Smart Moves to Make This Summer to Put the Sizzle in Your Sales

Selling successfully on eBay means paying attention to the change in seasons, the change in what your customers are buying and making the right changes in your business at the right time to ride the wave of momentum towards future fortune.

In short, it’s all about timing.

When many people think about summer, the word vacation comes to mind. But if you’re an online entrepreneur, don’t plan on taking the entire summer off! The summer is a golden opportunity for you to make some smart moves that will set you up to make more profits the rest of the year.

Snap up the sumptuous samplings of available inventory. If you sell unique one of a kind items online, the summer is your oyster. Yard sales abound, flea markets are in full swing, and thrift stores are marking down their inventory. In fact some of my clients bring in a team during the summer, just to help them scour the city yard sales, estate sales and thrift stores several times a week. They do 60% of their product sourcing from May – Sept. With a team help them, they can cover 10 times the territory that they could cover on their own.

With the sunny summer weather comes the desire to clean out the house and have a yard sale. This makes for a product sourcing cornucopia.

Contact suppliers for sizzling hot deals. End of season merchandise, pre-season specials, you name it! Now’s the time to call and ask your supplier what summer deals they have available. Or take a trip and do some local product sourcing. Heading to hot Atlanta? Visit the AmericasMart merchandise mart while you’re there. Check with your accountant about writing off a part of the trip as a business expense.

Last call for holiday importing. Been thinking about importing new merchandise for the holidays? Better get the show on the road – because if you wait past mid-July it will be too late to get it in time for the holiday selling season. Use eBay market research to determine hot selling items and seasonal trends.

Retail resale is real swell during the summer. Lego sets at 90% off. Wet suits discounted 60%. Pre-back-to-school sales preview what will be the hot holiday products. It’s all there waiting for you at your local retail store. By July 5th, brick and mortar stores will be transitioning to their back-to-school inventory. You can pick up some GREAT deals in you local store and bring that inventory online for your global customer base.

Stock up now for the holiday selling season. Even though you’re wearing a bathing suit and sitting by the lake, your need to spend some time thinking, planning and sourcing for the holiday season. If you’ve been tracking the trends for 2010 in your category, you should already have an idea of what will be hot in your category for Christmas. And for some categories, especially the toy category, NOW is the time to head to your local retail store and stock up on those hot sellers you can’t get from a wholesaler.

Use eBay market research to determine hot selling items and seasonal trends.

Clean sweep your product line. Throw open the windows, let the sun shine in and dig in to those boxes of inventory that need to be listed and sold!

Sales Happen When Preparation Meets Opportunity

There’s a Chinese Proverb that says “Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.”

The same is true of your sales. If you use the dog days of summer like one smart puppy and do a little every day to get ahead of your competition. Come fall, when everyone wakes up out of the summer haze realizing that the biggest selling season of the year is right in front of them, and they’re not prepared… you’ll be sitting in your nice clean office, watching your products sell, calm and relaxed and excited about your sales figures this year…

This article has been condensed. Read the full article here.

Since 2004, Lisa Suttora of WhatDoISell.com has provided thousands of online sellers with the skills, knowledge and support they need to build a unique, thriving business on eBay.

Update and Edit Your eBay Listings Quickly with Froo! Bulk Revision

No matter how many eBay listings a seller has live on the site or stored, making revisions to the item(s) can be a painstaking task. With Froo! Bulk Revision, eBay sellers can easily and in bulk, change many elements of their eBay listings to attract even more buyers and close the sale.

Froo! Bulk Revision (by Frooition) is an easy to use application allowing eBay sellers to make changes to their live listings in bulk. Sellers can change item titles, descriptions, increase and decrease prices and more!

Change any of the following features within your active and stored eBay listings/inventory:

Find & Replace eBay Item Titles
If an eBay seller needs to change their item titles in bulk (active and stored listings), they can use Froo!’s find and replace title tool. Easily update item titles for enhanced search and strategy.

Find, Replace and Add to eBay Item Descriptions
eBay sellers can search and replace single words or full paragraphs in an eBay item description (active & stored listings) in a fluid manner to keep the listing information current and in adherence to changing eBay policies as needed.

In addition to editing current item descriptions, a seller can also use Froo! Bulk Revision to add important information to the bottom of an eBay item description.

Returns Policy
Update your returns policies on all eBay listings at once! Write a new policy, select the relevant listings and apply the changes in bulk. An especially useful feature if a supplier has changed their shipping or returns policy, thereby affecting the seller.

Start Price
Stay on top of the competition and maintain a competitive edge on eBay by adjusting the starting price on eBay Auctions or modify the selling price on Fixed Price items (within eBay guidelines).
eBay sellers can increase or decrease the Buy It Now price on eBay listings either by setting it to a certain amount, altering by a percentage or adding/subtracting a set amount from many prices in bulk!

Froo! Bulk Revision tool can edit more aspects of an eBay listing. To check out the Froo! Bulk Revision tool and learn more, go to the eBay App Store. A free trial is available.

