Why will I not compile an e-book on eBay?

I think it's a great idea to have all the course lessons converted into articles and then arrange them in logical sequences as any would have. More over it remains pretty handy as you need not have to navigate back and forth over the net although, within my own site. Best of all, you don't even need to get on line to browse the pages; you can very well do so off line too.

So, I hope to do it some time later, that is, when time permits me. I had not resolved against publishing a book on eBay.

How Do I Research the Keywords?

When you are listing or categorizing the Store, it is essential that you use keywords for easy access to the item you are looking for. A keyword is any significant word in the description of an article. Make a Keyword List first for most articles, finding the appropriate keyword is simple; for example, if you are listing WORLD MAPS, the keyword is MAPS and not WORLD. Anyone looking for a world map would only look under the category MAPS and the sub-category will include all types of maps, like maps of different continents, road-maps, etc., which in turn will have links to level-3 sub-categories more specific in nature. But when you are listing a DIGITAL SLR CAMERA, it is different. Someone may look for a DIGITAL camera; some others may look for an SLR camera. The common factor here is PHOTOGRAPHY.

Therefore the appropriate category would be PHOTOGRAPHY, under which the sub-category would be CAMERAS and the level-3 sub-category will be DIGITAL and the level-4 category would be SLR and so on. The important thing to look for in such cases is the main Header under which the item can be categorized. ‘Postage-stamps’ for instance, falls under PHILATELY; knives and forks under CUTLERY. Use Keyword Research Tools. Now that you are equipped with a list of keywords that are relevant to your business or goods, set out to researching their popularity and effectiveness. Keyword popularity means the number of times a particular keyword is used by all the webpages on the net. This is easy when you use Google’s suggest tool. As you type a keyword into its box, it tells the number of pages that contains your word. Keyword effectiveness is a number obtained by dividing the number of times it is searched in a day by its popularity. For example, if MAPS is searched 2415 times in a day and it is found in 1,000,000 pages, the effectiveness index (KEI) for MAPS is 0.0024 or 0.24%. Keywords having KEI of 40% or more will be highly effective. Another short cut to keyword research is using the desktop tools like good keywords by Overture or WebCEO. WebCEO has some fantastic features to optimize your pages which you can use decisively.

How Can I Keyword Optimize My eBay Store

With millions of entries in the eBay store, it is necessary to use appropriate keywords to manage the store. A keyword is nothing but a significant word in the title or description of an item. Therefore, keywords used in the listing needs to be directly relevant to the items being sold.

There are different methods to attract customers to your store, including links to specific store-inventory listings, links to customized store, and links to the final landing page.

One of the most successful marketing strategies for eBay sellers is to market their Stores within their listing descriptions. It can be most powerful strategy to have adopted in an effective and professional way. The Listing Frame also helps you to merchandise the whole range of items you carry and reinforces your Store's brand power.

Understanding the Basics of eBay Listings

You can create up to 300 Store categories. Sum of your categories is counted by the sum of all your level 1, level 2, and level 3 entries. For example, you can either go for 300 level 1 categories or divide them into 30 level 1 categories with 10 subcategories thereof. You will want to note that eBay creates a default level 1 category named as "Other Items" that cannot be edited and does count towards the 300 category limit. So now, how do you optimize the entries for keyword searches?

For one, you need not be under the impression that eBay items are only searchable within there. So decide on your primary keyword first. For example, if the list includes a NIKON DIGITAL SLR Camera, the keyword for the category would be CAMERAS, and the Level-1 sub-category would be DIGITAL SLR and the Level-2 sub-category listed as NIKON. In such a listing, the sub-categories may include other types and makes of cameras also. On the same lines, supposing that you are listing fashion garments and dresses for children, the keyword would be dresses with appropriate sub-categories.

So, going by the rule of thumb, effective optimization would call for primary keyword, if available, the 2^nd too, to be included in the title. You keyword must appear 3-5 times in the description but concentrated towards first and last paragraphs. It might take time but not impossible to master the art.

How to Grow Your Feedback Rating

Growing your business on eBay is well complemented by your positive feedback ratings. In a way, you can say growing the eBay feedbacks is synonymous with growing your business. If you are new to business and eBay, its all enthusiasm but your lack of experience may show quickly as less-than-acceptable feedback a few couple of times. But then, there is no magic formula to get positive feedbacks overnight.

Over a period of time you will accept a few negative feedbacks accumulated as part of the game as feedbacks are subjective. Also it is the overall percentage of feedback ratings that count more than absolute ratings.

How to Grow Your Feedback Ratings

Understanding the psyche of people is the key to success in business. However, one critical point of importance is, people are born with different satisfaction levels. Thus an identical service may draw flak from some people. Let’s examine some reasons why people get dissatisfied.

1. Delay: different buyers have varying patience level. Some may get upset in a day while others may wait for a week. Still others may be pretending to be in a hurry. However, delay beyond a week is inexcusable unless you communicate to the buyer.

2. Bad packing for ill anticipated damages or as a cost saving measure could land you in trouble in case of eventual breakages. Practically, there is no need for you to be lenient about packing as you are within rights to charge for it.

3. ‘Item not as described’ could arise due to omissions and/or errors in item description. Buyer could retaliate by assuming that he is cheated. You can avoid this by simple promises included within the product description like: ‘inadvertent errors/omissions will be made good or money back’. This will mellow down the buyer to an extent.

