It has always been our endeavour to understand how buyers use different sort functions on eBay to search for the deals they are looking for.
What are buyers looking for?
Today’s consumers want choice, great deals, unique products, customization and specialization. Now this is not to say that we’re seeing the end of mass marketed, commodity products. It’s only to say that buyers are also hungry for something unique. They like new ideas, bundled offers, products and concepts. They like hard to find, obscure, up and coming brands. All this at great prices!
And the easiest way to find success as an eBay seller is to offer these kinds of products. Buyers in this segment are happy to search through 10 pages of results to find the product that is right for them. It pays off handsomely in terms of steady sales.
Specific & relevant selling
This means which listings are the most relevant to the buyer’s search. The more generic your product is, for example “silver hoop earrings”, the more likely those buyer search results are to return thousands of listings and pages and pages of search results. And the harder you will have to compete (with all the other listings) to get your listing on those first pages of eBay's search results.
Importance of Keywords
In ecommerce, KEYWORDS play a vital role. Keywords, much more than browsing, are the way that the majority of people will find what YOU have to sell. Therefore, it is important, that no matter what you sell, you pay close attention to the keywords you use to describe the products you sell. Are they accurate? Are they relevant to your product? Are you using brand names, model numbers, colors, styles, descriptions, feature names, describing the functionality of the product?
Even if you STOCK the best products in the world, if you are using vague, non-descriptive keywords in your title and listing descriptions, shoppers will be hard pressed to find your products.
How shipping charges impact your visibility in search results?
With the increased competition in eCommerce, buyers have become much more sensitive to shipping costs on eBay. Expensive shipping is a reason some buyers leave eBay.
Hence eBay has made arrangements for listings that provide good shipping prices and offer the best opportunity to deliver great buyer satisfaction. Factors such as Relevance, Time Ending, Seller Performance, and Shipping & Handling decide where you are placed on the search results. The better you are on the above fronts the higher buyer visibility you gain through your listings placed on the first set of pages with search results. We recommend that you offer ‘Free Shipping’ which helps you increase your Shipping & handling DSR scores and thereby catch the first sight of the buyer.
Offer ‘Free Shipping’ to enjoy buyer’s preference
Free shipping deals play a major role in whether consumers buy in a store or online. 18% of respondents said they shop in stores so they won't have to pay for shipping and 33% said they have bought from web site instead of a store because the retailer offered free shipping. Three out of five online customers said the availability of free shipping greatly influenced their choice to shop at one e-retailer instead of another.
Avoiding shipping costs was the third most common response for why shoppers choose to buy in a store rather than on a retailer's website, behind the ability to receive the product immediately and being able to see or feel an item before purchase.
Moreover, consumers gave the retailers offering free shipping higher scores in every satisfaction category than those not offering it. The categories include: likelihood to purchase online, brand commitment, likelihood to return, likelihood to recommend and overall retailer satisfaction.
E-retailers are realizing that free shipping is a major selling point, the study shows. 68% of shoppers recall some kind of shipping offer – a percentage that has increased steadily over the last three years, 20% of holiday customers surveyed said they saw no free shipping offers over the holidays, while 12% did not remember.
Join this workshop to learn more about how buyers search for deals, variety and exclusive items on eBay.
See you on – Wednesday, 11th February, 4 – 5 PM to learn more on selling on eBay.
Please feel free to ask any questions regarding 'Selling on eBay' on this thread.
Yes, you are correct in fact I’d go a step further and say that ‘the better is the listing the better it works for you to convince the buyer’. Your listing is basically your online salesman which ensures that all the concerns/queries of a customer are met and he is convinced that the item he is looking at is the right choice for him. Hence your statement that it converts visitors to buyers is true.
I saw your listings and they are good. Since you are keen on creating some distinguished listings, I’d suggest you to have a look at listings of these sellers (Toycuriousityshop, mugal_art, antiqueastrolab) which I think are great listings. Taking great pictures and including as many pictures as you can for the listing only enhances the visual display of that listing.
However, to get visitors to buyers you need make several attempts so that you assure that the visitors on the site are attracted towards your listings. Using Listing upgrades such as Featured Plus, gallery featured & ProPack will prioritize your listings to be placed at the top and thereby catch the first glimpse of the visitor then it’s the listing that will sell your item.
Similarly, buyers search with many criteria such as Free Shipping, New Items, specific category and specific product lines. Once they have short listed such search results then they start browsing through them. If the search results go into many listings then differentiators such as Bold, border and highlight will help you attract the visitors onto your listings and then rest the listings will do the talking.
One more suggestion: Please do not include links external to eBay (such as http://www.PCPriceLine.com) while posting on the community boards as this is a violation of the Board policies. Please read more on the Board Policies a href="http://pages.ebay.in/help/policies/everyone-boards.html">here.
Firstly, let me thank you for your suggestions and assure you that no suggestion put on our discussion forums falls on deaf ears.
I am sorry to hear about your unpleasant experience of selling to such buyers.
While we are taking various steps in this regard to ensure that marketplace is safe and clean, we would like to advise you to set buyer requirements and keep a feedback criterion for choosing only buyers who have got feedback in the past which means that they have transacted successfully in the past.
Consider your account on ebay being an offline retail store. You have no control over who’s entering your shop and who is there just for browsing items and not serious or who is serious and wants to buy. Similarly, we cannot restrict anyone for registering on eBay and then browsing the items. I understand that there is section of buyers who do not pay after bidding however this is applicable to only a small section of buyers and a few categories. To your suggestion of asking the credit card details for online payment to auto-debit his account once he is the winning bidder is something worth exploring but I see this as a challenge when most internet users are still hesitant to use their credit card online.
I’m sure no one wants to limit the number of buyers on the site by creating a mental blockage for such buyers that they have to reveal their credit card details.
Having said the above, there is no denying that unpaid buyers are a cause for concern and rest assured that the efforts are put to ensure that the number of such buyers only keep reducing month over month.
It’s been long since we exchanged a dialogue. I’m glad to see you here.
I understand that your concern is similar to what Amitava123gems and Tachusglobal have raised. However, your point is valid on giving shipping discounts to a buyer buying multiple items but still you can give him discounts by offering selling discounts and charges on multiple purchases.
Listing fee on eBay is just Re. 1 per listing. Moreover, beyond Rs. 1500/- there are no listing fees charged. This means at Rs. 1500/- you have the freedom to showcase your entire inventory and attract numerable buyers that come on ebay from all over the world. Also, listing fees act as a catalyst to prevent junk listings on the site. If we are to refund the listing fees if the item does not sell then sellers would take this as granted and do bulk/junk listings to take a chance if the item sells and thereby impact the marketplace health of quality supply. Also if we refund and assuming that sellers pass on this benefit on their items, a Re. 1 deduction in the item price won’t actually make a difference to the buyer.
On listing fee refund - Listings fees is refunded if the seller lists the same item again, and if it successfully sells. This ensures that junk items do not clutter buyer experience.
Moreover, in any business that you do there is a cost of operating business. I’m sure you would agree that @ Rs. 1500/- max per month the business investment is not high at all. Regards
You might try the above to attract buyers if at all this becomes a part of their search filters while looking for the products and deals they have in mind which I’m sure will not be. Even if I assume that you’d use ‘Gallery plus’ to display a larger picture of the gallery Picture, you can attract only those buyers by this who keeps on browsing pages after pages of search results but the smart ones just do an advanced search.
Moreover, I feel including such a picture in the search results in ‘List View’ is a challenge.. Isn’t it??
Thank you for posting your concern and starting the discussion on this Online Workshop.
Yes, you can put the said product for sale on eBay as long as you ship across the downloadable version of your subscription on a CD to the buyer. This is in light of the policy update made on 16th April 2008, where we announced that “digitally delivered goods and items which are transferred electronically will no longer be permitted on eBay.”
Hence you will have to ensure that your listing mentions that it’ll be a CD that will contain this subscription which will be shipped across to the buyer. Also since this subscription is unused as yet (as claimed by you) then you can list it as a ‘New’ item. Also if that subscription has an expiry date or a start date then you should also mention the same clearly in your listing.
I hope I was able to address to your concerns. Regards
We hope that the information on Best Match would be of great help to the sellers selling internationally and would love to address the concerns/doubts that members should have in this regard.
We thank all the members who have posted on this thread and either me or my colleagues would respond to them.
To summarize, with Best Match as the new default for search and browse, buyers find the items they are looking for more quickly and easily. Adding Seller Performance and Excessive Shipping factors to Best Match increases the probability that they will have a positive experience during the transaction – combined, these two benefits of Best Match greatly improve the overall buying experience.
Remember, that only a very small percentage of sellers will experience a decrease in the exposure of their listings. The end result will be a benefit to the whole Community, including both our good sellers and our buyers.