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.

Cloud Conversion on eBay Radio - How to Effectively Manage Your Customers and Increase Sales

Listen on eBay Radio as Cloud Conversion gives detail on their CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution for eBay sellers and ecommerce merchants.

To really gain an advantage and increase customer satisfaction (DSRs and Feedback) eBay sellers should consider investing in a CRM tool.

eCommSource by Cloud Conversion, is a full bodied CRM solution integrating eBay My Messages and Ask Seller a Question direct into the Salesforce platform for easy handling of messages and creating reports on top buyers, purchasing behavior and more.

Benefits of eCommSource:

• Manage buyers and all communication in one place
• Improve customer service with faster response time
• Increase customer retention
• Send coupons and incentives to specific buyer segments
• Analyze buyer activity by product to help forecast sales, hot products and sourcing
• and more...

Learn more about eCommSource by Cloud Conversion.

Try a Free 30-Day Trial to eCommSource

Best Practices for Selling on eBay by Shopster

Article from the Shopster Blog

Best Practices for Selling on eBay

Whether you are just starting your eBusiness and are new to using drop shippers to sell on eBay, or if you are an old hand at selling online; test out the following tips and watch your sales sky-rocket!

Research

Before you list a product, confirm what other products have sold for. Search completed listings and Terapeak (eBay marketplace research solution) for pricing and other eBay info to increase your sales success.

Pricing

Spend some time learning pricing strategies. The bottom line with pricing is you need to create buzz around your item/listing. You need to price the item low enough to get people excited about what you’re selling, but high enough you are not undercutting your profits. Looking at completed auctions (and Terapeak) for historical pricing data prior to setting your opening bid is a savvy way to figure out your starting bid price.

Selling Formats

eBay has many different selling formats. Fixed price listings, auction style, etc. Learn about them, learn the pros and cons of each and then make a decision on which format works best for your niche. If in doubt, experiment and see what works best for you.

Merchandise your item

When building your eBay listing make sure you have created an eye-catching title. Have an effective and well-written product description and a clear photo of your product. Put yourself in a buyer’s shoes - buyers click and purchase items that grab their attention, so it’s important to spend the time and showcase your product to the best of your abilities!

Customer Service

The key to having a successful eBay business is customer service. Make yourself available to answer customer questions and queries. Good customer service will help you close sales and encourage repeat business. Don’t forget to ask for feedback either. Learn how you can better service your customers next time around – they’ll appreciate the thought and be more likely to buy again from you.

Shopster is an eBay Certified Solutions Provider providing additional product and inventory for eBay sellers through drop shipping. Shopster has customers in 22 countries and provides full service drop shipping to both the United States and Canada.

Wondering What (or What Else) to Sell on eBay?

Blog Post by Lisa Suttora from Auctiva Education

Wondering What (or What Else) to Sell on eBay?

How to activate your product sourcing radar

Are you stuck in a product line rut? Are you selling the same things over and over again, but seeing little growth or expansion in your business? Are your product offerings stale and ho-hum?

Perhaps it's time to inject some life back into your business! After all, there are thousands of new products coming into the marketplace each year, yet all too often people find themselves at a loss for how to expand their business.

And without having the products buyers want, all the marketing, selling strategies and customer service in the world won't sell items people aren't interested in. Without enough inventory to sell, you won't see the revenue growth you desire.

So how do you figure out what to sell, or what else to sell?

1. Understand your customer first; then look at what they want to buy

When you understand who your customer is, answering the question of what to sell, or what else to sell, becomes much easier. Unfortunately, many sellers see their customers as "buyers" rather than people who have a reason behind every purchase they make. Taking the time to know your customer will go a long way in helping you figure out what else to sell.

Here are some questions to ask that will help you with that process:

• Who are your customers?
• What are their wants?
• What are their needs?
• What else are they buying?
• Where else do they shop?
• What are the top products they purchased from you and others last year?

For example, are your customers moms who are snapping up everything they can for their newborns? What are their favorite brands? What colors do they like? What new products are they reading about in parenting magazines? What are they talking about? It's the answers to these questions that will help you decide what to sell next.

Keep in mind that these questions apply to every market! Whether you sell baby products or bongos, you need to know who your customers are.

2. Live in the world your buyers live in
Read what they're reading; hang out where they hang out online. Can you name the top consumer publications in your industry? Online or offline, your customers read magazines, Web sites and blogs on a daily basis. Are you there, too? This is where shoppers are getting ideas about products to buy next. Can you list the top blogs or discussion groups that cover your niche market? That's where your customers are talking about their problems, wants and needs, and where they're discussing the latest gadgets and gizmos they want to buy. A client of mine who sells in the boating niche gets 80 percent of his business and his ideas for products to sell by participating in a top recreational boating Yahoo group.

