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bluepennylady
(member)
08/02/06 02:44 PM
eBay Store Fee Hikes new  

Hi all,

I was wondering who all has spoke with eBay business consultants concerning how reduce the impact of the fee hikes on your eBay Store? Or if you have not spoke with them, was wondering what they had to say.

Several other sellers, whom I know personally, have been sharing information the consultants supplied to them. Some of the advice is quite helpful.

A whole host of AW2K users frequent the boards every single day. Considering the fee hikes are rapidly approaching, perhaps we all could be sharing information as well.

Just a thought.

Judy/blue



bluepennylady
(member)
08/23/06 06:41 AM
Re: eBay Store Fee Hikes new [re: bluepennylady]  

Good Morning,

Has anyone scheduled or had an eBay Seller's Outreach consulting call yet? Several of my other seller friends have been emailing me even this morning with results of their conversations. The results have been very positive and nothing too hard to implement.

Judy/blue



AquilaStamps
(newbie)
08/23/06 09:38 AM
Re: eBay Store Fee Hikes [re: bluepennylady]  

Hey Judy:
I've got one scheduled for this Friday. I figured what the heck - it's free and it may be a worthwhile conversation. Anytime something is free from eBay has to be an event. I thought that they may very well have some ideas that I haven't thought out and their input may give me something to go on in the future. I'll fill ya in after the call.

Garry



bluepennylady
(member)
08/23/06 09:51 AM
Re: eBay Store Fee Hikes new [re: AquilaStamps]  

Garry,

YEAH!! I am glad. I just had my appointment with them. Very informative. Some of the things I was already doing. Some things I had forgotten about or stopped doing. Some things, well, I just flat out didn't realize what they were

You be sure and let us all know. I'll gather up my notes and post the information they gave me.

Judy/blue



AquilaStamps
(newbie)
08/23/06 10:02 AM
Re: eBay Store Fee Hikes new [re: bluepennylady]  

Judy:
Great! Sounds as if your call went well. I'll look forward to your notes and I'll keep notes also and post them. I'm sure they can come up with some ideas that will be useable.

Garry



bluepennylady
(member)
08/23/06 10:43 AM
Re: eBay Store Fee Hikes new [re: AquilaStamps]  

Hi,

Here is some of the information that I gleaned from the conversation. I am quite sure that some of the information may be old news to us. But there are new AW2K users that may need it. So I am pasting in the entire thing. Hold on to your hats. Looks like a short novel!

The gentleman I spoke with was Mark. Very nice. Some of this you may very well know. Some of it I knew but had simply forgotten :o)



First he talked about the Ebay store display settings. There are only 2 display themes that are searchable on the Internet. It is the last 2 themes on the very bottom of Display Settings, Store themes. Your description of your store has to appear in the store header in order for your store to be Internet searchable. I had changed my store display to another theme that was not searchable several months ago for seminar and had not changed it back. And my Store Referral credits and search hits have dropped to nothing. So I changed my Store theme back again. You have to use Classic Top or Classic Left themes in order for the Store description to appear in the upper portion. According to the Store traffic reports, Internet hits have doubled over the past week. I don't know if it is a concidence or not.



He mentioned the Store referral credit by adding links. Which I do that anyway. But I am going to edit my AW2K email templates and change the order of the links around. Primarily so they are more prominent. And he recommended sending people to my website and having them enter my eBay store from my website. Which if they buy anything qualifies for Store Referral credit. I do send people to our website but I will become more aggressive.



I already had enabled my RSS feeds but he had me export my listing files each day as well. That is in Manage My Store | Listing feeds | Make a file of your Store Inventory Available" As well as enabling the RSS feeds.



He suggested that I add the Power Seller logo onto my Auction listing template. I had never done that before and still need to edit my Auction listing templates in AW2000. I have not got that done yet.



He also strongly recommended to use the Email marketing. It costs .01 for every email over 100. You are limited to 100 emails per month. So I did send out an email campaign. I use Constant Contact as well as I have my own email program for sending emails. But I used the Ebay campaign anyway. Only once a month can't hurt. I do know that when I send out emails to my buyers they often email back telling me they will keep watch on my listings.



