This is my journey as an E-commerce Consultant
Archive for August, 2007
Be your own eBay Strategist – DIY eBay
1722 days
Once you have at least 30 days of eBay selling under your belt you can start thinking about selling smart!
- Use something like ‘Terapeak‘ to research each of your product types (this is something you should do really before you start selling properly) Terapeak can tell you the best selling times, the best categories and the average prices of the items sold in the last 30 days.
- Note your ‘seasonal’ changes, and predict the adjustments you will need to make, be it either price, product type or listing times. July and August are low ‘summer months’ and just before this time people will be buying holiday items. Seasonal changes do not just include, summer and Christmas. Events such as the World Cup and the Olympics will effect sales.
-Get down with the ebay fee break points
- Analyse your competition, note their trends, prices and listing times. Take a look at their usability, do they have a payment option you don’t take? Do they have a customer service number?
- Take a look at your traffic reports on eBay (you will need to sign up for it, through your manage my shop section in ebay), when is your traffic greatest? Do you have any international traffic? What listing times would be best for international ebay users?
- Take a look at your ebay shop and listings. Is there extra functionality or information you could add? What about an FAQ page?
- Take a look at the extra promotional bits and bobs that come with your eBay shop. Have you enabled your ‘listing feeds’ or used the newsletter function?
- Sort out the bad listings from the good listings. Take a look what has sold and what has not in the last 30 days. Move the not to good items (under 10% sell through rate) into your eBay shop and keep the good sellers on the core marketplace in fixed price or auction listings.
This is a basic listing strategy:
Low throughput items: 0-10% success rate. Run a trial listing in your eBay shop for 30days. Test the item from time to time, to see if the sales increase in eBay or if you notice increased sales on the marketplace as a whole.
Medium throughput items: 10-50% success rate. Keep 90 days auctions in your eBay shop. Place on 7 day normal auctions, once a day, 5 days a week (missing out Fri. and Sat.) Key finishing time 7-11pm
Most Popular Items: 50-75% Success rate. Think about putting these items on TWICE a day, 5 days a week on 7 day normal auction listings. Trial some Fixed price listings for a Friday and Saturday finish. You can mix auctions and fixed price listings as you see fit, they will cost the same. Key Finishing times 7pm then 11pm
Super Sellers! 75%+ Success rate. Normal auctions 5 days a week but finishing 3 times a day. Key times 9.30am, 7pm and 11pm, keep an eye on these times, as times will vary according to market. Think about your international customers, finishing at 1am UK time catches the US customers at 9pm etc.
Utilise the low cost listings offered in your eBay Shop.Make sure ALL your stock in your ebay shop, and keep a check on your success rate. Do not use the Auction Buy It Now feature. It costs more to list an item under these conditions than in an ordinary auction OR fixed price listing. If you have a declining item, withdraw it from eBay. The product may have not yet finished its life cycle and may become popular again.
Every week, do a snapshot report of how your items are doing. When you deal in volume it is hard to keep track. Every month, create a detailed report for more ruthless analysis. Save every penny you can on listing fees, final value fees on eBay can not be changed.
Take note of how your items are selling:
- To whom and where?
- For what price?
- What day/time?
- What format?
Review this data on a regular basis to keep your strategy relevant. Markets change and it’s the flexibility you need to keep ahead of the game.
Reducing your eBay fees:
So you can see that a 90 day shop listing for the bulk of your items is the cheapest way to sell on eBay, if you want to avoid the basic auction format.
Auctions and Fixed price listing appear better in the searches so it’s best to have a healthy mixture:
50% on a 90 day Shop Listing
25% Fixed Price 7 Day Listing
25% on a 10 day auction finishing on a Tuesday/Thursday or Sunday evening, at a slightly reduced price, increase the velocity by adding a second auction in the morning maybe?
I always recommend starting with 7 day listings for the core marketplace. But you might find that 3 day listings increase your selling velocity once you are more established on the marketplace or have a limited range of products.
eBay Trust and Safety Get Serious – neutrals are now negatives!
Seriously complicated that it is. I have been reading all about the new trust and safety policy seeming to suggest that now neutrals are classed as negatives on Scot Wingos Blog. He has now followed up on this article with more information.
eBay’s Chatter has tried to clear up the issue:
Q: Are you now considering a neutral a negative? If so, why continue to have neutral feedback?
A: No, it’s more accurate to say that we treat neutral feedback as not positive. For instance, neutral comments alone do not trigger an SNP action. There is a negative feedback threshold of two which neutral comments do not count towards.
BUT also in the article:
There are two thresholds we use to determine which restrictions are most appropriate. Most sellers who fall into a category of SNP enforcement are there due to feedback rates, so I’ll use those in my examples.
Greater than 5% buyer dissatisfaction rate: A seller must have more than 5% negative and neutral feedback, as a seller, over the last 90 days to qualify, and must also receive a minimum of two negatives from unique buyers in the past 90 days.
Greater than 10% buyer dissatisfaction rate: A seller must have more than 10% negative and neutral feedback, as a seller, over the last 90 days to qualify, and must also receive a minimum of three negatives from unique buyers in the past 90 days.
There are different restrictions (described below) for buyer dissatisfaction rates of greater than 5%, and greater than 10%, and for low-volume sellers.
So restrictions are placed on ‘buyer dissatisfaction over the last 90 days’ which includes negative and neutrals.
Oh but there is more, there are ‘groups’ of sellers:
Low-volume sellers: Low-volume sellers are those with no more than 2 negative feedback, no neutral feedback, and less than $3000 sales volume over a 90-day period, would typically receive a 14-day full selling restriction. After the 14-day period has passed, selling privileges will be automatically reinstated. (As with all selling restrictions, the seller can continue to bid and communicate.)