3. What products are they searching for?
As online retailers, we live in a search-driven world. Fortunately, the answer to what products your customers are searching for can be found for free, and is as close as the Google Keywords Tool. Do a search using Broad Match and Phrase Match for your primary keywords and watch as hundreds of related keywords come up. Products you have never thought about selling will suddenly be displayed right before your eyes!

You can also leverage the marketplaces. Spend some time looking on eBay when you're in the product sourcing mindset and you'll find yourself with more ideas for products to sell than time to sell them!

4. Make it your business to be on top of industry trends
Staying on top of industry trends is a fun and exciting process and will infuse your business with ideas for products to sell. Unfortunately, it's one that I find e-tailers often neglect. Do you know about the latest and greatest new products in your market? Are you on top of what's new before your customer is? Do you spend time each week reading industry publications and consumer magazines, and talking to your suppliers about what's hot? Do you attend industry trade shows?

It's in these places that you'll get a plethora of ideas or products to sell and find out what's destined to be the next hot product!

5. Listen to your customers
How often have you received an e-mail from your customer asking if you carry a particular product? Many people might just say, "No, sorry, we don't carry that," and move on. But paying attention to what customers are asking for can be a clue into what you should carry next. WhatDoISell member and eBay seller E.J. Bantz gets some of his best product ideas from his customers.

"They often tell me what they want to buy," he says. "It's my job to then go and source it for them."

6. Get insights from Google Insights
One of my favorite tools for figuring out what to sell next is Terapeak. Terapeak's trending module will lead you to many different opportunities for new products to sell on eBay.

7. Test, test, test!
Before you invest your inventory capital in unproven products, you'll want to test-market new inventory in small quantities. This will allow you to quickly distinguish the winners from the losers. A lot of people source products seasonally. But product sourcing isn't something you can do once a month.

One of the most important steps to being in the Product Sourcing Mindset is to have at least 10 new products in the pipeline at any given time. What you focus on expands, and being in the mindset will ensure you'll have a constant stream of new products flowing into your business.

This blog post has been condensed. Click here to read the full article.

What To Do if eBay Sales Are Down

Blog post by Debbie Levitt, CEO of As Was

What To Do if eBay Sales Are Down

A client called today saying his April eBay sales were down. I said how we fix this depends on the answer to this question: Are your items getting lots of hits? The answer changes my advice.

If your items are not getting a decent amount of hits, then one (or both) of two things are going on:

• Demand may be down. Maybe your item is seasonal. Maybe the newest hottest one just came out, and people really want that. What to do about this: Not much. You can't make people want an item they don't want. I hear this all the time from people who buy liquidation stock, and find out that people kinda don't want what they happened to buy. That's not a blanket statement; plenty of liquidation stock is VERY successful on eBay. My point is that you can't make people want an item they do not want.

• Something is wrong with your listing strategy that is keeping people who want your item from finding yours. This can range from strategy mistakes you might be making to issues with how eBay sorts you in search results. What to do about this: Check your Seller Dashboard. Check what may be holding you back, and fix that. We'll cover more of that in another post. But these should be things you CAN change.

If your items are getting a decent amount of hits, but not really getting sales, that tends to mean that people want your item but for some reason don't want YOURS from you. Reasons might include:

• Something about your item is not what people expected. For example, I've been searching laptop batteries lately. Most of the items in search results are not clear about the mAh rating for the batteries. So I am hitting a LOT of items, but I am leaving when I realise that they are half the power of my existing "standard" battery. I'd like something the same power or a more extended life. What to do about this: Build more info into your title. You can also build into into item specifics and the subtitle. In my case, if someone had shown the mAh in the title or subtitle, I wouldn't have bothered looking at low-powered batteries.

• Something about your listing is turning them off. Not enough pictures, not good/focused pictures. Unclear policies or too many policies that people don't want to read. Fear of what's hidden in the fine print. What to do about this: You can fix this. Clean up your listings. Take better pictures. Make sure your pics tell the story of what this is and the condition it's in. Revise your policies to be more organised, clearer, and in an order that makes sense to eBay shoppers (shipping first). Not everybody who has a question will ask it. Some will just hit their back button. And even if they ask a question, while they wait for your answer, they might hit the back button, and shop your competitors.

• Your listing design and organisation could be turning people off. Some listings look very unprofessional... clip art, lots of wacky font colours, everything centred, and Comic Sans can make people think you're a small nobody. What to do about this: Revise your listing. Create a template that is organised. Don't try to design your text. Let your info be info. Let your design be design. If you have no design, still let your info be info, and don't try to design it. Make info easy to read and professional-looking.

And as always, hire a pro if you could use more help! :)

This is where we start when looking at why people are having issues with eBay sales. It starts by knowing if you're getting hits, so make sure you are using a (hidden) counter.

Founded in 1995, As Was is a full-service consulting firm specializing in branding, design, sales and marketing strategies, operations management, and training. As Was is an eBay Certified Service Provider and has been working with eBay sellers since 2001.