Confused about eBay Feedback? Take it Easy!

Feedback system on eBay is a great idea which makes it worth working for, from a seller’s point of view. Higher the feedback ratings greater the customers will be confident about dealing with you and vise versa.

So What Is A Feedback And How Does It Work?

Feedback is your online reputation. In eBay’s context, every time you make a sale, your trading partners will leave comments, either negative or neutral or positive and rate you. For a new customer checking your reputation, this stands as a confidence booster by speaking for your conductance through your dealings. Each eBay member will have an account of feedback ratings in numbers and comments.

The feedback system works in a simple manner. You get +1 point for a positive comment or nil for the neutral one while -1 for a negative comment. Now, once you earn +10 points you are given a yellow star feedback. In all there are 6 star feedbacks in different colors till your earned points reach 9,999. Then, from 10,000 points to 100,000 points there are 4 shooting star feedbacks.

How The Feedback System Does Benefit A Seller?

To know how it benefits you, the Seller, see how they are displayed in your store page. First, you have the star and/or (as the case may be) the total scores against your member ID. In the next level, you see the breakup of your scores into positive, neutral and negative in both absolute and percentage terms with the percentage of positive one being highlighted at the top.

What does it signify to a buyer? Well, we all know that feedbacks are no guarantee of a member’s true value but they are dependable indicators for sure. Say, you have a total score of 77,458 scores and 75,522 of them are positive (97.5%), would you think it will not have the buying member impacted, with almost certainty, in your favor?

There is another significant feature of eBay feedback system, that is, all feedbacks are permanent and can’t be removed (barring exclusions.) If you are positive, this will develop a history of positive feedbacks.

Dealing With Shipping Problems

The not so common but pretty irritating problems in online auctions, including eBay auctions, are the problems associated with shipping and handling. If these are not handled properly they would cause tangible loss to the buyers but potentially damaging intangible losses to you by way of negative feedbacks. In the following paragraphs let us take an overview of the commonly occurring shipping problems and ways to handle them.

Common Shipping Problems

The most common of the shipping problems are delays in delivery to the buyer. You will know that the parcel has not been received by the buyer when you receive a call, or more commonly, an email from her. If you are not a newbie to online eBay business you know what could have probably gone wrong. Reply to the mail assuring the buyer that you will investigate the matter and ask her whether it is the latest address that she had updated at eBay or PayPal. Check from your records the mailing address and documents like DC were attached properly to the parcel. Talk to the parcel carrier. If you had attached DC, you will most likely get the thing back.

If you had purchased insurance, take up the matter with the insuring company. But it is prudent to take care of fine prints at the time of purchasing the insurance than be sorry later.

Breakage complaints score next to delay or loss. Advise your customer, soon as you dispatch, to open the parcel in the presence of the delivery person so that they can both acknowledge the condition as received. It is hard to convince the insurance company otherwise. If you sell neon signs, take extra care to understand the fine print which specifically excludes neon signs among other glassware. I such cases either you refund to the customer or face a negative feedback. Not all insurance companies are alike but most eBay sellers complain against FedEx, so be careful next time.

Customer can seek redress with eBay. Study the eBay customer protection policy. eBay, under certain conditions, can reverse the amount from your PaypPal account to the buyer. One advice to all new eBay sellers, most shipping problems can be avoided by carefully handling each parcel but you will be better off by subscribing to eBay Sellers’ Protection Policy.

Choosing The Right Selling Format

Everyone that has registered freshly with eBay will have invariably encountered a question. Those who made successful online eBay businesses later or those who already were successes offline; what selling format and template will be right for their business? Beat the dilemma with dedicated research over the matter. A good selling format is not long enough to attract insertion fee or short enough to skip prospective buyers who are waiting in the side wings and watching the bidding till last.

Choosing the Right Selling Format

Supposing that you are opening an eBay store and call it eBay department store, you will have really built a virtual large store having to stock or list lots items which rarely have selling propositions perhaps because of their high values. But because you need it to be visible on eBay, you will list. Your basic concerns are overall revenues, although itemwise revenue would be a welcome.

Shop Inventory

In such cases, you can’t afford to choose a listing package which is short while insertion fee is high. This will most likely erode your profit prospects. There is a selling format tailor made for you and is known as ‘Shop Inventory.’ This package comes with bonuses like ‘Best Offer,’ offer no fixed number of items with ‘Buy Now’ etc. Other features include no bidding, limited visibility compared to auction items, must have an eBay Shop etc. This is a 30day renewable account which automatically renews. This is the down side you must mind always with this selling format.

