With the snowy weather just before Christmas many people delayed trips to the shops and still have disposable income to spend, but with the recession still biting are price conscious and are looking for a bargain at the time of the year when price cuts are traditional.
“You can decide the exact date and time you’d like your sale to start and finish, as well as either discounting by a set monetary amount or by deducting a percentage from the price you has items listed at.”
eBay have a facility called “MarkDownManager” which you’ll find in the shop management section of My eBay. This allows you to select a set of products by category, by format, or by individual listing. You can decide the exact date and time you’d like your sale to start and finish, as well as either discounting by a set monetary amount or by deducting a percentage from the price you has items listed at.
As well as eBay clearly marking items on sale with the discount you’re offering it’s also possible for buyers to search your eBay shop for sale items. You can make this easier for them by displaying a banner linking to sale products, make use of the promotional boxes in your eBay shop and of course you can bulk edit products on sale into a special “Sale” eBay shop category. This gives bargain hunters the ability to easily find all the products you’re offering discounts on.
Don’t forget to make full use of your eBay shop’s email marketing to let past buyers know that you’re holding a sale. This can be done automatically for you when you start the sale, or you can construct a custom email marketing message and send it manually to the subscribers to your shop.
It’s important to remember if you’re on eBay.co.uk that only products which you’ve previously had on sale in your eBay shop for at least 28 days will be included in MarkDownManager sales. This pretty much means you’ll need to have previously listed using the Fixed Price Good Til Canceled listing format. Once the items have passed their first renewal date you’ll be able to include them in sales in the future.
The benefits of holding a sale are that it can kick start your eBay business in the New Year, sales can help you dispose of any seasonal stock that you have left to free up finances for ordering new product lines, and of course if you have any products left in small quantities you can liquidate them to allow you to concentrate on items you have large quantities of.
Whilst some sellers are reluctant to sell goods at a loss, if you have seasonal stock or small quantities of some lines it makes sense to dispose of them. The quicker you can turn your excess, surplus or seasonal stock into cash the quicker you can order new stock and start making profits. It’s better to take a small loss and liquidate problem lines than have the money tied up sitting on your warehouse shelf for a whole year until the Christmas season comes around next year.
You can hold a sale on eBay for a minimum of one day and a maximum of two weeks. The minimum discount is 5% and the maximum is 50%, but remember the discounted price must still be 99p or higher. Finally once an item has been on sale you’ll need to wait two weeks before you can discount the price again.