4. Trying to make money by overcharging for packing and shipping will upset any normal thinking person attracting his/her wrath.

5. Anticipating retaliation for silly reasons can be effectively avoided by including some kind of statements such as ‘email us at xxxxx in case of problem for immediate reply; please see our refund policy.’

Some of these are anticipatory measures. Adopting them as a policy for everyday routine reduces incidences that ask for negative feed backs.

How different is eBay Business from Brick & Mortar Business

For first timers hearing about eBay business, it may appear all too complicated. Don’t be surprised if they thought that it was something beyond their comprehension. Occasionally you may find a few people growing apprehensive about it. All these are not because the online business isn’t worthwhile giving a thought to as most of them are brick & mortar businessmen who have grown their businesses the hard way so trying to convince them that eBay can do magic will invariably fall on the deaf ears.

eBay business is different from your offline business in the way it is marketed and to a certain extent in inventory management too while the fundamentals remain the rock hard same. Let’s understand these nuances in detail.

Setting up eBay shop is a procedure which closely follows or mocks the actual setting up off of your shop in a mall. You will name your shop, which in computer parlance is called as eBay ID; display of merchandise will be in pictures and text details to describe product and quality aspects. This is analogical to your verbal explanations.

Now assume that yours is a bid-sale paradigm of business. eBay provides for setting up the bid exactly the way anyone would have done offline. You set a reserve price, set a base amount to begin the bid. You can choose to stop bidding if someone prefers to buy at preset price. This, from your perspective, means you are controlling your eBay business the normal way with internet not being a diversion or constraint. What follows next is shipping the item to the winning bidder.

How and why will buyers come to your shop? To understand this, let’s go back to basics. You will market the shop; market the exclusive items; and be honest with photographs and descriptions of selling items; convince about your fair shipping policies and ask for feedbacks from customers to proudly display them on your storefront. The latter 2 things help to enhance your online reputation while marketing differs somewhat in keyword optimization which is specific to internet marketing. Multiple payment option is a definite plus.

This is as much different as it can get. As regards to similarity, all the hard work you can put-in ranks from 1-10.

Marketing Your eBay Store

Marketing is an art. It’s a science. It will help if you remember that you do not sell a product; you only sell the concept. In other words, a good salesman does not sell anything! He only makes people buy his goods. The difference is subtle.

Marketing your eBay store is not any different. First of all, you need to attract customers to your store. This is known as “driving traffic”.

The Name of your Store and the URL to link to the relevant page needs to be done cautiously. The store name tells the buyers exactly what you are offering and the website address depends on the name you choose. Therefore choosing a name that tells people what you are offering for sale is preferable to some fancy name.

Once this is done, you need to describe your store. You need to tell people how long you have been in this business, your specialty and expertise in the field. It’s natural for buyers to get interested in your store if the description is impressive.

You need to ensure that your store appears in the popular search-engines such as Yahoo! or Google. Typically, a buyer will search for a certain product which s/he intends to buy, and not the store where it may be available. You need to make sure the products you list are accessible through search engines.

Next is your listing strategy. You can list your stores in three different formats – (1) Auction Style, (2) Fixed Price, and (3) Store inventory. All these formats appear in your store and you can use the different forms provided by eBay to create these lists. It is found that listing in all formats drives more traffic to your stores.

However, for fast-moving-items or “commodity-stores” the Fixed Price listing is suggested, and for the slow-moving or rare items, the Auction Style helps.

In addition, eBay encourages you to create “Custom Pages” which will detail shipping and the warranty in addition to the history of your store. You can create promotional flyers or banners which you can distribute. You can use “e-mail marketing” to attract customers to your store. Last but not least, you can create your own domain or website address through a third party vendor.

So You Have Decided To Build a Business On eBay!

So you have decided to build a business on eBay! It is no surprise looking at the number of sellers overboard there and the vast reach and potential that eBay actually provides instantaneously.

eBay Is No Passport To Instant Success

There could be individual reasons for everyone to get onboard eBay. More than half of them, perhaps including you, already are doing a reasonably brisk business offline and want to extend it online now. They have put their offline business on what I call as auto pilot and have streamlined most as the aspects of routine matter. So they are here as their new found time now is craving to be utilized.

The other half, well, may be less than that, is the aspirant lot which has online dollars written all over their dreams. They are knowledgeable, zealous and inspired by other peoples success. If you took the age and demographic profile of this lot of wannabe eBay super merchants, it invariably tells you that they are mostly urbane and young.

A Bit of Reality Pill

Did you know that it is of highest importance that we know whether and how eBay accommodates all? The virtual mall, which it is, already has millions of sellers and no guaranteed buyers, isn’t it going to be an electronic emulation of an offline mall where everybody is unto himself? True, eBay is a non crowding mall where you can sell or buy anything at will.

So how different is eBay’s value addition to my business? How can I become an eBay seller or how can I market my merchandise online without having to talk to the customers? Are there formulae for guaranteed success on eBay which I can use to my business? How can I leverage my offline trading experience to online eBay marketing or selling success? What are the payment issues? Will eBay arbitrate disputes? What are the expenses that I can expect to incur and how can I factor the profit & loss into my return filing?

Well, these are the fundamental questions that beckon factual answers on behalf of eBay wannabes as much as those who have setup shop just now.

Careful but flexible planning and strides are what it takes to success online or off line.