Monday, August 16, 2010

eBay Workshop August 17th - "Holiday Sales 2010: Tips & Prep for a Successful Selling Season"


Host: Lisa Suttora , ecommerce strategist and Founder/CEO of WhatDoISell.com

Date: Tuesday, August 17th

Time: 10 a.m. – 11 a.m. PST (Pacific Standard Time)

Description: Holiday profits come to those who are prepared, and now is the time to gear up! From inventory selection to marketing there’s a lot to do over the next few months to maximize your holiday sales.

Please join Lisa Suttora, Founder & CEO of WhatDoISell, and learn how to showcase your best holiday inventory, how to reposition “everyday” inventory into hot holiday sellers and creative ways to market your merchandise this holiday season!

Visit http://certifiedprovider.ebay.com/ to learn more about eBay Certified Providers and the services and solutions they offer to help an eBay seller grow their business.

Thanks,

Ginger
eBay Certified Provider Program

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Top 5 Music Artists Selling on eBay


Terapeak is like the Billboard of eBay thanks to its Hot Media search feature. Below is this month’s Top 5 Music list which you may find either outrageous or validating. That’s the beauty of this list, it’s based entirely on pure, unbridled sales without dwelling for a moment on what some hipster might consider “good.”

Rounding out the number five spot is arguably the most talented individual ever to wear a lampshade for a hat, the one and only Lady Gaga. She probably should have gone on Dr. Phil long ago but she sure can belt out a tune.

In fourth, Susan Boyle is the 49 year old contest winner who dreamed big and put on a jaw-dropping performance for British television. She sang her way to stardom without the typical sexuality angle played by most. Seriously, like none whatsoever.

Kidz Bop Kids sing their little hearts out in 3rd, and if that surprises you keep in mind that child singers have had a firm place in our world since The Jackson 5.

The boys from Sgt. Pepper’s are staying legendary in the number two spot and it should also be noted that they never drop below the top five. So if you ever swing by and don’t see The Beatles on our list you should look up – the sky might be falling.

Finally at number one is the incorrigible Eminem. You may find his subject matter to be in the absolute poorest of taste, but you can’t deny his success.

Retail store sales are one thing, but eBay is the biggest, broadest online marketplace on the planet and Terapeak is the score keeper. Items that are in high demand here are truly selling above the rest.

Post from the Terapeak blog.

Terapeak is an eBay Certified Provider and a member of the eBay Market Data Program. Terapeak 5.0 is a full, web-based solution providing real-time market research and data analytics on eBay. Terapeak 5.0 provides eBay sellers and buyers with two years worth of trending data.

Monday, August 9, 2010

eBay Certified Provider Spotlight - MERCENT

Mercent delivers inventory management and marketing technology services for retail merchants across many online channels. As an eBay Certified Solution Provider, Mercent provides a solution for retail merchants to integrate eBay as a sales channel or for existing eBay sellers to optimize their sales and efficiency on eBay.

Mercent Retail for eBay is an automated solution allowing retailers and eBay sellers to launch and manage high-volume, fixed-price, and multiple-quantity sales on eBay. Mercent Retail is integrated and able to support eBay Fixed Price listing formats and PayPal.

Features:

Complete product and order feed integration

  • Ensure product listings are always synchronized with back-end systems
  • Automated, no manual downloading of order reports or uploading inventory figures
  • Accurate real-time product data, inventory and price information

Streamlined product catalog management

  • Map products and categories to the best performing eBay categories
  • Automated content rules to apply content changes

Comprehensive analytics

  • Track and report on the revenue, profits, cost-per-order, and other key retail advertising metrics associated with orders on eBay and other online shopping channels
  • View performance by category, individual product SKU and more
  • Generate reports by channel or across channels

Benefits:

  • Large retailers can easily add eBay as an online selling channel
  • Tight integration with existing retail systems for accurate inventory tracking, pricing, fulfillment and order information
  • Automated monitoring and management of transactions across all channels
  • Reach maximum revenue and profitability

Large retailers SmartBargains and Altrec have successfully incorporated eBay as a sales channel through the technology and assistance of Mercent.

Mercent is a great fit for large retailers or manufacturers to add eBay to their multi-channel solution. They are also a good fit for Diamond and some Titanium eBay PowerSellers.

If interested, contact Mercent at:

Mercent is an eBay Certified Provider integrating large retailers with eBay using the new Large Merchant Services (LMS) API, providing the ability to handle the scalability requirements of large sellers, including catalogs and transaction volumes and back end integration with current systems including POS.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Vendio Launches Free Item Condition Reviser for eBay (Update all your eBay listings!)