If yours is real estate business, ‘advertise your services & real estate’ may be the right format you are looking for; list without having to pay the ‘final value fee.’ The length of listing is 90 days looking at the high value nature of the item.

You can choose from other formats like ‘Online Auction’ and ‘Fixed Price’ formats, making decision on the suitability.

Finally a little bit of designing helps bring about liveliness to your listings’ pages. Choose from countless free and premium templates available, for good effects.

Trick lies in getting the true blend of selling format which is a commercial decision while choosing a template enhances the appeal of your pages.

Final Checklist Before Listing

Listing multiple items into different categories is really energy sapping no matter what tool you use. A slight loss of concentration could mean undesired end results. Also checking what your competitors are doing helps you fair better in product placement department. There is no point in over pricing n article which is available at lower prices elsewhere. So you had always wished to have a simple last minute checklist. Following is a representative checklist for eBay sellers which can be customized or developed into individual situation.

Checklist for eBay Sellers

The checklist helps you prepare for listing over eBay.

1. Have you selected the right page design for your eBay store?

2. Have you inspected your merchandise? Are there removable dirt and stains? Did you find any scratches or wears? Have you stated these chinks in the description? How are you going to handle this or at least present this? Are you giving a discount because of this?

3. Have you taken 3 pictures; eBay charges for additional pictures. Do you need to retake photographs so they become clear and brighter? Do you think 3 photographs are enough to give a complete picture including the flaws?

4. Have you inserted all the keywords at strategic positions? Check the title and description.

5. Does the item description give complete and accurate information? Have you included relevant product specifications like dimension, model number, brand and condition? What about the shipping dimension and price? Don’t you need to provide your customer shipping cost calculated after packaging?

6. Do you need to reconsider the product pricing? Have you researched eBay prices for similar products through ‘Buy Now’ and reserve prices? Do you think this price will sell and also bring enough profits?

7. Have you checked the quality and aesthetics of your packaging? Or do you need to have packaging over factory package at all? Can it withstand and protect the item in shipping and handling?

8. Have you given multiple payment options? Have you indicated the landing cost for the customers?

Checklist assumes importance when missing a few may not give you another chance at all. Include or modify this list to suit your business.

You; From eBay Buyers' Perspective

An ideal and successful businessman does and knows most things better than others. You, as a successful businessman, have gauged the pulse of the market, read and brainstormed a lot about eBay customers’ behavior. But have you ever spared a moment to know what your customers are thinking about you? If not, it is high time you made some introspection and thought retrospectively about why whatever has happened.

Feedbacks: Icing on the Cake or a True Customer Index?

Overboard, everything about feedbacks is nice. They are said to be the true index of your customer experience with you. Customers are free to post their feelings and judgments about you subject to law and eBay regulation. But when we set out to explore the customer mind, we need to examine two specific cases. Although the cases may appear hypothetical, deep down they are not, I am sure no businessman can afford to ignore these points.

Abusive feedbacks

Enraged customer feedbacks sure wreak havoc. But you alone know how much of it is true. There is no third way about abusive feedbacks; it could be either the mishandled customer or simply that the customer has gone crazy. Another angle to customer feedbacks is the percentage of feedback givers. When you have earned shooting stars or thereabouts, there can’t be denying that you have earned it. But have you not had a chance to see people raise their eyebrows looking at your stars in your initial years? The crux of the matter is feedbacks become real indexes only if they complement your principles, policies on return, guarantee, shipping and handling etc. Even high ‘Buy Now’ prices can be reason for growls.

The Mysterious Customer

Not every one of millions of eBay sellers is enjoying the same customer patron. Across categories, sellers have been working their life out to crack the mystery called the ‘Customer Mentality’. For them, no amount of scientific marketing has succeeded in turning their fortunes. Think backwards with marketing efforts rather than letting one sided thought flow. Understand the minds of the customer.

Know how you fair in their minds, ask customer a question and ‘stitch a pitch’ suitable to the circumstances and work on. It isn’t said for nothing, that ‘Customer is the King.’

Expanding Your Business? Get the eBay Pulse

No business which has spent some reasonable time can afford to remain in the same rung as it used to be when it started. This applies to eBay online business too. It could be by way of setting up of your own eBay store or just broadening the product portfolio. So, as Jawaharlal Nehru once famously said, ‘No one can prevent an idea whose time has come’.

Vertical Expansion of Business

You can carve a niche in your expertise and begin to sell more items of different varieties but belonging to the same category. What does it mean to you? Suppose for example, you are selling Nokia cell phones for long time and over this time you have built up your own reputation. You have also noticed your buyers are regulars buying either by participating in the bidding or through ‘Buy Now’. You have also noticed and mapped their buying habits and that there exists a pattern. You have statistics of their demography. And finally the higher feedback stars you accumulated through sheer hard work, from the cross section of people have boosted your confidence.

