Insider's Tips On How To Make More Money For Your Auction in Ebay

Among the most popular and most sought after article we have in this blog is about Ebay. So, here one more surefire insider's tip about Ebay.

One of the first things we teach our clients at IMC is to keep close tabs on your market, so you're always meeting their needs. But you should also be keeping a careful eye on your competition -so you make sure they don't get the edge on you.

As you monitor your competition, you should be asking yourself questions like:

• Who else is selling a product similar to mine?
• How is their sales process or marketing plan different from my own?
• How successful are they at selling? What kind of traffic/revenues are they seeing?
• And here’s a big one: what are they doing BETTER than me?

Plain and simple, if you’re not aware of what your competitors are up to, you might as well be handing them a chunk of your business for free!

How do I find my competitors on eBay?

The easiest way to start looking for your competition is to do a series of keyword searches on eBay, using the words and phrases that your customers would use to find you – for example, the name, brand, color, style, and condition of the item you sell.

Then take a look at the results -- what other listings are showing up for those keywords? They're the ones you need to keep your eye on!

Once you’ve found some sellers listing items similar to yours, do a Completed Listings search.

Simply head to eBay.com's homepage and click on Advanced Search in the upper right-hand corner of the page. Once you're at the Advanced Search page, click the box that says "Completed Listings Only". For best results, make sure you specify the results be ranked in the order of "highest price first."

Now you're looking at the listings that sold for the most money. Where do your listings rank? Are there lots of sellers who are getting more money selling items similar to yours, or just a few?

Take a look at the listings that are generating the highest bids, and ask yourself what those sellers are doing differently from you.

Specifically, look at:

• Their item -- What brand of item are they selling? Are they selling the item in a color or size that you don't? Which colors or sizes seem to sell best (if applicable)?
• Their listing category -- Are they listing in a category you haven't considered? Is it a more effective or easily-searchable category than the one you've chosen?
• Their listing/auction format -- Are they using the "Buy It Now" format? What time of day do they typically list their items? How long do their auctions last?
• Their photo -- What stands out in the picture? How have they positioned or staged the item differently than you?
• Their title -- What keywords are they using? Are they using the "bolding" option? What order are their words in? What stands out in the title?
• Their headline -- What benefits/features are they mentioning first? Which keywords are they using?
• Their copy -- Are they using a traditional salescopy format? What kind of description have they created for the product? How do they answer the questions of their potential customers?
• Their price -- If they're using a "Buy It Now" listing, what are they setting the price at? Or if they're using a regular auction format, what's their minimum bid?
• Their policies -- How are their shipping policies different from your own? Are they offering discounted shipping? Are they shipping worldwide? What is their return policy?
• Their "About Me" page -- What kind of pictures or text have they included here? How do they establish credibility and trust with potential customers?
• Their feedback ratings -- Are their customers happy? How do they deal with negative feedback (if applicable)?
• Their eBay Store -- If they have an eBay store, what cross-promotional tools are they using? Are they selling items besides the ones that are similar to yours?
• Their relationship-building efforts -- Do they offer a newsletter to their potential customers? Have they written any Reviews or Guides to help drive more traffic to their listings?

You'll want to take the best elements from the most successful listings -- without copying them directly, of course -- and apply those same strategies to your own listings.

But make sure to make only one change at a time with your own listings, so you can test and track the impact of each one has on your listings.

You might even want to buy some items from your top-selling competitors, to see how they manage their sales process. For example, do they include a brochure of their other current auctions or a thank-you letter asking the buyer to add them to their "Favorite Sellers" list?

Of course, there's only so much you can learn about your competitors -- and your market -- by checking out the Completed Listings. For a more in-depth analysis, we suggest you explore the other free and paid market research tools available to eBay sellers today.

 

You can start by getting our most up to date study about Ebay by clicking here: