Today I want to let you in on my secret to selling new products on eBay – and it really does work! I’ve been testing it on eBay with a new product, so I thought it was time to share the secret with you…
It’s to do with the challenge of introducing a new product to eBay when you lack a previous sales history for that particular item.
Selling new products on eBay – the terrible truth
I know how easy it is to get really frustrated about this… you know you’ve got a hot product, you know you’ve sourced it a price where you can resell it for a profit, you know you’ve written a great listing, you know your photographs are superb, you know you have used the right keywords and you know you’ve priced it competitively.
So why are the sales not rolling in?
The reason is because your new product is too far back in eBay’s search results for potential buyers to find it – regardless of your brilliant keywords or your pricing. And this is because you simply haven’t got any sales history for your new product yet.
And yes, this is vicious circle! You need a history to appear higher in the search results and make sales, but you need sales to form a history…
But! There is something you can do to solve this problem… and it’s one of the best tricks I’ve come across yet!
I’ve been testing my new strategy for the last three weeks with a product that lots of other sellers are listing too, but for which I have no previous sales history. Using my strategy, I’ve seen my listing shoot up from a ‘Best Match’ page four to a ‘Best Match’ page one placement within that three week timescale.
Now, this is not the quickest – there is no magic solution – but this is the next best thing and sometimes you have to have a bit of patience. This really does work.
Here’s what to do:
Let’s say decide to sell a product that other sellers are listing on eBay already. We’ll call it Widget X.
First, do a ‘Best Match’ search for ‘Widget X’ and note the sellers who appear with Buy It Now listings on page one of the results.
Now check their sales history to be sure that they are making multiple sales of their widgets every day.
Finally, once you have determined the successful sellers, look at their keywords and write them down.
You now have a whole set of keywords that eBay deem popular. If you then use these same keywords, you’ll immediately get pushed up the results.
This works because eBay’s searches are by default set to ‘Best Match’ – so if a particular product is selling really well, eBay looks at the keywords, decides these are popular search terms and shows that particular listing in the ‘Best Match’ search results to potential buyers.
This results in the listing appearing on page one, which brings in more sales due to its higher visibility. Sales keep coming, the sales history keeps growing and eBay places the listing higher and higher in the results.
Basically you need to remember this: if eBay know an item is popular, they know that buyers will purchase and eBay make money every time someone buys! Simple.
So, how does this help you?
By using the same keywords you are grouping yourself with the popular sellers that are already higher up in the search results: this will instantly place you higher in the results too (even though you don’t yet have any sales history – I’ll come on to that in a moment). You won’t appear on page one at this stage, but you will have moved up a few notches.
To get to page one you’ll need to do a little bit more…
Let your Buy It Now listing run as normal – preferably on a Good Till Cancelled listing (if you have an eBay shop) so that you don’t lose the view of your sales history every 30 days. If you don’t have a shop use a 30-day listing.
At the same time , list Widget X, using exactly the same keywords as your Buy It Now, but list it as an auction listing, and if you can (even if it means making a small loss or just breaking even) start it at 99p.
Don’t just list one auction; list two or three a day each finishing at different times. You are doing this because auction listings ALWAYS appear on page one of the search results as they near their end times and you are pretty much guaranteed to make a sale.
Yes, it might be at 99p, but it could be more. That’s the risk you have to take at this stage – but it’s very likely that you’ll make back any losses once your Buy It Now listing is securely on page one.
But how does this help your Buy It Now appear on page one?
Well, as you start making sales from your auction listings, eBay starts recognising that your Widget X, with your keywords, on your eBay ID is selling: therefore it’s becoming popular.
Remember, eBay want to make money so they put the items that sell in front of people as often as they can.
Then (magically) they link this with your Buy It Now listing – currently languishing on page four – and slowly your Buy It Now listing starts to move up the rankings – because the keywords are the same as your auction listings and your auction listings are generating sales!
Once your Buy It Now listing appears on page one you’ll start to generate sales from that listing as well as your auction listings. This is because you are highly visible in the search results and so your sales history starts to build up on your Buy It Now listing where you are selling at a price that brings in profits.
As soon as you feel that your sales history on your Buy It Now listing is enough to keep you in that page one position you can stop your auction listings (ultimately they may detract from your BIN listing if you’re on page one with both!) and potential buyers have only the choice to buy at your fixed price.
The outcome?
Your history keeps building. You’re on page one and that’s where you’ll stay as people continue to buy from you.
It’s really quite a simple strategy isn’t it? And you can do this whenever you want to introduce a new product – it works for any item. As I’ve said, I sprang from page four to page one in just three weeks with about 30 auction listings and very little effort!
Try it and see the results for yourself.