The Pivot Points in Your Online Business (Critical Points Where You Must Make a Change in Your Strategy)

For those living in the U.S. the 4th of July is a long holiday weekend – but for eBay and online sellers July 4th is a “Pivot Point” for your 2010 online sales.

In sports, a pivot point can set an athlete up to make the winning shot or run the distance for a touchdown. In business, “Pivot Points” are critical points where you MUST make a turn in your strategy in order to stay AHEAD of the needs of your online buyers.

I first identified the concept of Pivot Points(tm) in my own business back in 2002.

I realized that there had been several selling opportunities I’d missed because I wasn’t prepared. I started charting these Pivot Points on my business calendar my first year in business so that the following year they didn’t sneak up on me OR even worse, I didn’t miss them completely.

From that point on, JULY 4th was one of the most important Pivot Points in my online sales success. In fact, by acting on that one Pivot Point alone, I more than doubled my holiday sales that following year.

The next Pivot Point for etailers is the change of focus from summer sales to planning for fall and holiday sales.

So even though you’re currently in the middle of summer sales – it’s time to TAKE ACTION on this Pivot Point and shift a part of your attention to prepping for what you’ll sell this fall.

Here are Your Pivot Point Actions
==> The Back-to-School selling season starts July 5th.
==> 69% of holiday shoppers START their holiday shopping in SEPTEMBER.

Pivot Point Action #1: Take a look at what Back-to-School related merchandise (or information) you are selling. The beginning of July is the time to move that merchandise front & center. You have to start advertising this merchandise now. Capture the early bird sales. Don’t wait for the procrastination shoppers. Or you’ll lose a ton of income.

Pivot Point Action #2: What Fall/Holiday merchandise do you CURRENTLY have in your inventory? Start grouping that merchandise together on a spreadsheet so you can see where the gaps in your inventory are and determine what inventory buys you want to make this month. If you wait to order holiday merchandise, your suppliers will be sold out of their hot selling seasonal merchandise by Sept.

Benjamin Franklin, a very successful entrepreneur in his own right once said: “By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.” Taking action at Pivot Points will prepare you to SUCCEED!'

Instead of chasing the seasonal sales, start early with preparation and watch your sales soar while others are playing catch up!

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

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.

eBay PowerSeller Increases Customer Satisfaction with ShipRush

eBay PowerSeller soldbymarriott, has improved customer satisfaction and reduced the amount of time they spend on printing out shipping labels with ShipRush.

"The nice thing about ShipRush is that we ship faster. Before we used ShipRush, we were cutting and pasting addresses and names...took us three times as long." - Jim Marriott, soldbymarriott.

ShipRush is able to integrate with eBay, the seller's database and FedEx for a seamless and easy handling of shipping and buyer notifications.



eBay sellers will find ShipRush can speed up their shipping processes by -

• Print shipping labels with just a click or two
• Auto print packing lists
• Tracking numbers automatically uploaded to Buyer's My eBay
• Tracking numbers automatically uploaded to Seller's My eBay
• Automatic email to the buyer with tracking number

ShipRush is free! Check out ShipRush today.

Founded in 1992, Z-Firm has been making ShipRush since 1998. The ShipRush mission is to bring big-warehouse shipment automation to small businesses. ShipRush is "FedEx Compatible," "UPS Ready," "UPS OnLine Compatible," and DHL Certified.

eBay Workshop June 29th - "How to 'Jump Start' eBay Motors Sales with Parts Compatibility"

Topic: How to 'Jump Start' eBay Motors Sales with Parts Compatibility. A “how-to” workshop with solutions & services for all eBay Motors sellers

Host: Infopia

Date: Tuesday, June 29th

Time: 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. PST (Pacific Standard Time)

Location: eBay Workshop Board

Description: Shifting your business to utilize eBay Parts Compatibility can be an intimidating prospect. This “how-to” workshop presents 'Jump Start' services for Infopia and non-Infopia eBay sellers.

The workshop will also include demonstrations of Infopia’s unique manual fitment functionality, including the ability to map the fitments of Brand Name parts to their generic equivalents. Infopia Fitment products have been designed for ease of management and long-term maintainability.

