Marketing Your eBay Business
Whether your eBay business is a sideline or a major sales channel for your company, a little marketing can go a long way. Because competition is so fierce, merely listing your products isn't enough: You need to do something to make them stand out.
Here are some of the many ways you increase the visibility of your listings. Fees vary for the various upgrades.
Featured Plus places your listing in the “Featured Items” section located at the top of all listing and search results pages. When you upgrade to Featured Plus, your item also appears in the general listings and search results, further increasing its visibility. EBay claims that Featured Plus listings are 28 percent more likely to sell than regular listings.
EBay Keywords bring more buyers to your listings by matching keywords to search terms on eBay. Bidders will see your banner and text ad when they search for a keyword you selected. For example, if you sell Nikon cameras, you can purchase “cameras” as a keyword so that any time a buyer searches for “cameras,” your advertisement will appear in the search results.
The eBay Gallery attracts attention to your listings by adding a thumbnail photo next to category listings and search results pages. EBay claims that on average, Gallery listings increase final prices by 11 percent.
Bolding your auction titles can draw additional attention to your listing when it appears in search results. EBay claims that on average, bolded listings see a 25 percent an increase in final prices. Highlighting, which adds a colored band to your auction title, can further improve the visibility of your item.
Subtitling your item is a great way to provide additional information about your items. Because you're limited to 55 characters in the title of your listing, subtitling is useful for conveying more about item's condition, shipping discounts, guarantees, or anything else that won't fit in your title.
The Co-op Advertising Program was created to provide PowerSellers and Trading Assistants with a scalable marketing tool to promote their eBay businesses. As a co-op participant, eBay will reimburse a percentage of your print advertising costs each quarter, from $500 for “Bronze” level members and up to $8,000 for “Titanium” level members. To participate, you must be a PowerSeller in good standing and operate an eBay Store or you must be a PowerSeller and a Trading Assistant.
If you have your own Web site, eBay provides buttons to link directly to your eBay store. It's a great way to increase traffic to you store, increase page views, and ultimately raise the prices your items sell for.
Finally, there are a variety of reports you can use to hone your sales practices. EBay produces a merchandising calendar as well as a "What's Hot" list, detailing the most popular categories. You can use sales reports to analyze trends within your eBay Store. Used together, these reports can give you insight into what consumers are looking for and help you tailor your offerings to meet demand.
