eBay is one of the oldest and most established marketplaces out there. It enables international selling and customer outreach. But the question of how to increase your sales on eBay still arises frequently. 🤷♂️
Unless it is one-of-a-kind products that you sell in your eBay store, the chances are that you have a lot of competition to rank against. Literally, hundreds of other merchants might be offering the same products right now. So, just having a store on eBay is no longer enough for successfully growing eBay business.
In this article, we have collected some tips for improving your eBay seller performance and bringing your eBay business to the next level. 🔝
Increase Visibility of Your eBay Listings
You really need customers seeing your eBay listings before anybody else’s. The best option for increasing visibility is improving the eBay SEO. With the latest updates to eBay’s search algorithm, these elements are generally centered around customers’ shopping experience.
Understanding what exactly is in customers’ searches.
Ask yourself a question “Does your product title match what the buyer is looking for?”. Research keywords to send your listing high up the results page.
How the application of relevant filters changes the search results.
Is there enough relevant information for the customers? This is a part of eBay’s advanced search option available to buyers. 👨💻 They can filter out irrelevant search results. So, make sure that your listings have all the necessary Item Specifics (read more on that below).
How eBay ranks relevant listings.
eBay uses the Best Match algorithm to provide buyers with the best results for each search query. Apart from perfecting your titles and adjusting the Item Specifics, you will find a few other metrics that are taken into account by the Best Match. So, optimization of your listings is a great step forward in beating the competitors. 💪
Optimize Your eBay Listings
If you do not have the desired level of sales, firstly, it might be a good idea to customize your eBay store’s appearance. Make your store look more professional by using appropriate design and make it more user-friendly. The next great step is to optimize your listings.
Images
eBay allows adding up to 12 pictures, so do not miss this opportunity. Upload at least 8 images for every listing that you have. There are a couple of general rules for eBay images 🖼️:
- Take pictures from different angles to capture all details of a product and all of its imperfections.
- Do not use text or artwork on pictures.
- Do not upload stock images.
- Use professional photography whenever possible.
Selling products with eye-catching images is especially important when it comes to mobile sales. 📱
Potential benefits of adding a good range of professional pictures to your listing include a boost in search results; a boost in mobile sales; reducing returns rate due to “not as described” reason; reducing product questions and customer’s hesitation before purchasing.
You can also check these eBay tips on how to create perfect images for product listings.
Product Title, Descriptions, and Specifics
Product title
Use keywords to attract views. eBay reserves 80 characters for product titles. And you need to use all of them because, on average, products with longer titles tend to come up in searches more often and sell better. While brainstorming the ideas for titles 💡, think of good keywords to enrich the listings. You can take the benefit of “Google’s Keyword Planner” to get the best matches.
Remember to not just stuff the title full of keywords, it means more harm than good. Write your titles for real potential buyers. The same goes for descriptions.
Product descriptions
eBay team clearly states in their help articles that the more “about” information the product have the easier it is to match them to customers’ searches. So, describe your product in details, adding clear and easy-to-read information.
Make sure to add:
- What exactly the product is for and the value that it brings to customers.
- All important product details that are different for various categories, like size, material, style, etc.
- Links to your other products.
- Your brand information.
eBay suggests writing about 200 words about your product. 📝 Make the info relevant and do not cram too many keywords in it. Apart from being helpful for buyers and making them favor your products above everything else it also makes the listings rank higher.
Another important point is making use of eBay’s catalog. Experts even suggest listing your products in two separate but similar categories to increase the potential customer reach.
Item specifics
eBay’s advanced search provides users with the ability to perfect their search results. For example “Material”, “Color”, “Brand”, etc. The checkboxes match the Item Specifics fields in your listings. They are unique for each product category and are essential for listing optimization.
Some might argue that it would be enough to include information like brand or color into the title and the product will show up in the search. But that is true only in the case when customer includes such keywords in their query.❗ But if they just decide to filter search results with checkboxes, your listing will just be excluded. Hence, you must always provide Items Specifics for each of your listings.
Shipping Costs and Pricing
It is important to provide free shipping when possible because it encourages more sales. It is especially recommended when your product pricing is not the lowest among the competitors. In this case, maintaining superb customer service and free delivery plays to your advantage. 😉
Seller Rating And Feedback
This is something that always affects the listing position. eBay favors excellent sellers who get a positive rating from their customers.
Of course, the only way to get a higher rating is to keep up the best customer service work and quickly act on incoming customer requests. 🤓
Return Policy
For better results make your return policy comprehensible and generous. 30-day free returns is a minimum for most product categories. But you can also offer 60-day returns.
If your products and customer service are up to standard then it is highly unlikely to cause a rise in your return rates. But it is sure to mark your listings as more relevant for buyers.
Boosting visibility with eBay Deals
It is a great tool for getting a wide exposure for your listings. Not only are they highlighted in the “Featured” section of the website but eBay actively campaigns to attract buyers to them. Deals are presented in the promotional emails and the featured listing tend to rank higher in the search.
However, it is not available to everybody from the beginning. There is a qualification process to undergo. The overall seller rating has to be 97% or more. You also need to have all the qualifications of a Top Rated Seller and provide the free shipping option. To apply for eBay Deals go ahead and contact an eBay representative. 👻
Expanding Your International Customer Reach
eBay has one of the easiest programs that allows you to expand onto international eBay sites.
To opt for eBay’s basic international selling mark your listings with international shipping option. Immediately, your listings will become visible to customers of multiple international eBay sites in a regular search. 🌐 It is a great way to test out how well your listings will perform in certain countries.
If you discover that there is a demand for your products and selling internationally is profitable enough, you can move onto eBay’s advanced international selling program. 😎 It has a few advantages over the basic one:
- Your listings show up directly on country-specific websites like ebay.de;
- The product descriptions and pricing for each location is adjustable;
- You can have the listings translated in local languages instead of showing English for all buyers;
- Insertion fees might come at a discounted rate, according to your shop subscription level in the target country.
The advanced option does require more work and preparation but it has proved itself successful for increasing sales levels.
Originally published at sellbery.com on February 7, 2019.