Topics and demonstration will include:

• One time and on-going EPID Matching to both
• Manufacturer or Brand for any Seller
• Structured fitment data upload for manual fitment
• Use of “similar to” capabilities to match fitments of Brand Name parts to Generic Equivalents
• Creation of new fitment-enabled listings utilizing
• Ad Factories and Custom Schedules
• Using Product Catalogue
• Auto-generation of multiple listings optimized for eBay maximum fitments per listing.

Founded in 1999, Infopia provides (Software as a Service) eCommerce solutions—helping eBay sellers grow their business efficiently and effectively.

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 Leishman - eBay Certified Provider Program

Get to Know Your Business with Transaction Data from New Terapeak for PayPal

Recognizing the need for online sellers to better understand their transactional data, customers, and the effects of marketing and seasonal changes, Terapeak for PayPal was developed by Advanced.

Advanced, (Advanced Ecommerce Research Systems) recently announced in addition to their market research tool for eBay (Terapeak) they now provide analytics and data for PayPal (Terapeak for PayPal).

The new Terapeak for PayPal market research tool analyzes millions of raw PayPal transaction data to provide direct and relevant reports to an ecommerce merchant on their business and PayPal transactions. eBay sellers and ecommerce merchants of all sizes can use Terapeak for PayPal.

“...This new toolset allows sellers to put a microscope over their accounts and gain a thorough understanding of their customers...When used in combination with our Terapeak for eBay research, sellers can further increase the efficiency of their online stores.” - Fred Speckeen, Advanced/Terapeak CEO

Benefits of Terapeak for PayPal
Determine which platforms are most profitable - Compare your sales from eBay and other channels in a simple to read report. Evaluate taxes, net sales, fees, refunds and payments per platform and understand where your buyers are making their purchases.

Review your sales at the category level - Currency reporting, by country - understand which currencies are you receiving, and how much they cost in fees and conversion costs - Evaluate your global business and find opportunities to save money.

Get to know your customer - View sales, payments, average prices and sales growth by gender and target your demographic more specifically.

Marketing and selling strategy, have you made a change? - Try new marketing opportunities or change selling strategies and view the impact to your business as-it-happens for each platform. Evaluate the results of your marketing and strategy changes on sales instantly.

Performance and Benchmarking goal setting - Set a goal for sales, payments, refunds, and other metrics to track your company's progress. Determine the amount of sales, payments, fees, refunds, average price or taxes you wish to target, and receive to-the-minute updates on where you are en route to goals.

Check out Terapeak for PayPal now!

Terapeak for PayPal is an additional market research tool to Terapeak for eBay. If you are already subscribed to Terapeak for eBay and would like to add Terapeak for PayPal, you will need to sign-up for Terapeak for PayPal here.

Terapeak for PayPal has a “lite” version you can try for free.

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.

eBay Certified Provider, Auctiva, Now Supports eBay Motors Parts Compatibility

eBay Certified Provider, Auctiva, Now Supports eBay Motors Parts Compatibility

Benefitting Auctiva eBay Motors Sellers

Parts Compatibility for eBay Motors is a more efficient way for sellers to list vehicle parts and accessories fitting many makes and models. Sellers no longer have to create and manage multiple listings of the same item in order to include the names of all compatible vehicles in the listing title for search exposure.

Instead, sellers can now create one listing describing a single part and add an extensive list of compatible vehicles in the new Compatibility tab eBay added in the listing description. The information included in the Compatibility tab will be searchable.

Listing with parts compatibility also helps buyers find parts that fit their vehicles more easily, because buyers will see more precise search results containing exact parts for their specific vehicle.

Auctiva, an eBay Certified Provider, now fully supports the new eBay Motors Parts Compatibility feature. eBay sellers can quickly create listings with parts compatibility right from Auctiva’s easy One-Page Lister tool. Users can find and select their part using eBay's catalog and compatibility data, or enter the information manually. Read more about Auctiva’s parts compatibility feature in Auctiva's Help section.

Getting the right fit
Parts compatibility listings will allow sellers to focus on describing the item they have for sale and not all the vehicles these parts are compatible with. Before parts compatibility, sellers would often create several listings for one product, knowing that buyers expected to see which vehicles these parts were compatible with in a listing's title.