He talked about using the Store promotional flyers and sending those in packages. I send Thank you cards now with just about the same information. Which he said was a good idea that I did that.



He also talked about Auction title lines. That one I know I have some holes in as I have new staff. I have a new girl helping with the proofing. She has missed some fairly bad Auction Title lines. He said to be sure and use all 55 characters. Don't use words such as LOOK or WOW. Not searchable terms. Look at the description for words that could be searchable.



A couple of things that I learned at the Ebay live seminars was about Natural or Organic search results. Don't write descriptions in paragraphs but rather as lists. Each point should have a bullet in front of it. The first line of the Auction description should be the Auction Title line and that line should be bold. The robots and crawlers see bulleted lists as revelant content and will crawl down farther in your description pushing your Auction higher in Internet searches. I have been slowly editing all older descriptions. All new descriptions are being written with bulleted list form. I can honestly say I think that has helped immensely. It is much easier to read.



They also highly suggested writing a Review but more importantly a Guide. Especially for something I am selling. I have written one guide for the Cordura bags I have for auction. I'll see if it helps at all.



They also encouraged me to write a blog at eBay. You and I both know that Blogs are highly searchable. I just don't have time to write all this stuff up :o) But I am going to do an eBay blog as well as the one at blogspot. Anything to help sales.



Mark also talked about the way that I sell product. Which Dale & I had already started moving product around. Instead of offering single drill bits at $1.99 each, group items together. Or offer bulk case goods. Or make up sets. For instance, right now I have a Pet supply to liquidate. So instead of selling the dog collars and leashes separately, I'll make up a set of matching collar and leash. I use to sell everything separately in order to allow the buyer a choice of what they wanted. That will no longer be an option, at least for me anyway. Mark highly suggested bundling, as e-Auctioneer put it, or grouping product together for complete ensembles. We were moving in the case or pallet groupings anyway.



Anyway, now that I have written you a novel. I did sign up for the Affiliate program too. I have added eBay banners on my website. They are suppose to work. We'll see. I know the linkshare banners work. Oh yes, they highly recommended that I use the Traffic reports, at least the basic free version. So I re-did that again over a month ago. Very interesting statistics. Most are similar to O-Tracker but more information is available.



Judy





bluepennylady
(enthusiast)
09/28/06 04:47 AM
Re: eBay Store Fee Hikes new [re: bluepennylady]  

Hi,

To keep everyone up to speed with Seller's Outreach consulting. I have discovered the information supplied by the Consultants has been very helpful.

Got my AW2K listing template edited and added the Power Seller logo. I have had comments from buyers. So I know they are looking at it.

Wrote a guide. That little dude has been read over 200 times in about 3 weeks. Gee whiz, I am surprised.

Changing my Store header back to a searchable header has definitely helped. I am going to edit the description text again to include terms more likely used in a search.

Although, I have printed out all my AW2K email templates and made all the changes in writing, I have not yet edited all of them. I will do that this next week.

Bundling or grouping product together has helped immensely. We bundled into small groups some Beanie Babies. They finally sold, Yeah!! And Garry gave me a good idea about the cute little collector tins I had. So my staff has been working on that idea. None have sold yet but we have had lots of inquiries. That tells me the direction is right.

According to my pair.com reports and Traffic reports on eBay, Hits through my website are steadily increasing. I changed the signature lines in Outlook Express for my staff. I plan on re-arranging the links one more time to see if the hits increase again. I know my Store referral credits doubled this past month.

I did use the email campaign. I did not have 1 single response from a buyer. That does not mean they didn't read the email or look at my auctions. But no one responded back to the email. When I use Constant Contact, I can see the click throughs, how many people read or trash. Who blocks the emails. And the buyers respond back to me personally. I will try it again to see if I get any response. It can't hurt to keep trying.

I will put together my notes from the 2nd Seller's outreach call I received on Monday of this week and post it.


Judy/blue




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