ve never looked into their hosting policies so can`t comment on what they`re like.

 

Getting stale is the one biggest fault of a lot of eBay sellers, comfort zone. You constantly need to change the look of items or chuck them in different categories. Every now and again I`ll have a stock clearout and list all the items in one afternoon, they finish ten minutes apart all day. This works really well.

 

Watch your competitors, undercut them, offer better postage deals, point them to your good feedback, tell them the deal they are getting (impulse buying increases a lot that way)

 

Anyway, before I divulge three years worth of eBaying secrets I`ll leave it at that!!!

[n4lly]

Hold you to that Elton, maybe at your boat launch?

 

Cross promote, the cookie cutters as an example

the empty crisp packets as well, they always sell

and draw in viewers to your main auctions.

If star wars is coming on the telly, then put your burger king star wars toy on ebay

 

Oh and Wolf divulge, divulge

[Elton]

Wolf,

 

What's your eBay ID?

 

I find auctions help to drag people to your standard shop listing, too. The eBay shops seem good value - a monthly fee, plus 5p per listing.

[Elton]

My biggest pain in the backside with eBay is the paperwork.

 

Being VAT registered, I manually prepare a VAT invoice for every sale.

 

Anyone got a quicker way?

[Severn Wolf]

PM on the way Elton, don`t want to bung my user ID up in public!!!!

[Severn Wolf]

I`ve not done much through shop only listings. Got a load of Buy It Now listed in the shop and a note on every auction stating that the goods are available in the shop but conversion rate is low. Nice and cheap though!!!!!!

 

They`re being pulled in the next couple of days as I`ve a new plan coming into place!

 

Oh, sorry if I go quiet for a couple of days, got to get an 80 gig fitted and my mate wants two nights to do the job.

 

[ 06. July 2005, 05:50 PM: Message edited by: Severn Wolf ]

[Elton]

Skippy,

 

I'll have to look into that.

 

Problem I had before was that it didn't show the VAT on the delivery charge.

 

Would be handy if I could do it all in one place.

[Elton]

n4lly:

Hold you to that Elton, maybe at your boat launch?      

I'd steer well clear the day I launch it, in case it all goes belly-up

[Elton]

skippy:

Change delivery charge / postage and packaging to just postage and there's no VAT to be paid.

 

I can e-mail you one of the ones I've saved to show you what I mean if you want?

I got caught out once before by this by a VAT inspection with my old employers. If you post goods, you have to charge postage on the delivery charge.

 

No joking - if you could find me an accountant who can legally get around this, I would have be very grateful. I have thousands of pounds that I could claim back.

 

All the best,

 

Elton