Increase Repeat Purchases on eBay with MyStoreCredit

MyStoreCredit is an eBay Certified Solution Provider delivering an easy-to-use buyer loyalty, rewards and coupon program for eBay sellers.

How can an eBay seller retain a buyer(s)? You had a successful transaction with a buyer. Now, how do you encourage the buyer to keep shopping from you on eBay? eBay Sellers need a simple and cost effective solution allowing them to drive repeat purchases from existing buyers. They need to also enticing new potential buyers to purchase from the seller with the promise of future rewards to come.

Solution: MyStoreCredit offers a simple marketing solution enabling eBay sellers to offer cash back and coupons to buyers, thereby enticing a return and repeat purchase. It is more cost effective to retain a buyer than it is to attract new buyers. eBay sellers can also create custom campaigns and directly market to previous customers and encourage repeat purchases with MyStoreCredit.

On average MyStoreCredit has increased the repeat purchase rate for eBay sellers by 12-24%!

Benefits:

• Expand your buyer base
• Attract buyers
• Boost buyer confidence
• Build buyer loyalty
• Drive repeat sales
• Increase profits

“MyStoreCredit is very easy to use. Only took me about five minutes to set it up and I have not needed to make any changes since the initial set up.” – David Duong, CEO of Shoemetro, eBay PowerSeller.

MyStoreCredit is an eBay Certified Solution Provider delivering a buyer loyalty and rewards program for eBay sellers and PayPal merchants since 2004. In addition, MyStoreCredit also provides a solution to help sellers reach international buyers with the fun and visual application known as MyStoreMaps.

Source Inventory from Wholesalers with Worldwide Brands

Wholesale Tip #4

Worldwide Brands, an eBay Certified Provider specializing in Product Sourcing, provides eBay sellers the opportunity to source product direct from a wholesaler without going through the set-up and vetting process to be a retailer.

Wholesalers typically require proof you are a legitimate retail business, have a valid Sales Tax ID and have established an account with them before they will show you their Confidential Dealer Price List or consider selling their inventory to you.

Sourcing product to sell on eBay direct from a wholesaler can provide a seller the largest profit margin. Worldwide Brands publishes an extensive directory of legitimate, fully-verified ecommerce wholesalers, including:

• Drop ship wholesalers
• Light bulk wholesalers
• Instant import buys
• Liquidation Wholesalers
• Large Volume Wholesalers

Chris Malta, Founder and CEO of Worldwide Brands, offers tips and information on why you want to source inventory from a wholesaler, but why wholesalers may not do business with you unless you are a retailer or use the services of a company such as Worldwide Brands.

Vendio's Research Tools for eBay Provide Results

Vendio, an eBay Certified Provider, may be most well known to eBay sellers as a listing and inventory management tool. Did you know Vendio offers many tools and applications separate from their listing tool? Including an eBay market research tool?

Vendio's eBay Research tools help eBay sellers identify what items to sell on eBay, sell more profitably and research your competition. Vendio Research analyzes millions of closed eBay items every day in order to provide eBay sellers comprehensive and customizable selling recommendations.

Features of Vendio's eBay Reserach tools are:

• How to Sell
• Top Keywords
• Top eBay Sellers
• Clustering Technology (think smart search, removes irrelevant items)
• eBay Motors data (Parts & Accessories and VEHICLES)
• Smart Research (new, commodity items)
• Full Data Set Research (collectibles, vintage and rare items)
• and more!

Vendio recently posted an article on their blog providing insight into how to use their different eBay research tools. Read the full blog post here.

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.

Six Consumer Decision Factors When Purchasing

Infopia, an eBay Certified Solutions Providers, recently posted a great article titled, "What Online Shoppers Value in Choosing an Online Retailer", based on consumer information gathered from a Shop.org survey of over 4,000 online consumers age 18 and up. You can read the full post here.

To summarize the article, the top decision factors consumers make when choosing to buy from a retailer or eBay seller are:

1. Price - sales and price discounts are still number one, especially amongst women
2. Free Shipping - consumers, particularly women also valued free shipping highly
3. Everyday Low Prices - consistency in providing a good deal
4. Merchandise Assortment - breadth of selection for additional purchases
5. Coupons and Promotional Discounts - extra incentives encouraging repeat purchases
6. Merchandise Quality - satisfaction guarantees & easy returns

eBay Certified Providers can help eBay sellers position themselves to stand out from the competition and provide the above decision factors in order to increase buyer turnout, sales and repeat purchases through:

• Research
• Consulting
• Marketing & Merchandising
• Customer Relationship Management
• Product Sourcing

Established in 2004, the eBay Certified Provider Program recognizes third party companies excelling at providing the tools or services an eBay seller needs to grow their business and increase efficiency. Contact a Certified Provider today and find out how they can help your ecommerce business.

