Here’s your priority checklist containing the top things to consider to guarantee a better performance from your product listings.
So, who wants to make money online with very little effort? You do? I wouldn’t blame you for answering yes, however…I have to tell you that it’s the wrong attitude to have.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make money and there’s certainly nothing wrong with using eBay as a platform to do so, but it’s this issue of ‘effort’ that I want to talk about today.
You cannot expect success to just fall into your lap. You can’t expect to sit back and just let it all happen. How many businesses have you ever heard of succeeding where ‘no effort’ is required?
And that’s why it’s absolutely vital that you understand that when you research, source and list products on eBay, it isn’t just ‘selling on eBay’. It’s a proper business and should be treated as such.
Effort is required to achieve success and part of that effort involves making sure you constantly maximize your listings to get those all important sales.
Don’t get comfortable. You should be checking, tweaking and editing regularly to ensure you stay on top.
It’s all about focus
Now, you may have just one listing right now or you may have 20 listings, but whatever the number, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is focus.
Pick just one listing for a product that you have invested in that perhaps isn’t performing as you had hoped and work on improving your listing for that product only to start with so that you can specifically target changes which will improve your sales.
Basically, pick the parts of the listing which are the simplest to improve first, but definitely don’t worry about listings for single products, go for those where you have a full inventory.
What you should bear in mind first and foremost is that if your listing cannot be found it cannot be seen, and if it cannot be seen it will not be clicked on. If it isn’t clicked on…well it’s obvious, no sales!
So, I’ve put together a priority checklist for you of the top things you should consider to guarantee a better performance from your product listings. In other words, an increase in sales.
80 title characters…but 55 are very important!
You have only 80 characters available to create your title (and a space is seen as a character too) but did you know that the first 55 characters are deemed to be ‘higher value’?
So, the first thing to do is to make sure you put your most important, relevant keywords at the beginning of your title to give your product the absolute best chance of being seen in the search results.
12 free gallery images…all 12 are important!
You get 12 free gallery image spaces with each product listing. Make sure you use them all! Did you know that eBay optimize each of those images for potential buyers viewing on mobile devices? Well, they do, making it easy for those viewers to see exactly what you’re offering.
Also, make sure that you resize your images so that they are square rather than rectangular. This ensures you use all the image space available to maximum effect.
Item Specifics are important…but some more than others!
Completing the item specifics section for a product can be time consuming. My advice: don’t try and fill in every single detail if it doesn’t apply. What’s important?
Well, this will vary depending on the product, for example, a Manufacturer Part Number won’t apply for an item of clothing. However, as a rule, if your product is new, you should always add your EAN (bar code), and your brand.
These are required by eBay and will also help you in Google search results – and that means more traffic to your listing. Use your common sense when it comes to other item specifics and try and get it down to the essentials rather than adding unnecessary.
Don’t overlook the basics…
Check your guarantee and returns policies – can they be tweaked to be more appealing? For example, could you offer a 60 day money back guarantee rather than 30 days? Could you stretch to free returns?
Consider your delivery options. If you’re offering second class delivery, tweak to first class. If you’re offering first class, add an express option. If you’re charging for delivery, can you offer free delivery instead?
These are small changes that can be implemented easily yet can make a huge difference to your sales success.
So, here’s a little job for this weekend.
Identify the listing that you would like to see perform better. Then, simply set yourself a target to make those little tweaks; edit your title keywords, optimize your images, update your item specifics and amend your guarantees, returns and delivery options. Aim to do this by a certain date – and stick to it!
Make the effort – and see how your sales improve!