Selling on eBay can be a lucrative business. Even if you are a student, you can set up your eBay store in your spare time. All your unwanted books or DVDs or other stuff can be sold on eBay. It’s quite easy to set up an eBay store, but there are some tricks to selling on this platform.
How can you boost your sales within the cut-throat competition? We will break down this question and give you the best tips for raking in the big bucks. Let’s get started.
Optimize Listings
When competition is fierce, you have to distinguish yourself from your competitors. First and foremost is your product listing. Develop a clear strategy to optimize your product listings. Your listings showcase your product’s description and detail its price, which ultimately promotes your products. Use bullet points to make it clear and easy to read.
– Utilize keywords and keywords phrases
eBay utilizes keywords, using them in your product listing greatly affects traffic and conversions. As a result, you should leverage keywords and keyword phrases in your products title and listing description. You can research product related keywords; try to rank them in terms of relevancy.
– Optimize product title and description
Your product title affects its visibility online. Get a list of relevant keywords and keyword phrases and optimize your title and description with them. Make sure you have included the most relevant keywords and phrases in the title. Try to make it natural and logical.
When it comes to the description, using keywords will keep shoppers’ attention. To optimize the product description, try to organize the keywords and phrases into complete sentences that fit together and are easy to read. Make it short, informative, and compelling for customers.
– Include appealing product images
Your product images impact your sales; quality product images are the key to selling online. Thus, you have to optimize your product images to attract potential customers.
Profession photographs have high impact. Use a plain backdrop to make your products stand out, capture the products from different angles, and make sure key features are clear. Make the images appealing but compress them to cut down the image loading time.
Utilize tools
When you sell on eBay, there are tools to help you drive sales. These tools will save both your time and effort when it comes to listing products and making decisions. Here are some examples;
Jazva It’s a cloud-based system designed to help eBay sellers increase sales with multi-channel selling operations. It will help you automate listings and adjust the price according to the market competition.
Vendio This tool offers a one-stop solution to help you sell efficiently and effectively. You can schedule listings, track inventory, fulfill orders, and even communicate with your product buyers. Your sales on eBay will be much more efficient, which will increase your sales.
Algopix This tool will help you make data-driven decisions to decrease your business risk and increase sales on eBay and other platforms. You will get actionable insights; it will save you time making decisions and increase your sales on eBay.
Share on social media
Millions of people are using social media each day. Social media allows users to express their passions, feelings, and interests. Social channels also keep users connected with the stuff they are interested in. Connect with your target on social media and you could increase your store’s visibility and drive traffic.
Social media offers you a huge potential audience, which means you can target more and more shoppers and turn them into your buyers. You can boost eBay and online sales via your post’s content. Share brand and related content on social media platforms to drive engagement rates. Besides, advertising on social media is a great way to accurately and efficiently target your customer. You can keep social media as a complementary platform to your online marketing campaigns.
Use auctions
An auction is another way to help you boost sales. For instance, you have some trendy item, and you are sure that you can auction them at a higher price than their original.
If you choose to auction something, then you need to consider when it should open and end. Generally, the best time to end an auction is on Sunday evening when most casual buyers are browsing. So, if you want your auction to run for ten days; the best starting time is Thursday.
Your product also matters the auction as it influences shopper’s behavior. For instance, office workers are likely to shop for office equipment on different days of the week. As a result, you have to determine the auction in line with the shopping habits of the target customers.
Go Global
If you sell products globally, you have a bigger market, and you can increase your sales versus limiting yourself to the local market. The Global Shipping Program on eBay offers several ways for you to sell internationally.
- With the basic international selling, you can create one listing which is shown across several international sites. Basic international selling is the easiest way to start selling internationally. By offering international postage on your listing, your listing will show on international eBay sites, and you will enable global shoppers to buy your item.
- Advanced international selling
This program offers great flexibility allowing you to create separate listings for each international eBay site you want to utilize. Having separate listings means you can translate your product’s details into the local language and tailor your pricing for the market. Your listings will be on display in default search results instead of on the international listing.
- eBay Global Shipping Program
This is the international delivery program owned by eBay. eBay can fulfill your orders and deliver them globally.