Research + Education = Successful eBay Selling

"Good Morning America" recently featured an eBay seller turned Trading Assistant making a successful living on eBay. If you watch the GMA video, you will notice one of the eBay seller's secrets to success is to know how much an item is worth on eBay and how likely it is the item will sell before investing more time and effort. To determine the likely success of an item and the average sale price, the seller used Terapeak's market research tool for eBay.

eBay sellers using Terapeak can answer the questions, "What do buyers want?" "How much is a buyer willing to pay for an item?"

Terapeak is an eBay Certified Provider and eBay Market Data Program member offering an easy-to-use, market research tool that provides real-time eBay sales and data analytics. eBay sellers can access two years worth of trending information and 90 days of item specific data across eBay.com, eBay Motors and international eBay sites with Terapeak.

If you are interested in either becoming a Trading Assistant in your area like the seller featured in the story, or perhaps you would like to learn how to get started selling your own items on eBay, we recommend contacting one of our eBay Certified Providers specializing in education and marketing consulting and strategy on eBay. Check out WhatDoISell and The Queen of Auctions for assistance with how to get started selling on eBay or how to take your eBay selling to the next level.

Terapeak, WhatDoISell and The Queen of Auctions are all members of the eBay Certified Provider Program. The eBay Certified Provider Program recognizes third party companies excelling at providing the tools or services an eBay seller needs to grow their business and increase efficiency.

Tips on How to Hide Your Wholesale Supplier from Your Competition

By Chris Malta, CEO and Founder of Worldwide Brands

Wholesale Tip #3

When you are successful selling on eBay in auctions and in eBay Stores, other sellers may try to copy your success by mirroring your listings and eBay Store design and marketing techniques. They may often try to sell your same product line - especially if you specialize in a niche product (the kind that tends to do very well on the Internet). To do this, they will try to find out who are the wholesale suppliers of your products. If you're like most online sellers, you make it easy for competitors to copy your product range without realizing it.

If you use your Wholesaler's Number as the Model Number in your auction listing or eBay Store, you will let your competition copy you easily! For example, if the wholesaler lists the product as Model Number: 12345, you do not want to list 12345 as the Model Number in your eBay auction listing or eBay Store. Your competition need only make a quick online search with that Number to find the source for your products.

A safer technique to prevent information leakage like this is for you to change the Model Number or Product ID in your eBay listing or eBay Store. Make sure the number makes sense to you. Compile a worksheet that allows you to cross reference your number with the one you must use when placing orders on your wholesale supplier. Then display only your number in your eBay auction listing or eBay Store. If Copycats use your retail ID numbers to find your supplier, it will just bring them back to you.

If you sell products in high demand like consumer electronics, where Internet users are likely to search for a product using the model number, then you don't want to employ this technique. You want those users to find your store.

In general, however, the majority of successful eBay sales revolve around product niches, rather than high demand, market saturated products. Using your own product number is very effective for eBay Sellers selling niche products.

This article was written and provided by Chris Malta, CEO and Founder of Worldwide Brands.

Worldwide Brands is an eBay Certified Solutions Provider providing product sourcing information for eBay sellers. They are the publishers of an extensive directory of legitimate, fully-verified ecommerce wholesalers and manufacturers.

Start or Expand Your eBay Business with WhatDoISell

If you are currently selling on eBay or are thinking about getting started on eBay, then you have an opportunity to start or expand your eBay business with step-by-step selling strategies, product sourcing and marketing from WhatDoISell, an eBay Certified Provider and Certified Consultant.

"...online sales are projected to grow at a rate of 11% in 2009. This at a time when many other industries are not growing or even in decline. And a significant portion of these sales were made by independent online sellers just like you. Whether you have a growing business or you're just getting your feet wet selling online, there's no doubt that the future is bright for independent online sellers." - Lisa Suttora, Founder of WhatDoISell.

Successfully selling on eBay requires knowing what strategies & methods work for your product, category, customer and business. WhatDoISell provides training, consultation and 1x1 mentoring to help an eBay seller take their sales to the next level.

The WhatDoISell Online Business Growth Center provides:

• Business Planning & Strategy
• Product Selection
• Product Trends
• Product Sourcing
• Selling Strategies
• Marketing Your Business
• Support, Inspiration, Mentoring and Growth

Click here to learn how ecommerce strategist & eBay Certified Provider, Lisa Suttora, can help you get started with your eBay business or expand your existing eBay sales.

