I recently made a purchase on eBay from a seller in Hong Kong, who reminded me of the very first lesson I learned in my college marketing class.
On the first day of the semester (and before introducing himself, taking roll or passing out the course syllabus), the professor asked what was the single most important thing a marketer could do to get people to act.
“Offer an incentive,” someone said.
“Make a strong value proposition,” another shouted, once it became clear the professor was looking for another answer.
“How about, tell them what you want them to do?” the professor asked. “Or better yet, how about, ask them?” he continued as he began a slideshow of poorly designed advertisements that, he pointed out, forgot to inform the audience what to do.
It seems simple: Just ask buyers to do what you want them to do. But don’t let the simplicity of the idea fool you. Making a clear and overt request can yield significantly better results than leaving it up to your buyers’ intuition or relying on an implied call to action.
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Six Auctiva employees recently headed to San Jose to attend the iPad Dev Camp and compete in the event’s Hackathon Competition with a new seller app called Seller Dashboard.
The app would allow online merchants to manage their orders right from their iPads. Merchants could view order details at a glance, begin the shipping process, enter tracking numbers, and view payment and buyer information through a simple drag-and-drop interface.
“If you’re on the go, this app would definitely be helpful,” says Auctiva Vice President Kevin Kinell, who had the chance to step back into the role of developer for this competition. “With it, you could go out to you your warehouse and manage your orders from there if you wanted to.”
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December 10th, 2009
admin
If you’re like me, you probably have a number of items that you waited to sell specifically for the holidays, but they went unsold in the previous weeks. Now you’re wondering if it’s too late to relist them and get them into a buyer’s hands before Christmas.
I can tell you, it’s not too late. There’s still more than two weeks before the big day—plenty of time to list your remaining goods on eBay for those last-minute shoppers to buy!
While it certainly can be stressful listing or relisting items during the second week of December—and wondering if they’ll sell—here are a few things I do during this selling “crunch time.”
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November 25th, 2009
admin
Post offices will handle between 18 billion and 19 billion packages, letters and cards from Thanksgiving through Christmas Day, according to news reports. With so many parcels making their way to their intended destinations, the chances of items getting damaged or lost will increase.
Filling boxes with packing peanuts and wrapping items in bubble wrap and newspaper are good practices to prevent chips or breaks, but they don’t guarantee shipments will arrive as described when they reach a buyer’s doorstep. And unfortunately, sellers will also have to worry about possible thefts during the holidays, officials say.
Dealing with either of these scenarios is not only stressful, it can also be costly. So if you don’t already purchase shipping insurance for your products, now might be the time to start.
Product Analyst Rebecca Miller says shipping insurance is always a good investment, especially during these busy times. “The small price you pay is well worth the peace of mind you get in return. And the buyer will thank you for your forethought if something does happen to their package en route,” she says.
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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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It’s been almost a month since we’ve rolled out our new Auctiva Shipping Insurance Auto-Purchase feature, and we’ve received a lot of great feedback from our users. Now it’s your turn to vote on which one of the three most-requested rules you would like to see us release next.
The top three requests are:
1. A rule to auto-purchase insurance only if the item price reaches or exceeds a certain dollar amount you set. Currently, shipping and handling costs are calculated into the total insured value of a shipment, and many of our users don’t want to include that in the coverage. This could keep your insurance cost down, but the trade off is that you would not be reimbursed for the shipping and handling costs if a package is lost or damaged en route.
2. A rule to auto-purchase insurance for packages shipped via UPS or FedEx only if the value of the shipment exceeds $100. These carriers already offer up to $100 of protection, so sellers could set a rule to buy insurance after the first $100. For example, if you bought insurance for an item worth $150, your Auto-Purchase Rule would buy $50 of insurance since UPS and FedEx already cover the first $100.
3. A rule to auto-purchase insurance if the item is sold in a specific category. For example, if you occasionally sell fragile Depression glass items, you could set your Auto-Purchase Rules to only buy insurance for items listed in the Pottery & Glass category.
Please visit our Community Forums and let us know which option you would prefer by taking this poll. We’d love your input.
Rebecca Miller
Product Analyst
Just because you use another listing service doesn’t mean you have to pay the retail price at the post office to insure your packages!
There’s a cheaper and easier way to protect your eBay items, even if you don’t list with Auctiva. Just create a free Auctiva account and select our Free Plan.
Why Auctiva Shipping Insurance?
It costs up to 30 percent less than USPS and you can buy policies and file claims right from your computer. Just deposit at least $5 into your Auctiva account or set up PayPal or a credit card for automatic billing. Then enable Auctiva Shipping Insurance in your account. It’s that easy.
You can purchase insurance manually after an item sells, or set up Auto-Purchase Rules to have your policies automatically generated based on rules you make. Read our tutorial for more details.
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