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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Detailed Seller Ratings, or DSRs as many of us refer to them, provide a “more complete picture of the member’s performance as a seller,” according to eBay. But I’m not sure how true this is. Recently, someone left me ones in each of the four DSR categories (item description, seller communication, shipping, and shipping and handling charges), but still left me positive feedback. How does that work?
I’ve never understood the true purpose of DSRs. I prefer the days when eBay allowed us to leave honest feedback about buyers. Today, buyers can anonymously rate sellers for things that are out of their control—shipping time, for example. Buyers don’t even seem to need a real reason to leave a low DSR score at all, so why have them?
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Call me Simon Legree, but I love receiving discounts, and I really twirl my ‘stache when I’m able to get a discount, or earn points on every purchase I make using a particular credit card or flying on a specific airline or renting a car from a specific company—because these really add up.
For example, my insurance company issued me a Visa card that accumulates “rewards dollars” on every purchase I make. Then, when I have built up an accumulation, the insurance company that issued my card lets me use my rewards dollars to pay the premium on any insurance policy that I have through the company.
My insurance agent told me about this, and it has worked really well for three years. I charge just about everything I buy to that card, every tank of gas, every dinner out, every video rental. For every dollar I charge, I’m building up reward dollars. It really adds up!
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I returned from a relaxing extended weekend in Carson City, NV, recently to discover an e-mail from a recent buyer in my inbox. According to him, the item he had purchased from me was missing a vital component—and would not work without it.
I politely offered to send my buyer an identical replacement ASAP, no questions asked. It would eat any profit I had made on the sale of the first item, but I wanted to do my best to make him happy, and to do what I could to prevent negative feedback. Maybe I should have asked him to return the item first, but I didn’t really see the point for this rather inexpensive item.
But part of me wondered if he was just looking for a refund to his PayPal account. Call me untrusting if you want, but after selling online for more than 10 years, I’ve come across a quite a few buyers who are just out to get something for free.
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After 10 days of frustration, anger and just plain confusion, I finally feel vindicated for a false accusation of violating eBay’s Verified Rights Owner Program.
The organization, which is supposed to protect the intellectual property rights of third parties on eBay, came knocking at my door recently and took down one of my listings without any real explanation. It simply stated that I had somehow violated its policies. I knew there was no violation. I even checked my saved listing on Auctiva and re-read every word. Nada. The wording was mine, the image was mine and I was stumped. Then out of curiosity, I checked my Sellathon stats.
Lo and behold, only three people had viewed my listing before it was ended: me, another eBay seller—who was selling the same product—and eBay, which viewed it immediately before the listing was removed.
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A few weeks back, I commented on a thread on our forums about how to spot “phishing” or “spoof” e-mails claiming to be from eBay, PayPal, Auctiva, etc.
Then over the weekend, I received a very legitimate-looking e-mail, claiming to be a message from another eBay member. The return address was member@ebay.com—which is the e-mail address you’ll see on legitimate “this member has a question for you” e-mails—and it looked exactly like the typical messages I’m so used to seeing.
But right off the bat, I knew this wasn’t a legitimate message because the title of the item in the subject line was of something I had never, ever sold. The second red flag was the fact that the e-mail was sent to “Rebecca Miller.”
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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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One of the ways Auctiva customers can obtain the best possible experience using Auctiva is to get off to a good start as soon as they sign up for a free trial. Auctiva is a great tool that can save you money and get you more eBay sales, but like any tool, questions do arise—and a little help in getting the most from your account can go a long way.
We’ve been working hard to help Auctiva customers get the most from Auctiva by making our site more intuitive and easy to use, by providing more and better “help text” on the site, and by providing insights into trends and best practices affecting eBay sellers via our EDU page.
We recently added another resource for our customers: We are holding weekly Webinars that give Auctiva customers the chance to ask questions and get answers about Auctiva. These “Auctiva 101″ Webinars are geared toward newer Auctiva users—in particular, users who are still in their free trial periods—to help them get the best possible start using Auctiva. But even if you’re a more experienced user, you can still benefit from these Webinars.
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“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Iowa”
“Iowa who?”
“Iowa lot of taxes on my online sales!”
Hilarious, right? I think so—unless you really do have to pay Uncle Sam a good chunk of change this tax season. No one I know enjoys paying taxes. But with every tax season comes the possibility.
As you prepared your taxes did you have a hard time gathering receipts, logging expenses and getting a profit and loss reports? Did you find yourself digging through mounds of papers? Or, if you have yet to prepare your taxes, do you know where your receipts are?
If you don’t, I understand. I’ve been there, too. But this year was the easiest for me because I made a pledge while doing my taxes last year that “this year would be different” when it came to my record keeping. This year I was going to get organized!
Back in 2000, when my online sales first began to pick up momentum, I had no idea what records I needed to keep for my income taxes. I didn’t know I could write off the cost of listing my items on eBay, or the cost of the shipping materials. I was essentially clueless about what was considered an “expense,” and what wasn’t. If only I hadn’t been so naive back then.
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A mock funeral was held last week to honor an old friend to many, Internet Explorer 6. First released back in 2001, the browser was once highly regarded, but today users are less than enthusiastic about it. Funeral organizers think the browser should be officially laid to rest, and many Web developers couldn’t agree more. After all, Internet users have several other options for surfing the Web, including two more recent versions of Internet Explorer (IE7 and IE8).
But why does it matter what browser you use when you go online? There are several reasons: faster load times, getting pages to display the way they were intended to, and even added security are among the most obvious.
“If Internet users do not update their browsers, they miss out on the great improvements that make their browsing experience smoother and safer,” says Auctiva developer Ervi Bongso. “Browser developers have been improving their products by taking in consumers’ suggestions and comments, through testing and focus groups, etc., so they can provide you with something better. Some people dislike changing because they have to learn something new, but sometimes, changes are good.”
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