eBay & ecommerce

I’ve met thousands of eBay sellers over the years: an admirable bunch for the most part, let me tell you. There have been a few nutters and wastrels, of course, but mostly I’ve met extremely hard-working, decent, ambitious and honourable folks. In fact, if I have a general criticism of the eBay seller community, I’d […]

Even if an eBay Shop doesn’t necessarily float your boat as a way of selling, you can still gain benefit from the suite of marketing tool available to Shopkeepers. In particular, the email marketing feature is a powerful facility that can help you sell more. Bear in mind that it does take time to get

It is vital to bear in mind that the content of this post might very well become outdated in the next few weeks when eBay’s fee and other changes are announced later in the month. We don’t yet know the substance of these changes but it’s a fair bet that they will include substantive changes

The old order changeth yielding place to new. I can’t recall which poet wrote that (Tennyson?), I’ll Google it when I’m done with this post. But it is something that eBay sellers would do well to remember, especially with reference to how Google is transforming how people shop online. Time was that people would come

To begin at the beginning, a very good place to start. Let’s look at two fundamentals of your eBay Shop: what it’s called and what it looks like. eBay Shop Name Rather like an eBay User ID, I suspect that many eBay sellers choose their eBay Shop name without being aware of why it’s important.

An eBay Shop is an essential part of a professional seller’s arsenal of tools. And before we look, over the next few days, at the ways an eBay Shop can contribute to your profitability, it’s worth revisiting what your Shop adds to your operations. It’s also a chance to evaluate whether you’re making the most

Firstly, I must declare my interest: I work for vzaar.com, a company that offers a video service for eBay sellers. The reason why? I reckon that video is the next big thing coming eBay’s way. Videos are becoming ubiquitous online and the unstoppable rise of YouTube shows how at ease most net users are with

Having recently moved house, I’m in the market for a lot of new things. As a ‘check eBay first’ kinda guy, I’ve been looking for more than my usual book and CD purchases and spending time in parts of the site I seldom visit, looking at beds, sofas, rugs, kitchen stuff and the like. I

When it comes to considering a Return Policy for your eBay listings, two things immediately spring to mind. I’ve spoken to countless sellers and it seems to me that the number of returns that most sellers get, compared to the despatches they make, represents a tiny percentage. For most, they are a pain and a

For many sellers, listings are rather like the human genome. The template code resembles the full DNA sequence. It’s been tweaked and added to over time. A one-off problem occurs, so the seller adds a caveat or note to their listings. In the same way that we humans still have the DNA (I imagine) to

Over the next few days I want to focus on ways you can ‘pimp your selling’. I tend to think that eBay buying has four stages from a seller’s point of view. Bring ’em in: Get a potential buyer’s attention so they’ll view your listing. Convert ’em: Once they’re looking, persuade them that you have

eBay is the biggest shop in the world and things change with dizzying frequency: it’s hard to keep up. But it’s important to raise your head above the parapet. You probably know your own corner of the Marketplace very well but a broader knowledge of what’s going on will help you take advantage of the

It seems to me that a great many serious sellers on eBay fall into it almost by accident. Perhaps taken surprise by a few good sales and the hope they can change how they work and live, they take the plunge. This is one of the reasons why the eBay marketplace is so vibrant: lots

One of the most basic factors that a seller has to make decisions about is the time they choose to end their listings. Equally, as we go ‘Back to Basics’, there is no topic open to greater discussion and speculation. If the question is “When is the best time to end my listings?” the not-very-helpful,