How to Track and Test the Success of Your eBay Business

When running a newly established business on eBay, one of the worst things you can do is to simply let it run its course without tracking your results or testing any of the elements of your item listings.  Without tracking and testing, there is no way to know how you can improve your business, nor if your results are up to par.

Many people overlook this responsibility because it can be so time consuming and complicated.  But I have developed ten easy tests that you can complete as time allows so that you can effectively gauge the results of your business.

Test #1:  Make a different offer.

Your offer can be defined as the overall package that you are trying to sell.  You have one main product, and possibly a few other free or incentive items, that you have detailed in your product description.  Make a different offer to your customers by packaging your item along with different bonus items or highlighting alternative benefits of your main product.

With this test, you can measure: The final sales price, the visitor-to-bid conversion rate, and your average selling price.

Test #2:  Change your auction title.

Your auction title is the first chance you have to grab your customers’ attention and convince them to view your products.  Because of this, your auction title is one of the greatest determiners of how well your business will do.  Take your time when creating your auction titles, as this is an effective means to bring in higher sales.

With this test, you can measure: Your total number of visitors.

Test #3:  Add subtitles to your auction title.

Subtitles are not a commonly used element in most eBay auctions.  Don’t worry about including keywords.  The only goal of your subtitle is to further compel your viewers to select your product.

With this test, you can measure: Your total number of visitors.

Test #4:  Upgrade your listing with bold and highlighted text or a border.

To test your upgrades, post one listing with the upgrades and another listing without the upgrades at the same time.  After seeing the results of both listings, you should be able to make an easy decision as to whether or not you will use upgrades.

With this test, you can measure: Your total number of visitors.

Test #5:  Save time by adding a Gallery image.

Testing your Gallery image isn’t even a necessity;  it has already been proven that Gallery images add to the success of auction listings.  However, Gallery images do come at a price of 35 cents per photo.  So, if you are planning to purchase thousands of Gallery images for your thousands of products, you may need to do a little testing here to save yourself some money.

With this test, you can measure: Your total number of visitors.

Test #6:  Rewrite your product description.

There are so many ways that you can make your product description even more effective.  You can add testimonials from satisfied customers, strategically place photos throughout the text, or write more compelling sales copy with emotional language.

With this test, you can measure: The final sales price, the visitor-to-bid conversion rate, and your average selling price.

Test #7:  Modify your pricing methods.

Finding the right price for your products on eBay can be one of the most complex steps in creating your auction listing.  You can choose to list your price as a low starting bid, a high starting bid, or as a Buy It Now product.  To find out which option is the most successful, you will have to run several tests.

With this test, you can measure: Your total number of visitors and the visitor-to-bid conversion rate.

Test #8:  Experiment with the number of photos you provide.

Photos will always have a major impact on the number of users who bid on your auctions, as well as the final selling price of your products, and varying the quantity of photos per listing can have a significant effect on the success of your auctions.

With this test, you can measure: The visitor-to-bid conversion rate.

Test #9:  Set different durations for your auctions at different times.

Your auction can be posted for one, three, five, seven, or ten days at a time, and choosing a different length can actually have a major effect on the success of your auction.  To find the perfect duration for your auction, test the same product out at each different interval.

With this test, you can measure: The final sales price, the visitor-to-bid conversion rate, and your average selling price.

Test #10:  Redesign your product description.

While the content of your product description is one of the most important aspects of your listing, the design of your description can also have an impact on your sales.  Explore different design ideas, such as changing your font, colors, or the layout of your page.

With this test, you can measure: The final sales price and the visitor-to-bid conversion rate.

Now, all you have to do to effectively track and test your business’ results is to run one of these tests each week, and you will eventually come to know your business inside and out.  By making yourself aware of the success of every aspect of your business by tracking and testing, you are ensuring that you have the knowledge you need to actively improve your business every day.

Using eBays Special Features

When attempting to establish a loyal customer base on eBay, sometimes the process of getting customers to notice your listings in the first place is the hardest battle.  Because of this, eBay offers its users quite a bit in the way of promotional features that will help you put your listings at the front and center for all of eBay to see.