All these indicate that you can expand into a multi brand cell phone and accessories seller. You can hope to sell IPODs and MP3 players or gamin consoles rather easily. Your buyers trust your recommendations and you monetize the reputation. You can either open an ‘Exclusive Showroom’ or just continue as a power seller.

Expanding Your eBay Business Horizontally

Horizontal expansion calls for deeper and vast understanding of business, eBay’s transaction and buyers’ demography across eBay. You must have observed, from others, and picked up cross selling techniques. That is, you have specialized in selling watches for long time and you know selling T-Shirts or cell phones or even jewelry isn’t too hard as long as they are all goods of fashion statements and selling any from the same category shouldn’t trouble you much.

Opening an eBay store is the right step for you. You are, among other things, betting on higher traffic to your store. More the buyers greater is the sales generated. But watch out to select the right items, know the pulse of eBay visitors across sections and categories. Because sell unconnected items may disinterest your visitors.

How to Protect Your eBay Selling Account

If you are an eBay seller you will always be worried about the safety of your account. The eventual consequences could be one of the devastating experiences to ever happen to you. It could mar your reputation you built brick by brick over time.

Tips on How to Protect your eBay Account

If you already suspect your account’s security, or someone else has accessed your account check with your colleagues and family as to whether they had done so. Here are more tips and steps for you.

1. There are spoof websites that deceive with identical designs and collect your login name and password. Always type in the full name into the address box of your browser yourself.

2. While registering, take care to choose user name and password after much thought. Let them not be pet names of your kin or self so that they aren’t easily guessed by others. Also choose dissimilar IDs for email accounts and eBay. Password is hard cracked when it is a combination of letters and numbers. Further, conjoining 2-3 words and numbers would be better. For example, ‘SpiceJetCowBoy864’.

3. Keep changing your password frequently. Select secret questions for which only you know the answer. Choosing your mother’s maiden name would be naïve.

4. Beware, using pet name, spouse name could be easily broken by any small time hacker.

5. eBay or its staff will never ask for your user name and/or password for any reason. But there could be fake emails or websites asking for them. Never will eBay ask for your bank and credit card information. Just ignoring them could still encourage them, so login to your account and report them to eBay customer care.

6. What if you can’t login at all? Immediately contact eBay and follow guidelines issued to you through email. You may need to change your password and answer a series of questions that relate to your account. But to change password you have to wait till further instructions from eBay. Change your password, secret question et.

7. Check for unauthorized bids or fees; you can either retract or end bidding and in the latter case request refund.

Get yourself educated through either forums or eBay customer care. Better be prepared than sorry.

Advanced eBay Selling Strategies

The ever changing market trends and crowded market place, not by buyers alone but by sellers too, demand multifaceted flexible but strong strategies to be able to make sales at eBay and sustain a healthy growth rate. You can adopt the time tested and proven strategies perfected by offline selling fraternity or those specifically developed for eBay success. Still others have found a perfect blend of both the worlds. Here we make an attempt to list out them.

Advanced eBay Selling Strategies

1. Pickup the pulse of the market. Study the dynamics of the overall market and your category in specific. Understand why some competitors are able to sell more even at higher prices. Analyze and test whether you can adopt the strategy to your case. While experimenting, don’t letup on the routine.

2. Get facts and figures. You need to contrast every parameter against your ideal or industry standard figures. Take for example the sales, conversion ration or cost vs sales ratio. Evaluate a median selling rate and price for individual items. Compare them month on month or yearly. Formulate a strategy or modify it if there is one in place as per the dictates of this result.

3. Festive season promotion. Occasionally or on Christmas, run promotional discount sales. Try selling new products outside your niche experiment with marketing techniques; but all the while remain alert to make quick changes if you sense reversals.

4. Building loyalty amongst customers vying for a place in the list. But in my view it is the aim of all efforts and not the path in itself. However this calls for long standing reputation through customer service, standing by presale sworn declarations about product quality etc.

5. Use keyword strategies like search engine optimization. This involves optimizing a cell phone item for fixed-wire phone using strategic keywords. Make use of Manage My Store feature for the matter.

6. Build your own eBay Store. Your own eBay Store means having your own website as a sub-domain and searchable within eBay. This is part of brand building for you. With own eBay stores you can effectively drive more traffic by heightened exposure.

Use of email marketing, offline promotions like logos on your calling cards etc can’t be ignored. Monitor changes around you everyday if you want to see success with endeavor.

