Using E-Bay to Supplement Your Business
4 August 2006CNN has a new article out on how to become a “PowerSeller” in E-bay - a designation for those who sell large volumes of merchandise and have generally satisfied customers. There are some good tips both for amatuers and for people trying to make a business out of it. The better ones:
1) Personalize your auctions to stand out.
Whether it’s with free shipping, or a very high level of customer service, set yourself apart from the masses. Consider adding a picture of yourself or a personal touch to the description. After McGrath added an audio message to many of his listings, he noted a dramatic increase in sales. And be sure to pack and ship your items professionally and in a timely fashion. Including a handwritten card or note is a nice touch.
2) Write the headlines so that people find your auction when they type in common search terms.
If you don’t write good headlines, nobody is going to click on your auction and you’re not going to sell anything. Seems pretty obvious right? But it’s not quite so simple. When writing headlines, keep the user in mind; try multiple spellings (i.e., hairbrush, hair brush) and be as descriptive as you can (i.e., tortoise shell, made in London, England).
3) Include pictures of the items so people know what they’re getting.
The good advice for small business owners is based on a worker at a shoe store who used his position to start a multi-million dollar business on E-bay selling overstock shoes. If you have any kind of business with substantive product, you need to be selling the excess on E-bay. For many small business owners, the “side business” has taken over the original one, and they now do E-bay full time.
Discuss this on the Free the Drones Forums here.
One Response to “Using E-Bay to Supplement Your Business”
August 7th, 2006 at 1:02 am
[...] Free the Drones Blog presents Using E-Bay to Supplement Your Business. [...]