However, these features do come at an added cost most of the time, so you’ll want to be sure to use them wisely.  The trick is to keep your expenses at less than 10% of your total profit margin, which I’ll help you to calculate as I take you through each of eBay’s extra features that I use to draw high volumes of traffic to my own listings.

1.  Subtitles

The subtitles feature is exactly what it sounds like:  you’ll get to add a subtitle to your listing that will appear directly underneath your main title in the listing results viewed by most users.

Subtitles cost 50 cents per use, and can be well worth their added cost since they let you deliver extra information about your product to your prospective customers right away.  You’ll get an additional 65 characters to spotlight the benefits of your product or a special discount price, and help it stand out above the crowd.

Because you will be spending an additional 50 cents on each listing with this feature, you should only plan to utilize subtitles with listings that will provide you with over $5.00 in profits.  Anything less than this will cause you to spend over 10% of your profit margin on your advertising features, which is not savvy for your eBay business.

2.  Bold Text

Using the bold text feature will cost you $1.00 per listing, but will allow your listing’s title to appear in bold and stand out from the rest in the search results.  This feature is almost guaranteed to get your listing more views, as marketing experts have proven that emboldening your text can up your chances of getting noticed by more than 20%.

However, be sure to keep your costs lower than 10% of your profit margin—which means that you should only use bold text on listings that will provide you with $15 or more in return profits.

3.  Highlighted Text

Highlighting your text works much in the same way as the bold text feature, as it allows your listings to stand out from the rest of the results.  However, in my opinion, it is not nearly as effective, as it sometimes makes your titles and subtitles a bit harder to read.

This is especially true if you are using the highlight feature alone, without the use of bold text.  But because the highlighted text feature costs $5.00 per listing, it will cost $6.00 to use it most effectively in combination with the bold feature.

This can get a bit pricy, especially when you’re selling low-cost items, so I recommend that you only use this feature on items that will return at least $50.00 in profits to you, as well as have a high volume of competition in their markets.

4.  Featured Plus Listings

If you search for a particular item on eBay, the first listings that will be returned to you are those that are “featured” listings.  By using the Featured Plus feature, you are ensuring that your products reach your target audience first and foremost.

It’s a proven fact that eBay buyers are only likely to browse the first three pages or so of listings before they make their buying decisions or give up altogether.  You simply cannot take the risk of falling on any other page than the first three, and utilizing Featured Plus can help you avoid that catastrophe with every listing.  However, this feature costs anywhere from $9.95 to $24.95, so you’ll want to be sure that your profit margin (typically $100 or more) more than allows for this added cost.

5.  Homepage Featured Listings

This is, by far, the most costly of all of eBay’s additional features, as it costs $39.95 to utilize with a single listing, or $79.95 with several listings.  However, the Homepage Featured tool is also the most successful feature, as it places your listings on eBay’s homepage, ensuring that your listing will jump out and grab the attention of your target customers before they even have a chance to browse the competition.

The only drawback to this is that your listing will only appear on eBay’s homepage sporadically, as all of the Homepage Featured listings are on a random rotation.  Because of this, it’s best to use this feature for multiple listings at the price of $79.95, and the profit margins for these listings should be able to make up the cost of this feature after two or three sales in order to ensure that business does not falter at the cost of this investment.

So, before you rush out to employ all of eBay’s extra features on the same listing, take a good, long look at your potential profit margin and be sure that you are making the most cost-effective decision for your business.  By doing this, you will ensure that you are drawing the added attention to your listings at a price that won’t damage your business.

Use eBay’s “Want It Now” to Figure Out What Customers Want

I promised you more ways to figure out what’s selling well on eBay right now, and here you go…

Another great way to pick hot items to list on eBay that a lot of sellers don’t even know about is to use eBay’s “Want It Now” feature.  You can find it at http://pages.ebay.com/wantitnow/.  The “Want It Now” feature is like a classified section of eBay where users place ads for items they want to buy.  Sellers can then respond to these ads with pictures of their items.