Learn eBay Selling Basics

If you are serious on making eBay selling your first income source or you want to increase your sales if you are already an eBay trader you need to make sure you got the basics right। We will pick up from after the registration and listing phase.

Basics of eBay Selling Techniques

Like in all business, sales not always depend on quality alone. It takes efforts like presentation, price, utility, discounts etc. Remember what applies to your competitor may not be suitable to you. Nevertheless, the basics remain the common thread joining the successful eBay merchants.

1. ‘A picture is worth thousand words’. eBay allows to upload 3 photos/item free and photos will be reduced to 300x400 pixel for ease of loading. Let photos be in .jpg or .gif format. Let the photos be clear and bright. Dark or dim photos repel the customers instantly.

2. Effective title attracts more search results. Effective titles don’t use ‘stop words’ like ‘breathtaking’ and ‘rare’ or ‘beautiful’ etc. Alternately, using descriptive keywords throw-up more results. For example: Genuine, Rembrandt Leather sports coats, all color’ is catchier to both buyers as well as search engines.

3. Give as much description as possible. Don’t hesitate to use adjectives and positive aspects of items you are listing. List all attributes like physical size, color, make, code number and date of making and condition of the item. Don’t exaggerate things, be specific but sounding truthful is important to develop trust. Don’t get afraid to disclose any scratches or damages if the item is used already.

4. Having thus prepared the minds, you can easily justify your price. Research a bit with competing items for their prices. Base your selling/reserve price on your confidence to sell; to certain extents the starting price, buy now prices and the duration of the bid also have a play. You can also choose the fixed price format.

5. Give maximum payment options, just in case. Obviously limited options can drive buyers to step back. State applicable discounts boldly to entice more buyers to enter the fray. So does, warrantee, return policy etc.

6. Your shipping policy makes the final sales pitch. Uncertain or ambiguous shipping policies drive customers into suspicions.

eBay Listing and Utility Tools

There are many listing tools offered by eBay to make the most of your time. eBay listing tools not just help you list your goods easily, they can take the burden of laborious bulk listing at a time and help manage things better. A small trader may think it may not help him to use the special listing tools but to the contrary, they are pretty handy. What is more; most of them are free.

eBay Listing Tools

1. eBay Turbo Lister: This is a free of cost listing tool that is designed to help you list in case you have thousands goods to be uploaded simultaneously. With turbo lister you can save a lot of time and you are relieved of the hassle of editing huge data. The eBay Turbo lister has handy features such as making sleek designs and easier editing capability. This is a desktop downloadable application.

2. Selling Manager: With eBay Selling Manager you can perform most of your business activities including listing and selling. This is an online subscription tool that can be accessed in My eBay. With this you can manage the number of listings shown per page, types of listings, re-list from unsold list, sending and printing invoices and mails manage accounts and sales records and schedule the listings automatically etc.

3. Blackthorne Pro: This is pretty helpful in automating sales process cycles. Suitable for both high volume and small traders. This offline tool sports features like inventory management, customized reports and creating multiple user profile etc. Edit bulk listings, Schedule sales & closings at different times, manage inventory cost or supplier-wise and set alerts at preset replenishment levels. With Blackthorne permit different employees different access and generate custom reports under various heads like cost, profitability etc. You can integrate Blackthorne with your normal business database.

4. Bulk Catalog lister: With this eBay tool you can list bulk items with different categories. For example, list games, music, books and movies etc in one go. This paid tool suits eBay sellers with $5,000 turnover or more.

It may take time to master the listing tools but not impossible. Get help from eBay or forums in case you need any. As you master them, you will sure be upbeat like the other 97% users are.

Receiving Your eBay Payment

Receiving your eBay payments for the sold goods is one of the most important aspects in eBay business. This is because of the atypical nature of payments and the complications involved. Take every care that is possible when choosing payment options and defining your policy in this regard. Remember to read eBay’s policy and sellers’ agreement in complete. It is a good idea to join the eBay sellers’ protection policy.

Payment Receiving Methods on eBay

eBay offers a host of payment options to sellers to receive money from their buyers. Some of these are administered by eBay and some or not.

eBay sponsored payment methods:

1. Bank deposit express: This is an online bank transfer system offered by eBay. This is the quickest of all and you get the credit at your bank as the buyer pays for your goods. This is an international payment system. Register your bank account details and the corresponding bank’s swift code (to receive international payments). Your bank details are safe and private.

2. PaisaPay through credit card: This is pretty similar to above; the only difference being that you can receive credit card payments with this program.

