eBay and online marketplace specialists Frooition and Yahoo are jointly sponsoring an Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) conference in London. Entitled Engage for Autos, the event will be held at the Royal Commonwealth Society, London on November 30th 2006. The event will bring together auto manufacturers, retailers and specialist creative agencies to discuss digital marketing, branding and how to increase eBay automotive sales. This half day event will cover the latest IAB Brand Engagement research and customer behaviour insights. Case studies will illustrate how the automotive sellers have successfully increased sales with their own motor sales websites and eBay motors. Auto advertisers are some of the biggest spenders in online, accounting for 13.8% of the whole market spend in the first half… Read more »
Finding the eBay categories that work with express!
If you use the Sell-your-item form on ebay.co.uk (sell.ebay.co.uk/sell) and are an approved Express seller then there should be a checkbox which will filter the categories to show only those which are eligible for Express. Make sure you chose to ‘Browse for categories’ from the initial page.
Selling Product – eBay Shop, Websites and Storefronts.
In this article I just fist want to mention what the differences between these three entities are. A lot of my clients get confused between these three formats, which causes misinterpretation of what functionality is available to them. Firstly, an eBay shop: This is part of the eBay marketplace where all of your listings on eBay can be collectively viewed. You can make this look very much like a website (like the guys from creativebay.co.uk) but it is definitely NOT a website. You have 2 ‘marketplaces’ under the eBay umbrella. Core Listings which get a larger proportion of traffic and seemingly cheaper ‘shop’ listings which do not form part of the eBay main search and depend very much on core… Read more »
Google & Yahoo collaborate in Sitemaps.org
Incase you haven’t yet heard, Google & Yahoo have launched a collaborative site www.sitemaps.org. Sitemaps provide webmasters and content providers to submit new and existing content to search engines. Unified As any webmaster will know, publishing content to multiple search engines can be a somewhat tedious task, so this unified approach will bring a new standard, and a more efficient approach to submitting your website(s), and the search engine industry as a whole. Just because a level playing field has been agreed in the form of www.sitemaps.org, don’t expect to see the exact same result rankings when searching Yahoo or Google, as each of these companies still have their own search algorhythms and ranking criteria. However, submitting content to all… Read more »
Will Google Take Over the World?
Recently Google has made a number of acquisitions that have made headline news. The most obvious recent purchase was the high profile takeover of YouTube for $1.65 Billion in stock. However this merger is just one in a long line of Google purchases. Google’s latest procurement includes the purchase of the WIKI based site JotSpot. JotSpot was founded by the co founders of the former search engine site Excite; one of the first search engine home pages to feature customizable home pages which Google users have come to know and love. The current trend to move towards new web 2.0 technology (such as WIKI technology AJAX and my space type sites) is being vastly adopted by many big players in… Read more »
eBay and Myspace.com
The massive optimisation of myspace of late means that in around 2 days, your myspace account is optimised within google and showing up within search listings! Just search for frooition in google and two myspace accounts will appear where two employees have marked frooition as where they work. That happened in 2 days! What else gets into googles search index in a mere two days? Many sellers are now promoting their auctions through myspace and adding ‘freinds’ from relevent groups of people. The primary age for myspace is between 16 and 34. So if your product hits that age range then a bit of free myspace advertising can’t go a miss can it? Whaaaaat? I hear you say? Well companies… Read more »
eBay Express WE NEED BUYERS!
eBay express is everywhere, on myspace.com, pretty email and literature to exsiting eBayers…..eBay express in the UK is attracting the cream of the sellers. Only one problem is the lack of buyers. The states suffered the same downfall. One seller quoted only 3 sales in about 300 were from the eBay express marketplace. I personally fail to see why. Ebay express is a potentially great marketplace for buyers! Why? -All items must have a returns policy -Sellers must have a 98% or more feedback on eBay -Be genuine business sellers bound by distance selling regulations ( no fakes as well guys!) -Items must be shipped within 3 days (no pre-ordering here) -Payment by credit/debit card is taken by eBays Express… Read more »
Check some eBay vitals, gather some data about your eBay business!
Check your Gross Merchandise Sales each Week Total Listing Fees for that week? Are they too high? Payment System Fees Is your average selling price increasing or decreasing? (GMS/ No. Itms Sold) Then with this simple calculation work out your Conversion Rate for that Month Number of Items Sold/Number of Items Listed= Conversion Rate This will give you a percentage of how many successful items you had close in relation to how many listings. The average CR (conversion rate) on eBay is 50%, go below this and you need to re-jig your listing strategy as you are listing too many items, or listing them to the wrong category, in the wrong format or at the wrong times. There are so… Read more »
E-commerce is the cheapest way to trade!
E-Commerce is one of the most important aspects of the Internet. Under this umbrella we have websites with shopping carts, marketplaces and shopping comparison sites. Ecommerce lets you sell without the restraint of time or location. A website can serve anywhere in the world. Cost per sale is reduced when you’re talking about e-commerce. No human interaction is needed, and errors are reduced as the customer provides all the information. Customers can search for niche products in an instant, and if you are a seller of niche product, reaching out to the world can increase your sales volumes thus decreasing the cost of the item for you. The customers experience can be streamlined, they will spend less time over order… Read more »
eBay Search Updates – video interview with eBays Eric Billingsley
I hear on the grapevine eBay are working on a few additions to the standard search functionality, and they’re calling it ‘Best Match’. This had a short release earlier this week for testing, and has now been removed again as far as I can tell. The below picture shows how it would have looked: Basically this feature allows for potential buyers to search against key factors, like best performing item based on hits, price, and a whole other list of factors.. Ultimately pushing for relevancy (I’m sure you all know the feeling of searching for an iPod and finding nothing but accessories?) For anyone interested in seeing this and other eBay features in action, go view this video demo from… Read more »