In order to help sellers comply with the new eBay item condition rules, Vendio has launched a free easy-to-use reviser that can revise the condition of your live eBay items based on the new required condition.

This is available by logging into your Vendio account and selecting Channels > Revise. This does require a Vendio account as you will need to log in and set an eBay token so that we can make these changes on your behalf.

If you are not already an eBay seller using Vendio, you can create a free Vendio account if you sign-up for one of their free products listed here and you will be able to use Vendio's free products including their new Item Condition Reviser.

You can set your eBay tokens by selecting the Preferences link (top-right) and selecting “channels” from the drop down menu. If you do not have a Vendio account, you can sign up for any premium or free service in order to access the special reviser.

Note that Revisions to your live items on eBay are not automatically reflected in your inventory item definitions on Vendio. You will need to edit the condition field in these item definitions before future launches.

Below, we’ve added instructions to help you use the new Item Condition Reviser

Log into your account and select Channels>Revise

  1. Find & Revise: Find the items where you want to change the item condition by selecting the Find and Revise button.
  2. Find Items to Revise (by Category): The easiest way to find and replace for the Item Condition reviser is to revise by category.If you do not know your category number, select choose and find your category.
  3. Find Items to Revise (by Other Conditions): Find items that contain any or all of specific conditions you define. For example, find all my items that have “Blue AND Ring” in the title or find ANY of my items that have either “Blue” OR “Ring” in the title.
  4. Available “Find” Fields: Find item by any of the fields displayed in the drop down menu. Find fields are also depicted below.
  5. Select the Category: After you have defined the conditions you are using to locate the items to revise, you will need to select the category for the Revise field. Because all item condition values are category-specific, please enter choose your category FIRST. Once the category is entered, the item condition menu will populate.
  6. Select the New Condition: Once the condition menu is populated, you can select the new condition.
  7. Review your Revisions: Review your revisions by clicking Review.
  8. Revise Your Live eBay Items: Click the Revise button to finalize the revisions of your live eBay items.

If you have questions or need some help, contact Vendio customer support.

An eBay Certified Solutions Provider since 2004, Vendio provides an ecommerce solution for eBay sellers of all sizes. Vendio offers a series of applications which can be installed on a standalone basis or used to extend the functionality of the Vendio's eBay listing and inventory management solution.


Tuesday, August 3, 2010

How to Use Social Media as a Marketing Opportunity for Your eBay Business



As an eBay seller, it is easy to get caught up in the everyday tasks of just keeping your operation running. You might be drowning in brown tape and jiffy bags and making sure you make it to the post office in time, but remember there’s a whole world out there.

eBay is a walled garden. It’s busy and has millions of buyers out there for you. But there is more to the internet than eBay. You can boost your eBay sales by marketing online. One of the most talked about opportunities is social media. That means sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace and other activities such as blogging.

Twitter has grown phenomenally in the past year or so and is now a mainstream website used by millions at home and abroad. If you have opened a newspaper in the past year you can’t have missed it. The same is true of Facebook. Both Twitter and Facebook offer the best options to eBay sellers who want to have a go at social media.

Blogging is also a great opportunity. A blog is basically a website where you can write about anything you like and also publish other content such as videos and photos. Setting up a blog can be free and easy, depending on what service you choose. Open source software Wordpress comes highly recommended and is free: you just need to pay for the hosting and design.

If social media seems scary, you’re right to be cautious: time is your most valuable commodity and wasting any of that or getting behind in the essential tasks of running your business would be a bad thing. But by approaching social media with discipline and a clear idea of what you want to achieve, you can reap some benefits.

There are two key benefits of social media to an eBay seller:
  1. The first is traffic. Sites like Facebook and Twitter have a massive following with millions of visitors every day. It’s possible to get a little bit of that action and increase the number of people viewing your listings.
  2. The second benefit, especially if you already have your own website, is SEO (search engine optimization). Blogging, in particular, is a good way of building your site content and creating valuable inbound links to build the prominence of your site in web searches.