3. You can use PayPal free on eBay: Using Paypal for eBay payment receipts is pretty easy. You can set up this from your account’s page; follow preferences and auctions tabs to complete. With PayPal, you can let your customers pay from their PayPal account balances or through PayPal international debit cards. Secondly, if you are keen, you can set up a merchant or premium account so that you are able to accept all international credit card payments without having to open separate merchant accounts with each card company. The payments thus received will accrue into your PayPal account.

4. Demand draft: Demand draft is a safer bet to receive money as it is prepaid by the buyers. But beware of fraudulent drafts, especially so with international buyers.

5. Cash on delivery: Pretty easy for sellers but they are not protected by buyers protection program of eBay.

6. Buyers pickup and pay: Buyer pays you in cash at your doorstep at the time of item pick-up.

You can opt in for check or money orders too. But more the options to buyers more the impact on sales and contrarily the care you need to take about frauds.

Define Your Shipping Policy

Setting up of shop on eBay, marketing your shop or eBay store are one side of the business and shipping and handling the order process is on the other. Buyers from anywhere in the world prefer to have their purchased goods delivered at their door at nominal cost if not for free.

You need to define your policy in clear terms and publish it so that every buyer can read it if you don’t want shipping disputes to bother you later. You should also mind the ripple effects these disputes can cause later through feedbacks.

Some Tips on Defining Your eBay Shipping Policy

Although this is purely your prerogative, still you need to look for what the customers looks for in you. Almost invariably all goods are shipped by eBay sellers at a cost to the buyers barring a few exceptions. The exceptions can be goods of high worth such as diamond rings or any other type of jewelry. You can make it clear by stating whether you handle the shipping and pay for it too or whether you charge it to the customer even as you put-up the goods for sale. In cases such as planned move to gain customer loyalty, you may want to announce a discount or make it free for some distance.

Shipping Calculator

If shipping is chargeable, customers can calculate the cost to their ZIP through the eBay shipping calculator. eBay shipping calculator supports charges of both US Postal service and UPS to 50 states. However, an international customer or someone wanting to have the goods air lifted can estimate through the service provider.

What about Bulk Purchases

There can be customers buying several items or similar items of same specification from you in which case packaging and shipping costs are lower than normal. You may offer a bulk discount or a total waive off of shipping cost. But customers will be encouraged to buy more when they can quantify discounts in terms of dollars. Ideal policy here would be to declare a flat discount instead of being vague.

Don’t you want to state “Buy 2 and save $2 on shipping?”

Top Tips to Beat Competition on eBay

Top Tips to Beat Competition on eBay

Competition on eBay must have affected you regardless of whether you are a full time trader or a hobby part time seller. Obviously enough, the competition on eBay is sure going to shoot up without with out any letup what with its increasing popularity with retail sellers, in the first place and consumer fraternity. Given this market scenario, you need to plan a few strategies to stand out in the crowd.

Top Tips To Beat Competition on eBay

You can easily find any number of tips on this subject but implementing them all may not be worth the effort unless you strategize first. So, ideally you will work on three different things that get you more sales.

1. Marketing the store to ensure more ‘HITS’

2. Enticing or teasing the customers through value additions

3. Price adjustment to drive volume up

Although more hits to your store doesn’t guarantee increased sales, not having it will not either. Implement one or all of keyword optimization or sponsored text ads or search marketing as the first step. Improved formatting, designing and use of better/more pictures cut down on bounce rates eventually helping to pushup bids/sales. Next, horizontal expansion (adding an array of categories) brings in more traffic and customer who doesn’t wish to enter a bid at prevailing price may look for other items within your store.

Value addition scores next in sales conversion. Innovative offers like ‘Buy 2 and get 1 free’ or ‘Buy 3 and avail free shipping’ makes fence sitters rethink. You can completely review your warrantee and return policies and make them known for greater impact.

Online buyers tend to make decisions on price factor. The underlying idea is to workout higher volumes for sales growth. If you can offer bulk or group booking discount on Christmas season you will not be surprised to have spikes in sales volumes. Price adjustment need not always mean discounts. You can position price between your primary and secondary competitors and as for product positioning always do it one above.

These things apart, backward integration steps like cutting down on costs on purchase/shipping (buy locally to save the entire shipping cost), automating routine aspects in addition to rewarding loyal customers will all see you surging past eBay competition.

How Do I Measure The EBay Competition?

How Do I Measure The EBay Competition?

Plainly speaking, you, as an eBay seller must keep an eye on your competitors as regards to their change of strategies, increase or decreasing sales volume, whether they are expanding and timing etc. I am not advocating unethical spying here but no matter whether you do it or not, beware, your competitors are watching your every move even if you are new on eBay.