Lisa Suttora, CEO and Founder of WhatDoISell.com, has been helping home based entrepreneurs start, run and expand their businesses since 2002. WhatDoISell is an eBay Certified Services Provider specializing in Product Sourcing, Education, Marketing and Strategy.

6 Steps of the eCommerce Workflow

Every eBay business is unique, but there are steps to the ecommerce selling process common to everyone. We refer to it as the "6 Steps of the eCommerce Workflow". The steps are:

• Source Product
• Manage Inventory
• Manage Listings
• Payments & Shipping
• Acquire & Retain Customers
• Manage Profits

eBay Certified Providers can help eBay sellers with one or all six steps in the ecommerce workflow. Certified Providers also benefit eBay sellers by helping you to:

• Save Time
• Increase Profits
• Reduce Requirement for Hired Help
• Attract More Buyers
• Retain Buyers and Increase Repeat Purchases

Go to http://www.certifiedprovider.ebay.com/ to learn more about the "6 Steps of the eCommerce Workflow" and each of our 24 Certified Providers.

Upcoming eBay Workshop: Turn Your Household Items Into Ca$h on eBay

Workshop: Turn Your Household Items Into Ca$h on eBay

Host: Lynn Dralle, The Queen of Auctions
Date: May 21, 2009
Time: 10AM PST
Location: eBay Workshop Board

Description: New to eBay? Learn how to sell on eBay by turning your household items into cash on eBay. Plus, Lynn will share her tips on how you can find items in your local area to sell on eBay and start generating an extra income.

Please join Lynn Dralle, The Queen of Auctions , an eBay Certified Consultant, Certified Services Provider and published author of the "100 Best Things I've Sold on eBay" book series, as she shares her tips, success and insight for new eBay sellers, part-time sellers and even experienced sellers seeking additional advice.

ChannelAdvisor's Guide to eBay Spring 2009 Changes

It has been about a month since eBay announced changes planned for Spring 2009. Most announced changes will be live on June 15th. eBay did put together a landing page and FAQs to help address questions sellers may have. In addition to eBay educational resources, you may want to check out ChannelAdvisor's download white paper titled, "The Ultimate Guide to eBay's Spring 2009 Changes".

"The Ultimate Guide to eBay's Spring 2009 Changes" is written by ChannelAdvisor CEO, Scot Wingo. Gain an insightful understanding of eBay changes from a third party with an extensive history and knowledge of eBay, eCommerce and retail.

Scot will help sellers understand:

• What changes will eBay be making in June and 2009 overall?
• How will they affect your business?
• How to utilize new Multi-Variation Fixed Price format
• Gain the advantage over your competitors
• eBay’s renewed focus on the secondary market and what that means for you as a retailer and seller
• and more...

ChannelAdvisor is an eBay Certified Solutions Provider helping eBay sellers manage, grow and report on their eBay and multi-channel businesses since 2001.

eBay Certified Provider Spotlight - AS WAS

As Was is a full-service consulting firm helping eBay sellers with their branding, design, strategies, and customer satisfaction (including DSRs). As Was started building custom websites in 1995, and has been working with eBay sellers since early 2001. As Was helps new and veteran eBay sellers at all levels.

The average client of As Was sees a 15% increase in their eBay GMV within a couple of months of finishing a project.

Benefits:

• Personalized eBay strategy consulting
• Increase sales
• Increase DSRs
• Increase profitability
• Unique and completely custom listing, eBay Store, off-eBay and print design
• Establish or strengthen your brand
• Compete effectively against other sellers
• Increase your shopping and buying audience
• Enjoy a long-term relationship with a company dedicated to providing one-on-one help, as long as you need it

Check out As Was for your eBay consulting, strategy and design needs.

Sourcing Inventory for eBay in Light Bulk Quantities from Wholesalers

By Chris Malta, CEO and Founder of Worldwide Brands

Wholesale Tip #2

Light Bulk Wholesale is a phrase I (Chris Malta) coined several years ago, when making deals with wholesalers to supply products at bulk discounts without requiring large quantity investments. Wholesalers operate on volume. The more you buy, the cheaper the price gets. A wholesaler who is willing to ship in "light bulk" quantities is willing to give better price breaks for LOWER quantities. By definition, they will sell in bulk quantities for better price breaks starting at anywhere from $300 to $500 per order.

The term "light bulk" is not generally known to wholesalers, so you can't just call one and ask for this kind of price break using that term. My company uses that term when we work with wholesalers and explain the concept to them. Some wholesalers understand that they will get more business from Internet Entrepreneurs (who don't have the kind of money it takes to buy hundreds or thousands of units of product at a time) that way, and some don't.