"You can only fit so much into a title. You can't fit 20 different cars," - explains Mohan Patt, eBay Motors Senior Manager of Product Development. "Our sellers are very creative, so they would create 10 different listings for the same product."

Now sellers can create just one listing, pay one listing fee, focus on the part itself in their title and description, and add the compatibility information from eBay’s catalog or manually enter it. Sellers who use parts compatibility will also get a boost in Best Match.

"We are delighted to provide Auctiva sellers the ability to create these listings fully integrated with all of Auctiva tools. We strive to be the listing tool of choice for eBay sellers, and delivering parts compatibility listing capability is an important part of fulfilling that objective." – said Tony Maxey, Auctiva Senior Product Manager.

More details on the updates included in this latest release are available in this Auctiva Community Forum post.

Auctiva is an eBay Certified Solutions Provider offering listing management solutions and features for beginner -to mid-to high-volume eBay sellers.

Is eBay Shopping More Fun with ZippyQuiz?

eBay shopping can be more fun, engaging and exciting for eBay buyers when they purchase from a seller using ZippyQuiz. New to the Open eBay App center is ZippyQuiz by MyStoreCredit.

ZippyQuiz brings a seller’s eBay listings to life with the use of fun quizzes in the listing to engage the buyer, plus buyers have an opportunity to earn cashback when they purchase from you.

An eBay buyer will take a fun ZippyQuiz and if they buy within the time you set (say 15 minutes after taking the quiz) they win cash-back after they complete purchase. You choose the amount of cash-back reward for right and wrong answers. Only buyers who BUY earn cashback. The quiz is fun and prompts buyers to make the purchase now in order to receive cashback.

How does ZippyQuiz work? Sign-up and either create your own quiz or use a quiz in their library. ZippyQuiz will automatically add a few lines of HTML code to your listings (or you can paste the HTML into your own template). The HTML code will show an interactive, fun trivia type quiz. Your buyer takes the quiz and finds out the cashback reward they will earn if they make a purchase from you.

eBay sellers can try out ZippyQuiz for free!

Video of Brian Lawe, CEO of MyStoreCredit, discussing new ZippyQuiz in the Open eBay App Center.

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

New "Smart Lister" from inkFrog Combines an eBay Listing Tool with Research from Terapeak

Do you want to create eBay listings quickly while getting the research you need at the same time?

Then check out inkFrog’s new “Smart Lister” tool for eBay. Smart Lister combines inkFrog’s eBay listing tool technology with built in research data from Terapeak. The Smart Lister can provide the research a seller needs while they create their listing to determine the best listing strategy and pricing of the item.

“Let our Smart Lister optimize your listing to ensure it is listed with the optimal keywords, at the correct price point, duration, and time. Listing management is no longer just about templates and images. It's about using smart technology to ensure your items are found in searches and priced correctly.” – Greg Sisung, President of inkFrog

Smart Lister Features:

• Smart Category Suggestion (find the best category for your item)
• Title Optimizer (maximize the keywords in each item title)
• Prime Words (learn what the top keywords are for each eBay category)
• Takeoff Calculator (find the best date, time and duration to set your listing at for maximum exposure and profit)
• Elite Examples (research similar sold items and learn from your competitors)
• List to eBay.com, eBay.ca, eBay.co.uk, eBay.au, eBay.de and more
• Add an unlimited number of images to your eBay listings
• Choose a professional inkFrog template or use your own
• And more…

“The Smart Lister was created to empower you to sell more effectively and increase your sales. Our goal is to ensure inkFrog sellers are the most effective sellers online.” – Sisung

inkFrog’s Smart Lister is compatible and utilizes their other eBay centric offerings such as the prefilled profiles, image hosting and design templates.

Check out inkFrog’s Smart Lister today! Try it free!

Founded in 1999, inkFrog, inc. is an eBay Certified Solutions Provider that helps save online sellers time, money, and sanity through inventory management, eBay listing tools, image hosting, and more.

Vendio Wins 2010 eBay Star Developer Award

Vendio, an eBay Certified Provider, won a 2010 eBay Star Developer award for "Rapid Evolution" at eBay's 2010 Developers Conference in San Jose, CA June 9th.

