Archive

Hello,
There is quite a bit to pack in again this week so I will start straight off by reminding you that it is not long before the London Workshop on the 24th April. I am really looking forward to meeting many of you there. I can confirm that the venue is the University of London Union which is situated in WC1 and is a short walk from Euston & King’s Cross railway stations.

The finishing touches are being made to the day’s program as we speak but the emphasis will be very much on how you can turn selling through online auctions from a hobby into a worthwhile part or full time business. If you have not booked to attend yet then do go to www.ukauctionline.co.uk/workshop now to check the details. It really will be a day not to miss.

You may over the coming weeks be getting an e-mail from I-level. In a recent announcement they stated “At eBay we are always looking at ways to develop our services so they better meet your needs and drive your trading success.
For this reason i-level, an independent research company, has been commissioned by eBay to conduct a series of user discussion groups in London on March 18th.
Over the next few days, members of the Community may receive emails asking for their participation in these groups. Should you receive an email from i-level, rest assured that it is not a spoof or scam email.
If you receive an email from i-level, we hope you will consider participating in these exciting research events.”

Each week on Radio eBay there is a half hour program devoted to buying and selling on eBay. If you have not heard it yet you can go to the link you will find on the UK Auctionline home page and not only listen to this weeks broadcast but the archived copies of past editions.

Ebay have announced the details of this years “eBay Live “ event . A mixture of teach in and exhibition it will be held in New Orleans from 24th to 26th June. The cost of attending the event, (not counting air fares and hotels) is $50 if you book before 17th April when it goes up to $60 and if you leave it till June it will cost $70.
Attendees will be able to meet eBay staff face to face and listen to a full program of talks and lectures. The daily eBay University classes are geared toward beginning, intermediate, and advanced users. eBay Live! 2004 offers a hands-on computer lab and seminars with experts and eBay executives. The learning extends beyond the structured environment of the classroom, with roundtable discussions and plenty of opportunities to network with PowerSellers, Shooting Stars, eBay executives and staff, trade-show exhibitors, and, best of all, your peers - buyers and sellers just like you.

I contacted Pat Austin, one of the most prolific UK sellers I know on eBay who attended last years event and asked her if she was going this year and what sehe thought about eBay live 2003.

"I'm not going to eBay Live 2004 - not because I don't think it would be
useful but because I'm far to busy this year.

I thought last year's event was brilliant. It gave me the impetus to really
kick-start my business and to look at it in a whole new way. I am much more
"business-minded" now about the way I work. The best thing about the event
was the chance to meet all the US sellers who had been selling for a lot
longer than me and to swap stories and ideas with them. Since returning
from eBay Live 2003 I have become a power seller and have doubled the
turnover of my business - if that's not worthwhile then I don't know what
is!"

You cannot tget a better recommendation than that. There was talk last year that a European event might be held this year, (possibly in Germany) but I have heard nothing further about this.

Dave Bromley

Contents:
1. Creating titles that will attract bidders
2. Sellers Tips
3. Extra Reading
4. Final Thoughts

Creating titles that will attract bidders

Nobody to my knowledge has ever bought something from an online auction without first going to the description page. So therefore it is important to get as many people as possible to visit this page. And how do you get them there? By catching their attention with your title.

In lots of ways auction listings are very much like classified advertisements. If you browse through a magazine like “Exchange & Mart” with there thousands of classified adverts what attracts you to read a particular advert? It is usually those first few words, often in bold text that are designed to catch your attention. This is the purpose of the Title in your listing.

The most important point to remember is to include relevant words. Now I know that most of you probably realise this especially if you have seen the UKAuction Line video CD. However, when I browse through the web site it is surprising how many titles are totally unsuitable for the product they are offering.

Most people use the search facility to find products that they are looking for, so it makes sense to include the words they might use. It is important to include details like manufacturer, model numbers and any other relevant words.

This is not the first time I have talked about this on UK Auctionline but I can not emphasise enough how important it is for you to get your titles right. The other day for instance I saw a title, “The Best Bargain on eBay”. Now this would not come up on any search that someone is likely to make on eBay, so the seller will be relying totally on people casually browsing through the listings.

Before you write your title, take a moment to imagine that you are someone looking to buy the type of item you are selling. What words would you type into the search engine to find this item? There might be several different phrases you could use but perhaps you could combine them into a single title. I have carried out some tests and whenever I have used this method I have attracted more visitors to my auction than when I have tried an attention grabbing title such as “Bargain Books for Sale”.

One final point on the subject of titles is that you should make them easy to read. Some people use only upper case lettering in their titles and others use symbols such as !!!***@@@@ and so on. The theory appears to be that this will grab browsers attention but I don’t see how. We are all used to reading words with upper case for the first letter of a sentence and a noun. Our mind is used to interpreting this format and anything else is actually harder to comprehend. So why make it difficult for people?

Time spent on your listing title will be well rewarded with improved selling prices.

So do spend some time working on your titles, you will be well rewarded for it.

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Sellers Tips

I have just been having a browse around the Community area on eBay.com and found a group I had not come across before. It is called Sellers central and the top item was “Sellers Tips & Tricks of the Trade”. As the title suggests this was a request from an eBay member to other eBay sellers for information and ideas on how they try to make a positive impact with their sales. It was only posted two days ago and already there are over 480 responses.

Some of the ideas are quite interesting and could well be used by sellers in the UK. Some of the suggestions included sending a bag of popcorn with every video film you sell. Another was to offer incentives; such as half price insurance for making multiple purchases. I think if you post a selection of related sales up at the same time and offer of free or reduced postage for buying more than one item it would be more effective. From my experience very few of my buyers request insurance.

Other ideas included enclosing a “Thank You” note or business card with each shipment. One idea I did like for people who sell “gift” type items is to gift wrap the item before you send it out. My thought on this is that rather than actually gift wrap it just include a sheet of wrapping paper and maybe a gift card with the product. I know even if I was buying the item as a gift for someone I would want to have a look at it first before I gave the gift so perhaps actually wrapping the gift might not be the best idea.

One recommended idea that I have always favoured but which is not used very often either here or on eBay.com is to give a guarantee. Most sellers will give a refund anyway if there are any problems so you might as well advertise the fact in the form of a guarantee. It is bound to give bidders more confidence.

Overall there were four points that many sellers cited as their reason for success:

1. Good and prompt communications
2. Well packaged and promptly shipped goods
3. Honestly describe your items
4. Post the best photographs possible.

In fact one contributor really summed it up very well:

“I package very carefully, ship promptly, give honest descriptions and treat my customers as I would like to be treated”

You can’t really ask for fairer than that.

One final point one suggestion appeared many times and involved sending popcorn, lollipops or other edibles but then someone submitted a cautionary tale, which may or not be apocryphal. Apparently some one sent a mint as a small thank you gift, presumably something like an after Eight. The 3-year-old diabetic son of the house opened the parcel and ate the mint. Subsequently his parents sued the sender of the parcel. Perhaps sending food items is not the best idea after all.

This discussion stream is worth reading and can be found at
http://pages.ebay.com/community/boards/index.html

Talking of discussion boards the UK Auction Line Forum is now, after many teething troubles up and running and waiting for your comments. I hope this will be an area were all users of eBay.com can come and express their views and opinions. Also exchange ideas and seek help for any problems you may be having with your auctions, The forum is on our web site at : http://forum.ukauctionline.co.uk/ and lets all make use of it.

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Auction-O-Matic

"Hi Dave,
When you subscribe to auction manager you get the data on the pro
version during the process and you can do a comparison check.
hope this helps and I enjoy the newsletter.
best regards,
Dave Fraser"

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