Marketing Tips for eBay Sellers

eBay Marketing

You took the first step and created an eBay store. You have inventory waiting, couriers on the way, and deliveries on the way. Time to start spending money, right? Wrong. While one of the main benefits of selling on marketplaces like Amazon & eBay is that your digital storefront can reach more people, the fact is that you still need to optimize and get eBay marketing right to ensure you’re maximizing the exposure the marketplace brings you.

First of all, this is assuming you’ve already set up your store and customized it. Now it’s time to promote it. A big benefit is that you can often generate revenue on a very small budget, and you can really harness the power of the marketplace. So with that in mind, here are some of our best tips for marketing your store:

Opt out of eBay marketing:

Search Engine Optimization

I know, this isn’t a quick win in terms of marketing, but it is an important step on the ladder of success on eBay. Your products may be listed, but without the right optimization, you’ll find yourself lost in the clutter of results. The big guys like Google, Yahoo, and Bing (I can’t believe I called these two “big guys” either), they are constantly reinventing their algorithms and making them more and more “human.” This means that gone are the days where you could just load up keywords and expect to show up in the results. You need to start thinking carefully about how your customers will search for you, and write your product listings and descriptions in that way. You really need to try to catch your customers’ attention and think carefully about what they’re going to type when they’re looking for, say, the baseball caps you sell. It’s also important to note that SEO can take some time, and you’re unlikely to see immediate results, but you should definitely invest some time into it now to see the rewards further down the line.

Adwords

Although it can be a daunting interface to get started with, Google has some amazing help files and setup guides that will allow you to get up and running with a simple campaign very simply. You don’t even need to spend a lot of money because you can make sure you are targeting a very niche market and not wasting your ad budget marketing to the wrong people. Although it can be tricky to run an adwords campaign for a store that has thousands of products in stock, a great way to get around this is what Google calls keyword insertion. Now I will say this, you should definitely read up on it and it will take a lot of practice to get it to really work, but Google allows you to create ad copy that pulls in the text that a user is searching for (provided it’s within the character limit) and use that text in your ad. This means that not only will the ad copy look super targeted to the user search, but it will also allow you to create fewer ad variations for more products. Be warned though, while it can be a very powerful tool, using it incorrectly can have a negative impact on your brand because your ads may look weird. So my advice is to start small and get some good performance out of it before expanding. First, if you’re not sure where the rocks are.

e-mail

Don’t listen to the naysayers, email is certainly not dead and it remains one of the most effective means of communicating with your customers and prospects. eBay has a built-in newsletter feature to help you build your prospect list, so it’s worth giving it a try. Just because you’re using a well-tried medium doesn’t mean you have to stick to old tactics. For example, try using a copy version instead of the standard “Subscribe Now.” Try getting a little more creative with it and see what updates work for you.

On your eBay account:

Testimonials

It may sound obvious, but the best way to sell your products to potential customers is to have your happy customers make the sales. It’s no secret that in most cases, buyers make their purchasing decisions based on seller feedback, so it makes good business sense to spend some time managing your feedback better. Using feedback management software can help you significantly reduce your contact response time, and it can also help you deal with negative feedback, meaning you can start turning negative feedback into positive reviews.

Consistent visuals.

If you are running any form of advertising or display campaigns, you need to make sure the look and feel of your ads is consistent with the look and feel of your storefront. In its simplest form, if someone clicks on a blue banner, but your store is all orange, it will take a potential customer a few seconds/minutes to determine if the company in the ad is the same company. It is important to publish consistent branding across all channels.

eBay Advertising

If you do have money to spend on marketing, it’s worth looking into the advertising options offered by eBay themselves. I say this is only for people with a marketing budget because the minimum spend on a campaign is £10k, but what it means is that you can get your ad in front of nearly 3 million people with very impressive targeting options. While it may not be the best option for all industries/sellers, it’s worth looking into whether it’s right for your business.

For most sellers, this advice is just the tip of the iceberg, and it takes a lot of time and effort to gain a good reputation online. Provide excellent service to your customers, and you should start to see repeat business start to roll in. Good luck, and happy selling!