Six Ways to Improve your eBay Business

eBay may not be the crazy new fad it once was, but there are still several effective ways to make money as a business on the site.

Traps are easy to fall into when setting up your eBay business, so here are six clever ways to get the most profit from all your efforts.

1. Use the enhanced listings feature to the max

Sometimes it’s easy to neglect some of the more ‘trivial’ features on eBay – one of which being the setting up of an item for sale.

The natural inclination when going through this step is to rush it – getting your product up for sale as simply and quickly as possible.

However, eBay themselves has released statistics emphasising just how important some of these features are, with it reported that:

• A first photo increases chances of selling by 15% (and is free)
• A gallery will boost sales by roughly 12%
• A subtitle tends to see sales improve by 10%

While some of those features cost a partial fee (subtitles will set you back a minimal amount), they are ultimately all worthwhile in the long-term.

2. Develop your brand image

Nobody wants to purchase goods from a shoddy seller, so it’s imperative you build up your brand to make it look as respectable as possible.

A unity across the brand as a whole is perhaps the most important feature, with a strong name needed to help you stand out from the crowd – Billybob88 won’t encourage much business.

Design a logo that fits in with the rest of your brand image. You may even need to hire a freelance graphics designer to do this if you want to make the logo look as professional as possible.

It sounds basic, but also ensure to understand your brand. If you’re selling office appliances, but present yourselves in a casual manner, there’s a major disconnect between your product and your company’s image as a whole.

That’s the real key here: knowing yourself. Develop that persona and then run with it to a professional standard.

3. Ensure that you maintain fantastic order fulfilment

The last thing you’re going to want to do as a business in an online marketing place, is take an age getting products to your clients after their order.

Order fulfilment is a very important part of keeping customers happy and ensuring they come back for further business again in the future.

While a seller has some level of control over this – they can ensure they’ve sent off their products by a certain date – order fulfilment takes all the stress out of their hands.

It’s crucial for eBay business owners to make sure they can trust the organisation ferrying their packages across the globe. The hard part is finding a reliable shipping company.

Post and Packing is a reliable service, providing fast and efficient delivery for a huge number of eBay sellers.

4. Make the most of free marketing

Paying for advertising is a costly and expensive process, so why not make the most of all the free systems out there to help you promote your message for nothing?

For starters, make sure to forge a strong system of links between your pages (on your listings, about me section etc.) – ensuring to link back to your business’ homepage at every opportunity. The more links out there, the greater chance of traffic to your page.

Websites like Froogle also offer free listings, with the seller just needing to register all of their items in a spreadsheet (including product URLs, images and a brief description) before sending it to them.

Making sure to boost your SEO with the use of keywords is also integral. While it might sound like a good idea to label something as ‘amazing’ or ‘excellent’, these words don’t generally show up in many people’s search bar when looking for an item. Be precise and to the point.

On top of that, do everything you can to make yourself look better. Bulk out your ‘about me’ section with interesting and relevant information and consider sending out a weekly or monthly newsletter to anyone who has purchased from you previously, in order to encourage repeat business.

5. Source other products on eBay

This sounds like an odd one, but buying in bulk from cheaper sellers elsewhere on eBay – ones who perhaps specialise in particular items – can reduce costs when it comes to bringing in stock.

While you will have to sell these items for a slightly marked up price to make a profit, the reputation of your business, coupled with the versatility and variety of the rest of your items, means that people should still stick it out with you.

Bringing in these items all at once for a relatively cheap price is far more cost-effective in the long-term – with your bulk purchase serving as just one, manageable hit to your finances, as opposed to several ‘sneaky’ smaller ones, which add up over time.

6. Keep an eye on the costs

On that note, make sure to keep on top of the costs of your eBay business at every corner. While the eBay fee system can at times be somewhat confusing (here’s a full rundown provided by the site themselves), it’s still possible to stay on top of your finances.

Sellers are charged both an insertion fee and final fee when their product is sold, which usually equates to around 10% of the price the item sells for.

Analysing your finances is the key here – making sure that you aren’t letting any side-expenses slip through the cracks, thus making your margins of profit that little bit smaller for every sale.

There’s no precise way to do this, other than being frugal and keeping a beady eye on exactly how much you’re spending every day.

Also make sure to remember when you’re working out your figures that PayPal (a commonly used system for payment) will also take a small fee – usually around 3.4% of your total.

These are just six ways to improve the effectiveness of your business on eBay, but there are many more too. It’s crucial to remember to keep adapting your business and work smart in an online environment. These helpful tips should go a long way to ensuring you’re doing just that.