Your profits will be slightly better when you stock and ship your own products, versus using drop shipping. Talking a wholesaler into giving you a low cost entry point into buying in bulk can be a turning point for your business. You CAN approach a wholesaler and ask them to do this for you, but it's not easy and you should expect to get a "no" answer most of the time. That's okay; just move on to the next wholesaler and try again.

The most important thing to understand if you want to contact wholesalers and ask them for price breaks at lower quantities is how a wholesaler operates, and what motivates them to give you a deal like this. Wholesale Sales Representatives earn commissions on the sales they make. They get phone calls all day long from people wanting to buy from them. The bigger the account, the more motivated they are to work with the caller. Obviously they're not really motivated to spend time working on an account for one person selling on eBay. They'd much rather spend their valuable time talking to a buyer for Sears or Penney's. They see themselves making more money that way.

When you call a wholesaler and ask for a wholesale account, and try to get them to give you better price breaks at lower quantities, it's very important you sound professional. You want the Sales Rep to think of you as someone who is going to make lots of sales and earn them lots of commission. When you call, use your business name (you do have a business name, right??) and sound professional. No kids screaming in the background, no TV blaring. Say something like "Hi, this is Bill from Online Ventures, LLC. I'm testing some product lines in my online retail business, and would like to talk to you about buying in bulk at smaller quantities, then ramping up with the products that work. Can you work with me on some initial price breaks at smaller quantities?"

They'll ask you a few questions about where you're selling and how much you've sold in the past. Be honest with them. You don't want to tell them one thing, and have them find out something else later. We've already qualified a very large number of Light Bulk Wholesalers in the WorldwideBrands.com database who are willing to work with you right now, but you can find your own if you understand how they work and deal with them professionally.

This article was written and provided by Chris Malta, CEO and Founder of Worldwide Brands.

Worldwide Brands is an eBay Certified Solutions Provider providing product sourcing information for eBay sellers. They are the publishers of an extensive directory of legitimate, fully-verified ecommerce wholesalers and manufacturers.

Chris was formerly a Microsoft-Certified Systems Engineer who has worked for many of the big corporations, designing and building both corporate and ECommerce networks. He's spent many years working in ECommerce and web site design. He is the Founding Partner and CEO of Worldwide Brands, Inc., Product Sourcing Editor for The eBay Radio Show, and a best-selling EBiz Author.

Terapeak's International Research Determines Item Success Across the Globe

Terapeak, an eBay Certified Provider, launched a new feature in their eBay market research tool allowing sellers to easily search and view reports on the success of items across six eBay international sites. You can read the full announcement here.

Terapeak's new international search tool allows an All-Sites Terapeak subscriber to search six eBay sites at once (.com, .ca, .co.uk, .com.au, .de, .fr) and receive comprehensive reports comparing sales from each site. It’s a feature we (Terapeak) feel very excited about, as global sales opportunities continue to open up across the eBay platform.

As an example, Terapeak has conducted a few popular eBay searches to see how sales stack up across the different eBay sites for iPod Nano, Wii and Twilight.

90-day international search for “iPod nano“

You can see results for certain keywords vary from site to site. Look at the discrepancy in average price and sell-through between Australia and Canada. Although eBay.ca returns a reasonably small sample size, price and sell-through on the busier sites are also significantly up from those in Australia — eBay sellers really need to consider item placement and international visibility.

90-day international search for "Wii"

The search term, “Wii” encompasses many different products — from consoles to games to accessories. The sample size for this search is big enough to assume a reasonable level of balance across the board. You may conclude Germany seems like a good place for Wii sellers (highest average price by far, second-highest sell-through), while the UK (lowest prices, lowest sell-through) lags far behind.

90-day international search for "Twilight"

Judging by sell-through rates, there appears to be a higher demand for the Twilight series books in both Australia and France and reasonably consistent pricing (except in France) across the board.

Using eBay market research will help an eBay seller to increase sales through an effective listing strategy.

Terapeak is an eBay Certified Provider and a member of the eBay Market Data Program. Terapeak 5.0 is a 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.

Shipping Solution for eBay Makes Shipping a Breeze!

Don't waste time manually writing shipping address information or even cutting and pasting. Automate your shipping with ShipRush, an eBay Certified Solutions Provider.

ShipRush integrates with eBay and creates shipping labels and postage quickly with the eBay and PayPal shipping address information. Once you ship a package using ShipRush software, your buyer receives an automatic email notifying them of the shipment with the tracking number. The added shipping communication helps increase eBay seller feedback and DSRs!

ShipRush's shipping solution for eBay supports multiple shipping carriers.

Watch ShipRush's video with eBay Seller, Sold By Marriott, as they discuss how ShipRush has helped them to ship faster and increase eBay feedback.