Here are a few ideas that you can try:

  • Build a Facebook fan page for your eBay sales. Even your granny is on Facebook these days so it’s a great audience to plug into. Your easiest option is to build a Facebook fan page for your business including links to your eBay shop and items you are selling. One of the best ways to utilize Facebook is to offer discounts and deals exclusively to Facebook fans to tempt them.
  • Twitter and Tweets: Get started on Twitter and gradually build your network. Succeeding on Twitter can take time but the best way to attract attention is to provide links and information that other people find useful. That could be sharing news stories, your own content or making wry and amusing observations. You will also get a lot out of Twitter if you connect with people you admire and trust.
  • Blogging: Blogging is something that rewards you the more you do it. If you start a blog, write about things that really interest you. Establish yourself as an expert in your field and as someone who people turn to for insight and interesting comment If you’re not much of a writer, try a picture blog or video blog (vlog).

What you want to avoid, whether on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or any other social network or blogging, is mistaking not working for networking. If you’re just jabbering away to your fellow sellers, friends or people who aren’t buying from you, it could be a waste of time. You need to approach social media as a marketing channel. It should be fun but it does have a very serious purpose: promoting you, your sales and your business.

And the good news is that Frooition can help as you take on social media. It’s essential that your eBay brand is extended to your other online profiles. A consistent look and feel makes your buyers and customers feel reassured, makes you look good and inspires trust. Frooition can help you with custom made-to-order design, expertise and plenty of past experience. Get in touch with Frooition and we can help you extend your eBay brand so it includes social media.

Article from Frooition's Blog.

Frooition is a leading provider of eBay store and listing designs. Frooition provide design services for most other online sales channels as well as website design. Frooition has been working with the eBay platform more than 4 years and has clients in the USA, Canada and Europe.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Christmas Profits Begin in July: Your Holiday Planning & Prep Starts Here

Blog post by Lisa Suttora, CEO & Founder of WhatDoISell.com

Christmas Profits Begin in July: Your Holiday Planning & Prep Starts Here

Ready to make some money this holiday season? Then grab a glass of lemonade and sit down to read this post. Because what you’re about to read will be key to your holiday income success.


Starting on July 5th, with the kick-off of the back-to-school shopping season, the countdown begins to 2010 holiday sales. There are almost 9 weeks from July 1st to September 1st, when 38% of online shoppers will begin their holiday shopping.

If you wait until Fall to starting thinking about and preparing for the holidays, you’ll find yourself in catch up mode from September to December, and as a result leave a lot of holiday money on the table.

Preparing begins with the actions you take in July.

Every year at this time, I begin helping people prepare for holiday sales.

Unfortunately not enough people take action early on. And there’s nothing worse than rounding the holiday bend in November and watching sadly as your holiday sales slip by.

Don’t let this happen to you! The time is now…

To get you started, I’ve listed some of the holiday prep steps you’ll take this year:
  • Creating a holiday inventory list
  • Choosing your affiliate products & signing up for the programs
  • Creating a holiday marketing plan
  • Ordering last-minute inventory
  • Organizing your physical products
  • Snapping up packaging supplies on the cheap
  • Creating holiday advertising graphics
  • Planning your website and blog “seasonal decor”
  • Creating holiday gift sets
  • Setting up your holiday blog/ sales pages if you are an affiliate marketer
  • Setting up your email marketing campaign
  • Bringing in seasonal help

Now if the thought of putting together a plan for the holiday selling season feels overwhelming to you and you’re wondering how you’re going to find time to add yet another thing to your already overloaded schedule, there’s relief in sight.

With 15 holiday selling seasons under my belt (whew!) – 7 offline & 8 online! I have the planning and action steps for holiday income success down to a science. Stay tuned, for the upcoming announcement about this year’s Holiday Selling Guide and use this link to sign-up for announcements.

Monday, July 26, 2010

eBay Workshop July 29th - "How to Use Content Marketing to Attract, Engage & Retain More Customers!"



Topic: How to Use Content Marketing to Attract, Engage & Retain More Customers!

Host: Lisa Suttora, ecommerce strategist and Founder/CEO of WhatDoISell.com
Date: Thursday, July 29th
Time: 10 a.m. – 11 a.m. PST (Pacific Standard Time)

Location: eBay Workshop Board

Description: Content is still king on the web! Unfortunately many online sellers overlook this free, highly effective marketing strategy. Discover how to use content to:
  • Drive targeted buyer traffic
  • Convert more sales
  • Retain existing customers
  • Give your business a unique presence on eBay

Join ecommerce strategist Lisa Suttora, Founder/CEO of WhatDoISell.com, as she discusses several creative ways to use content marketing to successfully promote a business in any online niche market.

You’ll learn how to integrate content with eBay’s marketing tools, as well as how to leverage your content on today’s top social media sites.

Visit http://certifiedprovider.ebay.com/ to learn more about eBay Certified Providers and the services and solutions they offer to help an eBay seller grow their business.