Price competitively
The product price matters your sales. As a result, you have to price your items competitively to boost your sales. Pricing competitively means that you have to take several things into account before you change your price.
First of all, you have to understand your product cost, shipping cost, order fulfillment fee, and other charges made by the platform. The price should cover all these basic costs and your profit. Besides, you have to figure out the market price of the same item and the services of your competitors.
To gain a competitive advantage, you can develop a strategic pricing rule to stay ahead in the market. For instance, if you price the item lower than the market and offer good service, this can win you more customers. As your customer base grows, you can increase your price to gain much more profit
Ship fast and free
When it comes to product shipping, there are two factors that concern shoppers. First and foremost is the shipping cost. High shipping costs intimidate shoppers. Offer free shipping, especially for small items, or cut down the shipping cost and make it reasonable and worthy for the buyers.
Shipping speed matters to the shopping experience; choose the shippers with the best service and least shipping time. Fast shipping is a great way to improve the shopping experience and drive sales.
Offer excellent customer service
Customer service matters to your sales. Try to stand out with excellent customer service to gain more sales. First and foremost, you have to be polite and professional; this is important even when faced with rude shoppers. Be flexible and try to accommodate any reasonable request from your customers. In addition, remember to keep customers informed about the progress of their orders. Be responsive and always answer customers’ questions quickly. What’s more, remember to show your appreciation when you get positive feedback from your customers. This is a great way to leave a good impression in your customers’ mind.
Keep an eye on market competition
When you start to sell on eBay, try to figure out the market competition. To gain more sales, you have to stay competitive in the market. Figure out the all possible factors affecting your sales, including the product quality, price, the selling policy, customer service, and marketing strategy. These factors may greatly influence your marketing decisions. Check your competitors’ listings and find their shorting comings. Take advantage and create a competitive strategy to boost sales. For instance, you find complaints about the short warranty of the products in the customer review section on your competitors’ listings; then you can lengthen the warranty of your products.
Make it mobile responsive
Given the rising number of mobile shoppers, it’s imperative to make your eBay shop mobile responsive. Optimizing for mobile is a great way to increase your sales and boost your brand awareness online. To make your product listings more mobile friendly, you can use the eBay template that is friendly to mobile users. Make sure your product listing content fits well on shoppers’ mobile devices. To enjoy higher sales, try to make your listing good for SEO.
Include customer testimonials
As we know, customer-generated content is much more trustworthy in the shoppers’ eyes. Testimonials are social proof and an indicator of trust which makes them the most compelling tool for more sales. To increase the credibility, you should include customer testimonials on your page.
You can incorporate customer testimonials, screenshots of reviews, the total number of customers who purchased in the past, a screenshot of customers engaging with your business on social media. Try to gain the trust of shoppers and win more sales.
Offer various online payments
Most eBay sellers offer PayPal as the payment method. Buyers don’t need an account; they can use a credit card to make the payment if they want to. But there are more payment options you should take into consideration.
The primary online payment may be PayPal, but you have to put yourself into the customers’ shoes. Imagine someone abandons their shopping cart just because the payment you offered is not available for him/her. Try to offer more options to give the customer choice and flexibility.
Target customers with advertising
Advertising is a great way to target customers more accurately and efficiently. If you run an advertising campaign, a large number of people will be reached out instantly, and many of them would likely to buy your products if they are interested in the products. This is a great way to increase your customer base and boost your sales. If you have the budget, think about advertising to rocket sales. Try to drive brand familiarity and deepen your brand strategy.
There are tools to help you with your business advertising. For instance, PPCmate, a self-serve advertising & RTB exchange platform, offers a wide range of advertising types. Advertising on this platform will definitely help you gain much more traffic, build your brand, and increase sales.
Online shopping has enjoyed continuous growth over the past years, and it has no signs of slowing down. Growth means there’s still opportunity. Selling on eBay may be tough for a beginner, but we’ve explained the best tips to boost your sales. Try to put some of them into practice, and test if it works for you.
Author Bio: Sharline Shaw, the founder of a leelineSourcing.com, is an expert on Chinese export trade. With 10 years experiences in the field of sourcing in China, she is familiar with all relevant regulations and laws about China’s exporting. She’d love to share her experience with people and has written many helpful articles.