Higher-volume sellers: For sellers who are not low-volume sellers ( Edit: Is that not why they are called high volume sellers?) and who have a buyer dissatisfaction rate of greater than 5% (but less than 10%), the restriction is a reduction in sales volume. Sellers will be able to continue selling and listing items, up to 75% of their historical weekly volume based on their rolling 90 day history of completed sales. (This is based on dollar sales volume, not on number of items sold.) We manually review restricted accounts after 30 days to determine if there has been improvement in their satisfaction rates. If a seller’s buyer dissatisfaction rate is brought down to less than 5%, the restriction will be lifted. If the buyer dissatisfaction rate remains greater than 5%, the sales volume will continue to be reduced. Additionally, sellers whose performance substantially worsens during this restriction period may be subject to more significant consequences.
Sellers who incur a buyer dissatisfaction rate of greater than 10%, with at least three unique negative feedback, will receive a full selling restriction. – Edit:Yeah, this is OK 3 strikes and your out. The only bit that make sense!
OK, so as a low volume seller myself, and lets face it there are alot of us that make up eBay, how am I supposed to track my rolling 90 day customer dissatisfaction rate to make sure I am not going over 5%? Will sellers have a ‘buyer dissatisfaction meter’ in myeBay?
Negative/neutral feedback activity and Item Not Received rate is used to determine level of buyer dissatisfaction, sellers need a method to track their performance as this is getting a very sensitive issue.
Follow on from eBay Price Break Points…
Following on from this post: Know your eBay fee break points
Taking the £29.99 item, I used Fee calculator for eBay UK to give me a rough estimate of the money I would get back from that £29.99 item launched on eBay taking into account the highest paypal fees for the uk.
Listing the item with a Gallery Upgrade (always recommended, why eBay don’t make that standard I don’t know) the breakdown was as follows:
eBay Listing Fee: £1
Final Value Fee: £1.57
PayPal Fee: £1.29
Total Fees: £3.76 ( I am assuming postage costs are covered and no profit is made here)
Leaving us with £26.23. You loose 12.5% of the value of your item straight away. For a £9.99 item it is over 16%. I imagine the closer to the break point in fees the better your profit is (though I would have to create a giant spreadsheet to tackle this, I did once but the prices have changed since then. I might dig it out and mod it.) If I find it I will create a page and list all the prices up to £200 so ya’ll can use it as a reference. ( oh and here is it like magic – eBay Fee and Percentage Lost Calculations)
Know your eBay fee break points
Once upon a time a titanium seller told me that when they started on eBay they listed everything starting at £1. They then realised they could save five pence on every listing by listing the items at £0.99.
This seller was selling over 500 items a month, spending £25 a month, for the sake of £5.
But if we look at the other break points in the eBay fee structure:
| £0.01 – £0.99 | £0.15 |
| £1.00 – £4.99 | £0.20 |
| £5.00 – £14.99 | £0.35 |
| £15.00 – £29.99 | £0.75 |
| £30.00 – £99.99 | £1.50 |
| £100.00 or morefor multiple item listings in £100.00 or more tier | £2.00£3.00 |
If this seller was listing 500 items at £30 instead of £29.99, for the sake of £5 a month the additional listing fees would cost £375.
The final value fee break points are less of a worry point:
| 0.01 – £29.99 | 5.25% for the amount of the high bid (at the listing close for auction-style listings) up to £29.99 |
| £30.00 – £599.99 | 5.25% of the initial £29.99 (£1.57), plus 3.25% of the remaining closing value balance |
| Over £600.00 | 5.25%of the initial £29.99 (£1.57), plus 3.25% of the initial £30.00 – £599.99 (£18.53), plus 1.75% of the remaining closing value balance |
The difference in the final value fee would be 17p for the whole month!
Shops are the hidden Daemons of eBay, charging pennies (max 11p for 30 days over £500 price tag) to list the item, up to 10% of the final value if sold for lower priced items and giving little or no visibility on the marketplace.
| £0.01 – £4.99 | 10% for the amount of the selling price up to £4.99 |
| £5.00 – £9.99 | 10% for the initial £4.99 plus 8% of the remaining selling price balance |
| £10.00 – £49.99 | 10% of the initial £4.99 plus 8% of the initial £5.00 – £9.99 plus 6% of the remaining selling price balance |
| £50.00 – £499.99 | 10% of the initial £4.99 plus 8% of the initial £5.00 – £9.99 plus 6% of the initial £10.00 – £49.99 plus 4% of the remaining selling price balance |
| Over £500.00 | 10% of the initial £4.99 plus 8% of the initial £5.00 – £9.99 plus 6% of the initial £10.00 – £49.99 plus 4% of the initial £50.00 – £499.99 plus 2% of the remaining closing value balance |
So take a look at your pricing, could you save by obeying the ‘break point’ rules?
eCrater – Free website and marketplace? Free you say!?!
1724 days
Seems so. Suitable mostly for hobbyists eCrater is
2 things in one. First, it is a 100% free online marketplace. Second it is a free ecommerce website builder.
They profess it will remain free, and the only charge will be for premium listings in premium positions on the site as the sellers discretion.
The feature include:
Unlimited categories
Unlimited products
Up to 10 photos per product
Paypal Support
Google Checkout Support
Money Order, Cashier’s Check, COD
Feedback system
Bulk lister
Tax zones
Fixed shipping per product
Weight-based shipping matrix
Fully editable store texts
Upload category pictures
Set promotional product
Set promotional categories
Color schemes
Order Management
Notify for order by e-mail
Max quantities
Free webstore hosting
Unlimited disk space
Your own URL http://yourname.ecrater.com
Example stores are http://dakotaexchange.ecrater.com/ and http://frames-and-things.ecrater.com/