To use “Want It Now,” visit the link I included above and scan the ads.  To look through the classified ads, you can either enter your keywords into the search box, select a category, and then look through the results, OR you can simply browse through the “Want It Now” categories.  You can then respond to individual ads by posting a response to the buyers ad or creating an auction listing offering the desired item for sale.

As a buyer, this is advantageous because you can save time on searching for exactly what you want. For sellers (you!), it’s a great way to see what items buyers are looking for. “Want It Now” can open up numerous doors for you to offer what you know people are looking for and to connect with buyers who are looking for exactly what you are selling.

Normally, people post in the “Want It Now” section when they haven’t been able to find the item anywhere on eBay. Looking through the ads can give you the chance to unload any item you have lying around your house, or find your niche-filling needs that aren’t being met.

“Want It Now” can also be a golden opportunity to do some market research. Say you get the chance to buy some wholesale items but you don’t know if there is any demand for the products. A quick search through the classifieds can tell you if there is a demand for those items and whether it bears further investigation with other research tools.

More Tips for Deciding What to Sell on eBay

In my last post I talked about a few ways to figure out what’s selling well on eBay right now, such as using eBay Pulse and checking the category listings.  Today I want to talk about searching the completed auctions to look at auction information.  Sometimes it can be even more helpful to look at what has already sold on eBay than it can be to look at what’s selling now.  Looking at completed auctions can be an invaluable resource to you as a seller.

In order to look at completed listings, click on “Advanced Search” on the eBay toolbar.  Enter the keywords of the kind of item you are interested in and select the category.  Then click the box marked “Completed Listings.”  Hit the “Search” button, and you will be given your results.

The information you get back is valuable for a number of reasons.  For one thing, you can sort the results according to the final selling price of the items, which will give you an idea of what items are selling for a lot of money and what you can price your items at.

Each listing will also show you how many bids were place for that item.  This will give you a good idea of which items people are more interested in.  If there were a lot of bids for a certain product, then you know that it’s probably a good item to list.

In addition, you can also see which days the most successful items ended on.  It’s very important that you pick the right length of time to run your auction for, as well as the right ending day.

Besides all of that, you can also look at how people listed their items.  If an item sold well, you can look at the listing to see what kind of auction it was (for example, was it a standard auction or did it have a “Buy It Now” feature?).  You can also see if the lister used any special features, how many pictures they used, and what kind of shipping details they included.  On the flip side, you can also look at auctions that performed poorly to see what kinds of features didn’t work, so that you don’t use those in your own listing.

As you can see, looking at completed auctions can be a great way to help you figure out what kinds of items to list on eBay.  In my next post, I’ll share more strategies for deciding what kinds of products to list.

Tips for Deciding What to Sell on eBay

Of course, one of the most important decisions you can make for your eBay business is what kinds of products to list.  I’ve decided to devote the next couple blog posts to this very topic, so let’s get started.

One strategy I use to determine what’s selling well on eBay at the moment is to use eBay Pulse, which you can find at http://pulse.ebay.com/.  This has a monthly listing of the most popular searches, the largest eBay Stores, the most-watched items, and so on.  It’s a great way to see what’s hot on eBay right now – what’s selling the most, what people are spending the most money on, etc.  This can help you decide what to sell and what not to sell, because it will show you what’s already selling successfully. eBay Pulse is also a good way to find out what the marketplace is lacking, which could represent a good opportunity for you to cash in on.  Keep in mind though, that there could be a lot of competition for these items since they are selling so well, so that’s something you’ll want to take into account before you start listing.

Another way to get a good idea of what’s selling well at the moment is to visit http://listings.ebay.com/.  This page will show you how many items are listed in each of the varios categories on eBay, which is a good way to see what categories are the most popular.  You can then narrow down your search from broad categories to subcategories, which will give even more precise information.

By clicking on each category and continually narrowing down your search, you can see how many listings are in each category, what is in demand in each category, and what items are selling well in each category.  Once you’ve narrowed down far enough, you can click on an individual listing and find out how many bids it has received, the average bid price, and how the item description is worded.  All of this information will help you decide if this kind of item is one that is worth listing and whether or not you can compete (by writing a better listing, for example).