Watching the competition has its own value in business management and in every field. This provides you with valuable inputs to plan your business steps. Putting in place the results of observations in a usable format takes some informed understanding of your market.

Measuring the eBay Competition

There are some simple indicators to measure the competition. I am limiting the scope of this article to primary and secondary competitors only.

List out your competitors and categorize them as primary and secondary. This shouldn’t be difficult if you searched for each of your items within eBay search which results the entire eBay market perhaps. But as statistics put it, it is always the top creamy 10% that enjoys the 90% of business. Now you know just how many of them are real competitors; rest of them can be ignored.

Now, segregate them into two groups: those stronger & above you and those that are not. Three criteria will help you do this in a substantially materialistic fashion.

1. Total and percentage feedback score

2. Number of categories and individual items each of them has

3. Number of years in business

Dissect each of these points from both the competing groups and organize the results into meaningful reasons to know what the first group has done to deserve the top position and why the second is where it is. But take care to give reasonable adjustment weightage to rather new comers to eliminate the ‘errors of estimation.’

Get down to the details to analyze as to how long they sustained at the top or bottom. Try to quantify points like timing of their pitching up sales, expansion; amounts of discounts and gifts other policies etc. The two groups would be doing things in exactly the reverse way in overlapping areas. Now you know what step of yours takes you where.

Why Are My Products Not Popular On EBay?

Why Are My Products Not Popular On EBay?

Did you know that there are 29 million members on eBay and thousands of million buyers who are aware of its powerful presence and would want to try once? Well, take one more piece of statistic here; at least 4% of that 29 million are listed as power sellers, which is the elite class of high volume sellers. Let me elaborate this a few steps further. Take the small percentage of power sellers. Their number accounts for 1.16 million in all. And the lowest of the (bronze) awardees makes a cool $2,000 per month on an average. Still they, at times, think they failed to predict the buyers’ minds, inferring their products are not popular!

They may be true, but they made difference to their businesses by manifold manipulations on the fly.

What to Do When Your Products Are Not Popular?

EBay, releases a booklet of hot selling items that can be availed by all their members free of cost. As your first step, obtain a copy of this valuable document. I would like to presume that those disgruntled sellers might not even have seen this document anytime.

‘What’s Selling Hot’, the booklet, lists items as ‘Super Hot’, ‘Very Hot’ and so on under every category and level. No matter what your business is, you are likely to find the rating for your merchandise there. So, to that extent it makes life simple.

Giving a moment to think about how power sellers might be planning their businesses must be some way to go. Naturally no one would like to hold nonproductive inventory and they would rather sell it off at cost/discount. Once bitten twice shy, they plan extra carefully the next time for that product.

They spend time and dollars on marketing like none. They drive traffic into their stores and convert traffic into sales. How? All plain and ground level tactics. The difference is they have perfected the art of avoiding the all too well known mistakes. They are near perfect in product description (call spade a spade but pleasantly!) Their reserve prices are realistic, which increases salability (remember there are millions of registered buyers plus the general traffic.) They answer customer queries. They are just right in legalities like refund, shipping and sundry policies. Their business brings positive feedbacks which turn around as business again.

The market crowd must do to your goods what hay stack does to a needle. Want to call your product unpopular anymore?

How Can I Resolve Disputes With Buyers

How Can I Resolve Disputes With Buyers

Although trying to resolve disputes, albeit after they occurred, is synonymous to closing the doors after the burglar has fled with his loot. But then you can’t relax with the misconception that it will be the last one you will ever encounter.

Dispute resolution is best done by quashing them before they occurred. And when they occur, you must take it in the right spirit and act accordingly. Here are some tips to resolve various disputes.

Tips To Resolve Different Disputes

To begin with, ebay plays a limited role in dispute resolution as it is not directly involved in the transaction. In addition to this, a professional mediator, ‘Square Trade’ may be approached for redress. Sellers with Square Trade subscription can rest assured about the resolution after reporting to them.

Most complaints will be either about damaged or late delivery or ‘Item Significantly Not as Described Process’. You will receive such complaints from eBay a ‘mediator’ and your response and action will be communicated to the buyer. Include details of your dispatch details and if possible, the reply from the carrier company. In the event of not received or not cleared payments explain it as it is. On the latter issue ask why the buyer thinks it is different from description giving your justification with a view to closing the case. You can offer full refund of money if it is warranted.

You may offer to communicate directly with the buyer through what is known as ‘Dispute Console’. Keep in mind that buyer can escalate his/her complaint to claims. This could be real detriment to your eBay business. The Trust & Safety team has the right to either suspend or restrict your account.