The Star Developer Awards are presented annually to recognize the talent and solutions of members of the eBay Developers Program. The eBay Developers Program, established in 2000, is a community of more than 112,000 developers who utilize the program’s standards-based, easy-to-use development platform. These third-party developers have access to the eBay marketplace, enabling them to seamlessly integrate their ideas and e-commerce tools.

“eBay’s developer community continues to create innovative applications on the eBay platform that help improve the experience for buyers and margins for sellers, while driving profitability for themselves,” said Sri Shivananda, senior director of eBay’s developer program. “The eBay Star Developer Award winners have built powerful applications that bring new ways of doing business to the eBay marketplace.”

Vendio earned the eBay Star Developer Award of "Rapid Evolution" (boosting seller efficiency in a dynamic marketplace) for their Vendio Reviser tool.

Vendio Reviser was developed as a scalable solution enabling eBay sellers to update thousands of live listings in order to comply with eBay’s selling policies or make a change to their selling strategy.

“We are very proud to receive our third Star Developer Award, especially in the Rapid Evolution category,” said Mike Effle, COO of Vendio. “It shows that not only are we an established eCommerce software provider helping merchants sell more productively for over 10 years, but that we can also adapt quickly to meet our customers’ needs. As one of eBay’s first development partners, this award is especially meaningful because it reinforces our continued commitment to innovation and our customers.”

To learn more or sign-up today, please visit: http://www.vendio.com/ecommerce/reviser

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.

How to Sell on eBay: The Things We Wear

How to Sell on eBay: The Things We Wear

Clothing, Shoes & Accessories is one of the top-selling categories on eBay.

If you're like most people, you have clothes in your closet you no longer wear. And it's a good bet there's at least one item lurking in there that still has the tags on it. There's nothing wrong with that. We've all made purchases that we've later had second thoughts about, or bought a garment, stored it away and forgotten about it.

But these pieces don't need to be forgotten forever—especially with millions of potential buyers online who would be happy to give them a new home. So why not try selling them on eBay? We'll help by giving you the background necessary should you decide to try your hand at Clothing, Shoes & Accessories.

You may even venture into your own children's closet, your spouse's or your roommate's—with their permission, of course—to beef up your inventory. As long as you ask them first, you'll have little to lose and plenty to gain.

Hot sellers
Over the years, eBay has become a magnet for bargain seekers of name-brand merchandise, both new and used. So it seems natural the Clothing, Shoes & Accessories category has emerged as one of eBay’s most popular categories.

In recognition of this, eBay recently launched the Fashion site, giving all listings in the category a catalog-style interface.

Almost any type of clothing and accessories will sell on eBay but—as with any category—there are those that will sell better than others.

Plus-size items and petites are also popular online because they can quickly sell out at brick-and-mortar shops, writes Michelle Angell, an eBay seller of more than 10 years and a writer for Examiner.com. And if you have designer threads you no longer use, definitely put these up on eBay.

"Buyers are looking for bargains, and eBay can be a gold mine for those wanting to look fashionable without paying department-store prices," Angell notes.

However, be sure the brand-name items you are offering are genuine. Regardless of the item you sell, though, condition is a major factor.

Conditional love
Just like with a brick-and-mortar shop, buyers are going to pick the pieces that look the best. That means your description and photos are very important. Shoppers don't have the option of grabbing items off the shelf to inspect them or try them on, so you need to be their eyes and hands to keep buyers happy and ensure smooth transactions.

It's important to tell buyers if an item is new (with or without tags), or gently used, and give them plenty of photos so they know the exact condition and details of the piece. Photograph both the front and back of an item, and zoom in on any intricate detailing to ensure buyers see items in their truest form. And be sure to include shots of any imperfections an item may have.

Dazzling descriptions
Titles are prime real estate in the online selling world. You want to use accurate keywords that will tell buyers what you're offering at a glance. That means you not only need to tell them what you're selling, but also the size and material items are made of, right away. And if you can fit it, include the condition as well so buyers know the important details at a glance.

Once you get them to click on your listing, it's time to tell shoppers everything you can about your piece. Again, size is very important to mention. But remember that sizes aren't universal. One brand's size 8 may be another brand's size 10, so grab the measuring tape. It's time to tell buyers the exact measurements. For tops you'll want to note the sleeve length, chest measurement and the full length of the piece. For bottoms, be sure to measure the waist and the inseam. You'll want to provide measurements for accessories as well. How big is that handbag, belt buckle, shoe charm or hair clip?