Stay tuned for my next post, where I’ll share more of my strategies with you for finding the best items to list on eBay!

Find Items to Sell at Gift Marts, Merchandise Marts, and Design Centers

When it comes to your eBay business, we all know how important it is to find a good source of items to sell.  Besides wholesalers and manufacturers, you can also find great deals at gift marts, merchandise marts, and design centers.  These are physical stores that sell products from many wholesalers of all different genres.  You can usually find them in bigger cities, and they’re just full of manufacturers’ representatives and wholesale distributors.

There are some differences between gift marts, merchandise marts, and design centers.  Gift marts carry products from all genres while merchandise marts are a bit more specialized.  Design centers focus on interior design merchandise, such as furniture and wall fixtures, and also other artistic products, such as crafts and unusual jewelry.

You need a membership card to shop at these stores, and to get one you need to prove that you are a legitimate business owner.  Sometimes, eBay business owners are refused membership, so you might consider naming your business something more general that doesn’t specifically refer to eBay.  You also need to present your Tax ID number to get your membership card.  It’s well worth it, though.

Shopping in these stores is like shopping at the mall.  Unlike at the mall, though, you don’t receive your purchases then and there.  You order what you want with the representative and then it will be shipped to you.

One advantage to these stores is that they usually publish a monthly catalog of products, so you can figure out what you want beforehand.  This will save you a lot of time when you go to place your orders.  Another great thing about these stores is that every gift mart and design center is reputable, otherwise they wouldn’t be allowed into the center.  Besides all that, because of the variety of products these kinds of stores offer, you can almost always find something inexpensive that fits in with the theme of your business.

Protect Yourself from Fraud, Part 2

Hi all you eBayers out there!  First I’d just like to point out that I’ve just released my second free how-to article.  It’s called How To Create a High-Quality Information Product to Sell on eBay, and you can get your copy by clicking on the “Press Release” tab of my blog.  The link to the article is contained in the press release announcing the debut of the new article.  I’ll also be posting the article on all the big how-to websites out there, so keep an eye out for it!  It’s full of good advice and tips about information marketing on eBay, which can be a very profitable market to get into.

Now that that’s out of the way, I’d like to continue the discussion I started earlier this week about preventing eBay fraud.  On Monday we talked about how to protect yourself from fraud as a seller.  Today I’d like to also talk to you a little about how to protect yourself as a buyer.  Of course, if you run your own eBay business you probably spend most of your time selling, but buying on eBay should still be a part of your business plan, since it can help you establish good feedback, learn the ins and outs of the eBay process, and get into the heads of your customers.

For one thing, be careful if you choose to buy from someone whose feedback rating is less than 100%. While certainly not everyone who has bad feedback is a scam artist, it should raise a red flag. Look at their “Feedback Profile” and see what the reasons for the bad feedback are. You can then make a judgment call.

Besides that, be on the lookout for fake auctions.  If an item’s price is abnormally low, it could be a sign that the item is not all it appears to be (it may be damaged or incomplete, for example).  In particular, look out for auctions that sound too good to be true. If you see a designer purse up for bid at a really low cost, don’t think that you just found the deal of a lifetime. Scam artists will use “phished” information to set up fake auctions offering fake items.

They set up one-day auctions to avoid getting caught and use very popular items to get many bids. Once the item sells, they disappear with the money. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  Also look out for autographed items that have not been authenticated. You’ll find many items on eBay that say they are autographed, but without a certificate of authentication or some other means of showing that it is a valid signature, it could easily be a fake.

You also need to watch out for “shill” bidding.  Shill bidding is when sellers have friends or family members bid on their items to drive the price up. Shill bidding is illegal on eBay, but from time to time, you may run across an instance where eBay has not yet caught them. Stay alert for retracted bids, especially from the highest bidder. Also beware of auctions by sellers with feedback from only one source.

The best way to safeguard against getting scammed on eBay is to avoid any auctions you feel uneasy about. Trust your instincts and you’ll have better luck.