In cases such as you having complaints like abusive and misrepresenting feedbacks, you can either have it removed by mutual consent or by taking recourse to eBay’s feedback removal process. On the former case, eBay removes only the feedback ratings and not the comments. This invariably follows the ruling from a certified resolution service. This may not sound too good for you. You may just want to hide this feedback with all. But you can tackle abusive feedbacks differently in ways that include law suit under ‘Federal Decent Communications Act’.

There is much to pickup from sellers of long standing repute. Study their various policies as they are likely to be the evolved ones over time and experience.

Used Goods vs Brand New

Used Goods vs Brand New

This question may not bother and established eBay merchant at all. There are still a good percentage of sellers who are selling both used and new goods. But for newbies on eBay, the question is one of uncertainty.

There are millions of either types of exclusive sellers and those who sell both or switchover between them from time to time. So a new eBay seller may face a few apprehensions like that of the pricing, demand for the items that they want to put on sale and profit margin. These are justified apprehensions that have clear answers too.

Not All Used Goods Are Cheap

The first thought that surfaces in minds is used goods are sold cheap. This may be true for an array of products such as household articles, car or other vehicles, consumer electronic items including cell phones, musical instruments and books to some extent.

Since used goods rarely carry warrantee and are less likely to last as long as are expected of new ones, they sell cheap. Cars sell much cheaper than new ones. So do lawn mowers and etc. Buyer can’t expect to get the same kind of use or utility from these items as would have gotten from new ones.

But for a seller auctioning his/her own items which he used for years, pricing should not be a problem at all. But if you are trading it, you need to workout your costs like you would do with new items.

Secondly, rare books, artifacts, music collections etc sell at premium rates despite their ages. Older and rarer they are higher the price buyers would be willing to pay. Beethoven collections are a point in the case. Because it is not the tapes you are selling but what they contain. So mind the shift in value here.

Selling new goods is relatively easy if you market well. Pricing will not be criteria anymore. But market competition may drive down margins. Most new goods sellers are confident of selling their merchandises easily despite competition owing to large buyer population which is a question mark for certain old goods.

Consider these points to decide between them:

· Continuous source for old items

· Long auctions

· Warrantee and return policy

· Can you specialize in old goods alone?

How To Choose The Goods And Brands That Sell

How To Choose The Goods And Brands That Sell

Knowing what sells hot on eBay much before you ordered stocks for the season would see you making lots of money. If you can draw an analogy with an offline garments stores you would wonder how shop owners preorder their merchandise at least six months in advance and still be able to accurately predict the fashion of the day. But this is no magic neither there is any guaranteed formula to assure this.

Hold it! We are on eBay

Don’t jump to the conclusion just yet! Just signing up with ebay will not crack the mystery for you. Looking at many ebay sellers specializing in their niche products, you may be tempted to follow suit. But this is fine, only if you have the similar background as they have and the will to work hard till you hit the goal. It is probably because of this reason that big ebay stores have diversified product portfolio aiming on the overall turnover rather than betting on specific product sales ratio.

Ebay Takes Off the Burden of Guessing

eBay being an electronic medium for buying and selling, has put up a smarter way of predicting, to near perfection, of what sells more and when. The list they make available to online sellers and they call it ‘What’s Hot?’ The seller Central section produces this document which in itself is a gem of a document. The data provided here is more or less ready to be adopted by the sellers. Let’s first take a look at how this invaluable data is compiled, first.

This monthly updated data provides upto level 4 category items. They ensure their predictability by compiling statistics about each item for the past month. Each item appearing in the list will qualify, among others, by

1. surpassing the previous month’s number of bids in the past month by 1%

2. past month’s listings surpassing the previous month’s number of bids by 1.5%

3. achieving a conversion rate of 50% for any L4 item in the past month

The document serves a good starting point which can be built upon with further investigation.

How Long Should the Auction Be Open?

How Long Should the Auction Be Open?

This depends on various factors.

1. If the article is thought to be in great demand, the Auction needs to be open for a short time only. For example, if it is Picasso which is on sale, there would be thousands of bidders, so there is no point in extending the last date beyond a couple of days. It could even be a couple of hours! Considering the item offered, word will get around and many people will know about the offer soon.

2. On the other hand, if you are offering, a used Printer, you need to have it for at least a week or somewhere thereabouts because the number of people interested in buying a used printer would be rather few and it takes time for buyers to notice it.

