Whether you use Auctiva for launching your listings to eBay, or list directly on eBay, there are a few things every new seller should know to build a successful venture.
One of my job duties here at Auctiva is to make sure new employees go through the entire process of listing on eBay using Auctiva’s tools. Even if they have sold on eBay before, it’s imperative they learn about our listing services and understand how all our tools work with eBay.
I’ve been selling on eBay for about 11 years, and there are many things I automatically do when I list and didn’t realize new sellers might overlook. I guess it’s just become second nature to me, and I assumed even new sellers would automatically do these things.
Of course, when I first started out, it was a lot easier to sell on eBay. There were fewer rules and regulations. Nowadays, including one word in your ad could get your listing pulled for some violation or another. Sellers need to be clear about what they are selling, how fast they will ship, what their refund policy is (if they have one), etc.
Here are a few crucial points I’ve noticed many new sellers leave out, or go totally overboard with:
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I sure didn’t get hired at Auctiva for my computer skills, and I haven’t spent a day in a college computer science class. But, when it comes to saving a few minutes here or there to make selling on eBay easier, I do know a thing or two.
One of the first projects I worked on getting implemented at Auctiva was the image deletion capability for saved listings. When I first started using Auctiva to list on eBay, there was no “easy” way to delete the images from a saved listing I was using to make a new one. Sometimes I had 20 images to delete! It seemed like a no-brainer to me to have a simple way to remove some or all of those images, without having to click the “Remove” box on each one, individually. And so it was done.
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You probably know Auctiva best for the products we build for sellers on eBay. Many of you have been enjoying our listings tools to boost your business and simplify your eBay work for years.
After being in the e-commerce business for more than 10 years, Auctiva has the knowledge and experience to undertake a new project for sellers. One that is going to help shape a new way to look at e-commerce for individual sellers: Auctiva Marketplace Platform.
So, what is AMP?
The Auctiva Marketplace Platform, or AMP, as we call it, is a technology framework that allows software developers to build custom marketplaces. There are lots of products that allow people to create online stores, but AMP is the first to make it easy to build online marketplaces.
What is the difference between a marketplace and an online store?
An online store offers items from a single seller. Marketplaces offer items from multiple sellers, all in one place. In the same way that a farmer’s market has much more foot traffic than a roadside fruit stand, online marketplaces bring more buyers by having inventory from multiple sellers. Marketplaces organize the inventory of multiple sellers and streamline the shopping process, creating an optimal experience for both buyers and sellers.
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If you created a listing using our tools this week, you may have noticed a few changes. And if you plan on creating new listings soon—especially if you’re one of our Supersize image users— you’re in for a treat.
The Big Picture
We’ve once again updated our software to help you stay in sync with eBay’s upcoming changes and provide you enhanced value. The big news of this release cycle is that we’ve made our already large Supersize images even bigger. In the past, these images were displayed at a maximum of 1,024 x 768 pixels. While this size gave users good, detailed shots of their items to show off their products in all their glory, we’ve made adjustments so your images can now be up to 1,280 x 1,024 pixels in size. Supersized images that were saved before this week’s update will still display at their current size, but you have the option to reload them at the larger size if our old Supersized size is not large enough.
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February 19th, 2010
admin
Last month, we told you we were working to support eBay’s multi-variation feature, and I’m happy to report that now you are able to create multi-variation listings through Auctiva!
In fact, several of our customers are already using our software to create multi-variation listings. As someone who worked on the development side of our Multi-Variation Tool, it’s very exciting to see our customers using it.
When we first decided to support multi-variations, we took a good look at eBay’s process for creating these listings. It requires multiple clicks of the mouse to add variations. Our first thought was, “How can we make this easier for our users?” After all, Auctiva is known for simplifying, and speeding, the listing process.
Our solution? To integrate multi-variations with the current listing process our users go through. We’ve given users the ability to add multi-variations to a listing right from our One-Page Lister if they choose a category that supports multi-variations. To add a variation, users simply click our link to go to our Multi-Variation Tool, where they can decide if they’ll create variations manually or with our Variation Generator. The Variation Generator was designed so that you can quickly create and edit your multi-variations. It can greatly reduce users’ workloads by producing up to 120 variations at once.
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February 12th, 2010
admin
The seasons are changing. We’ll be springing forward in no time.
And for some sellers this will mean their inventory will begin to change. So you may want to start the spring cleaning early and bring out those summer-themed items you picked up on clearance last year. Stores are already stocking their shelves with colorful outdoor decor, barbecue grills and accessories are popping up and bathing suits are hitting the racks.
Planning ahead can mean picking up seasonal inventory at deeply discounted prices and selling it for a hefty profit later on. Our Product Analyst Rebecca Miller scored some summer shoe wear last year, and will soon be putting them up for sale.
The beginning of February is a great time to stock up on seasonal items to resell later. While much of the country is still shoveling snow off of driveways and sidewalks, thoughts are already turning to the warmer days ahead.
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Now that you’ve had the chance to digest the upcoming changes on eBay, do you know how they will affect your bottom line? Have you decided how/if you need to change your selling habits?
There are, after all, several factors to consider. So how do you go about deciding how to adjust to get the maximum value out of your listings while not breaking the budget on fees? Glad you asked. While I know there are lots of variables to take into consideration, I’ve come up with a few tips to help you in your quest.
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This year, we’ll be releasing several new features. These include multi-variation, which is coming in February. Developing this feature has occupied most of our team’s time during this release cycle. It should be no surprise that this is a big project; few third-party developers have added multi-variation support. In fact, we’re going to be one of the first—certainly in our price range—to support this relatively new eBay feature.
That’s one of the reasons why Auctiva is such a good choice for eBay selling tools: We have the resources to continuously update our software, and we do this often to not only stay up-to-date with the changing world of eBay, but also to continue our long-standing tradition of doing all we can to help you list faster and more easily. It’s out of this philosophy that comes our effort to both support multi-variation listings as well as simplify the listing process for you. We’re glad to report we’ve done so by designing a tool that makes adding variations to your listings a snap.
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Happy New Year!
Now, what are you going to sell this year to take your business to the next level? Are you going to change anything about how you sell? The same stuff you sold last year? Which of your items sold best in 2009?
If these seem like too many questions, I understand. But you have to admit that although the holiday selling frenzy just ended, you’ll soon have to address these topics. After all, you want to have a great selling year.
The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to look back at your previous year’s sales to get the answers to some of these questions, and to see what selling format worked best, or if details like free shipping got buyers to click on—and buy—your items.
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November 20th, 2009
admin
Over the past few months we’ve released several enhancements. These new features are sure to make listing easier and more convenient for you.
As an active eBay seller and Auctiva user, of course, I was very excited when our team of developers, engineers and programmers decided to implement many of these features.
They will save you time—and as we all know, time is money!
The first feature I campaigned for was the ability to edit most fields in a closed listing before relisting it. Our Bulk Edit feature only allows users to edit the title, price and a few other fields in a listing. But our new Advanced Relist Editing tool lets you edit the description, category, shipping details, even the template and photos. I can’t count how many times I’ve listed something with a holiday template, and it didn’t sell. Then I wanted to it with a different template but didn’t know how. Ah, what a blessing this new feature is!
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