Shoppers will thank you for this information, because they'll know if an item is likely to fit or not, and you'll do yourself a favor by reducing the likelihood of a return.

Know your market
As with any category, it pays to do some advance legwork before jumping in with both feet. Subscribing to research services such as Terapeak can give an eBay seller valuable insight into keywords, average selling prices and optimum days and times for ending listings, as well as clue them into the most profitable niches.

However, much of this knowledge can be gleaned for free—with only the investment of time—by studying closed and active listings on eBay.

Multi-variations
If you have a lot of the same items in different sizes or colors, you could try creating multi-variation listings. This can be a big money and time saver since you only create one listing for these items instead of multiple. Auctiva recently began supporting eBay’s multi-variation listings format, saving eBay sellers time and money.

Blog post provided by Auctiva Education. Read full blog post here.

Auctiva is an eBay Certified Solutions Provider offering listing management solutions and features for beginner -to mid-to high-volume eBay sellers.

Make the Most Out of Your "About Me" Page on eBay

Many eBay sellers may not be aware there is an "About Me" page/feature available for each account to give other eBayers more information on a seller's business, what service they can expect from them and more. Fewer sellers actually take advantage of the additional marketing opportunities an About Me page on eBay provides. Building a successful eBay profile is about using all the tools eBay makes available. If you’re not using your About me page, you’re missing a trick.

What is an About Me page?
An About Me page is a page for you to tell other eBayers about yourself, your business and the things you sell. You can make and edit your About Me page via My eBay. You don’t need any special skills, but if you have some coding or design experience, so much the better. Unusual for eBay, you can have a link on your About Me page to your personal website or blog. Be careful. You are not allowed to link to commercial websites, promote off-eBay sales or link to items prohibited on eBay. You are also not allowed to link to a search engine or site that aggregates the eBay sales of multiple sellers. eBay has a full list of what is allowed and what is not allowed on the About Me policy page.

About Me Page Benefits
There are two significant benefits to building an About Me Page. The first is SEO (search engine optimization). The vast majority of buyers will come to you via eBay’s search but some will find you via search engines such as Google. It’s well worth remembering anything you can do to attract more buyers from search engines is good news for the bottom line. You can also link to your About Me Page from other sites as you like, to improve the ranking of your About Me page in Google.

The second benefit is with branding. Ensuring everything you do looks good and is clearly identifiable as your business is vital when it comes to attracting repeat buyers, inspiring trust and providing a first class buying experience. Frooition can help you with design and implementation of your About Me page and make sure it looks great!

Five things to include in your About Me page:
The good news for sellers is an About Me page is very flexible and can easily be personalized using HTML. eBay can help you build a basic About Me page but to get the full impact, pull out all the stops and make it a fully integrated part of your eBay brand.

1. Auto-generated components: eBay allows you to display your current sales, recent Feedback and even recent bids. So use the auto-generated elements to populate your About Me page easily.
2. Pictures: You can include images and photos in your About Me page to bring it to life. You can host these images yourself, or eBay will do it for you.
3. Words: To get the full SEO benefit of your About Me page make sure you have some text talking about your sales. Cram the text full of relevant keywords that will aid your find ability on Google.
4. Video: You can easily embed a video (hosted on YouTube, for instance) using HTML and that is certain to attract attention. It could be a showcase of your stock, a tour around your business or just you talking to camera about your business. It’s surprisingly easy to make a video, even with your digital camera.
5. Your philosophy: In your item listings and also other eBay pages, you’ll talk about what you’re selling and how people pay and get a refund. An About Me Page offers the chance to be a bit less formal and more personal. Talk about why you got into eBay selling, spin a yarn about why you do it and how you like to trade.

How long will an About Me Page take?
Not long. If you’re clever and reuse content like pictures and text you already have elsewhere, you could be up and running in a matter of minutes. If you want something more professional, it will take longer.

The good news about your About Me page is that it’s a one-off job. There’s no need to constantly tweak and tinker: once it’s up and running you can just leave it be. Of course, if you change your brand or want to make changes, you can then easily update your About Me page to reflect the changes.

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.