3. The Reserve Price set for the item to be sold is another factor that determines the last date. If the Reserve Price is relatively high, say $2,500, you do not expect buyers to cough up such amounts in a hurry. You need to give them some time to consider if the purchase is worth the high price. Therefore in such cases the Auction may be kept open for upto a week or even more. Needless to mention, if the Reserve Price is a small amount, the bidding may be kept open for a much shorter period. Prospective buyers can decide faster to buy or not in such cases.

4. Urgency is yet another factor to consider. For example, if one is moving away, s/he needs to dispose off some of his belongings in a hurry, and in such cases you will have no option than to keep the auction open for limited time. In such cases, even if the bids are lower than the Reserve Price, the seller may accept it because of the urgency of the matter.

5. When perishable goods are offered, it is essential that the auction be kept open for a very short period. For example, if mangoes are to be auctioned, you cannot keep the Auction open for more than a day or two at the most.

Finally you can’t go by the price alone as monthly revenue begins to loom large towards the end. In such cases, if your expectation isn’t met but crossed the reserve price you may close the bid and award the highest bidder.

Reserve Price Vs Buy Now

Reserve Price Vs Buy Now

The “Buy Now” scheme allows a customer to buy an item whenever he wants, at a fixed price.

A Reserve Price is indicated when the item will not be sold at a price lower than a certain set price.

In the “buy now” scheme, a buyer may be prepared to offer a higher price for an item which he badly needs, but since the price is already fixed by the store, he gladly buys the item. Your store loses the difference. Usually this method is used to sell commodity items or fast-moving items for which the demand is on the higher side. The advantages are:

1. You will be able to sell more items because the buyers know once they select the item they are certain that they would receive the same in due course (depending on the delivery terms you have stipulated) and that there is no waiting period. Most buyers are happy with this arrangement.
2. You will be able to compete with others who are not following this method, otherwise, the buyers need to bid for an item and wait and take their chance of clinching their order or not because the item in question will be sold only to the highest bidder.
3. Eventually this will even drive more traffic to your store as the buyers are confident that they can buy items at a reasonable price from your store without having to wait.

The “Reserve Price” scheme, on the other hand, is used mostly for items which are slow moving or certain unique or rare items known as “collector’s items”, antiques and curios, or used items or a “one-off” article meaning no more of the same article is available for sale. The advantages are:

1. Though you have fixed a certain price as the rock-bottom price at which the item in question will be sold, buyers will compete with one another to buy this item, each buyer outbidding the other in the process resulting in more profit for you.
2. Further, since you have fixed a “reserve price”, you have the option to withhold the sale if you are not satisfied with the bids received.
3. If you stock and offer more such items, the buyers will always remember your store whenever they are searching for rare or unique items, increasing your store’s popularity.

Costing Your Articles on eBay

For a newbie eBay seller or a wannabe, pricing will be the biggest challenge as long as she or he doesn’t make a few hard sales. Both, pricing too low or too high are detrimental to business as they can soon get you out of business. So what price is the right price and how will I get the pricing right? I agree costing is not all it takes to pricing but forms the foundation although the ‘Buy Now’ price or the Reserve Price depends entirely on your judgment of the market mood and fluctuating demand for the specific item at the given time.

Costing the Price On eBay

Costing the price simply means adding up various expenses that you actually incurred till you listed the item up for auction plus those that you expect to come up later. These are simply referred to as cost components and some of these are tangible and some are not. The following is the basic structure of cost estimation for newbie sellers on eBay.

1. Your landing cost (Includes purchase cost+ taxes+ packaging+ shipping)

2. Holding cost (Includes Rental cost for warehouse/storehouse+ salaries lighting etc)

3. Listing cost; Add up eBay costs like

a. insertion fee

b. final value fee

c. Buy Now fee (optional)

d. Listing upgrade fee (optional)

e. Sellers tool fee (optional)

4. Special fees

a. Ad format fee

b. Motors fee

c. Real estate fee

d. PayPal fee

e. All special fees are applicable only when the services are availed. Here the final value fee is replaced by transaction service fee which payable is due at first bid when there is no reserve price set, otherwise payable when the reserve price is met. All the above fees differ only slightly which is available here.

5. Marketing cost: Include your AdSense expenses+ promotional expenses like fliers, news paper ads, telephonic promotions, travel necessitated by marketing etc.

6. Shipping, packing, and handling cost: Calculate this before hand using calculator available at eBay or by availing a rate chart from USPS or UPS.

7. Salary: Spread the total salary cost proportionately on all items.

8. Interest payable: Divide the entire interest outgo proportionately on each item.

9. Insurance: Keep this outside of costing at your discretion.

Note that above all fees are fixed and the only flexible ones are your profit margins which you alternate based on judgment, season, your urgency, salability and the amount you are looking to make out of the sale.