Searches based on Relevance + Seller Performance + Shipping Charges = Best Match.
Relevance
Best Match sorts the listings you see based on a concept called "relevance." A particular listing's relevance is based, in part, on past successful buyer behavior for similar items.
In other words, if buyers running a particular search often end up viewing, bidding on, or buying a certain type of item more often, this will be factored into our relevance calculations. These types of items might then display higher on the page in subsequent searches.
Seller Performance
In addition to sorting based on relevance, Best Match will also sort based on sellers who provide great buying experiences and the small percentage of sellers that don't. Making greater use of Detailed Seller Ratings and sellers' overall rate of buyer dissatisfaction enables us to reward great sellers on the site with increased listing exposure, and reduce negative buying experiences from sellers with high rates of buyer dissatisfaction.
Shipping Charges
To reduce the negative impact of excessive Shipping & Handling on the buying experience, sellers with the lowest Detailed Seller Ratings for Shipping & Handling Charges will also see a decrease in the exposure that their listings receive in search results. Also listings with ‘Free Shipping’ get preference over those with Shipping Charges.
Best Match is the site-wide default for search results on some eBay International sites. The Best Match feature gives buyers a way to organize search results so they can find items more quickly. One of most important elements in this calculation is the historical buyer behavior on the site for similar searches. This is known as ‘relevance’. Best Match considers factors such as Time Ending, Relevance, Seller Performance, and Shipping & Handling.
Therefore it becomes increasingly important for you to understand how and where your listings are being shown up in the search results while an item is being searched for.
Welcome to the Online Workshop - 'Tips for sellers selling on eBay'.
Before we start this online workshop, a piece of knowledge for Indian sellers selling on international sites. Some of the sellers might have noticed that there is a new default search filter on most of the other eBay international sites instead of ‘Time Ending soonest’ called as ‘Best Match’.
Let's know more on this so that we can have participation from sellers who sell both on domestic as well as international sites.
I am new at ebay and i am trying to sell my collection of coins and stamps can you please give me some tips for selling as I haven't got any response for the product which I was trying to sell
I agree with home and lights that Ebay is lenient to buyers and strict with sellers. I have a buyer on whose mobile number is wrong and as per ebay rules, the buyers accoutn will be disqualified, but inspite of repeated complaints to ebay the buyers account is still active and the telephone number is still in error and no action is bein taken on the buyer!!!
eBay rules are too rigid for sellers and too lenient for buyers .
As a result , sellers have to devote a lot of time whereas casual buyers are just too many .
In my case , wherein we sell ipods and other computer stuff , 90% of the buyers do not pay after winning the bid!
Most of these scruplous buyers are ones who have registered for fun and try out ebay by bidding & winning !!! In many cases , addresses are irrelevent & phone nos are fake .
I would like to suggest following changes :
1. eBay should not charge any listing fees for items which were bid but not paid. 2. eBay should make it mandatory for every new buyer (at least less than one month old) that he/she can bid only after giving their credit card details/online payment , so that as soon as bid is successful , paypal debits the card and releases shipment instruction to seller.
Without this , bidding is just a joke and does not have any authenticity ! Only giving a "unpaid strike" is just not enough !
i offer all item in store with free shipping when i was charging shipping charge i give buyer combine shipping discount and buyer get more cheap item then right now when i offer with free shipping but now when buyer buy more then one item don't get any discount 3 months free shipping records of my sales shows that 0% multiply item buyer which was when i was charging shipping charge and discount it was 10% about why eBay don't make change that we can give discount in free shipping also for more then 1 item buyer because we already add shipping cost in item price eBay think that in free shipping couriers company don't charge us any? if ebay make change that when buyer buy more item in 1 time payment can get discount from item price what seller want to offer to buyer if you make this change i am sure who buy one from seller add also more then one
well the best thing ebay can do to the sellers is refund the listing fees if items does not sell,, bcz in the last few months we have noticed ebay invoices r much much higher thn ebay sales,, so we request ebay to pls refund our listings if our item does not sell,, it will encourage sellers to list more and more and at much beetter price,,
Hi, Free shipping not only adds to FVF,it also discourages buyer purchasing multiple items,because some hidden shipping cost is clubbed with item cost in such cases and buyer is unable to gain for combined shipping. I offer free shipping in low value items I list at ebay US.This is for FB hunters and also to gain access to less than 10$ free shipping search result.This is not to make money but to attract international buyers. In the present scenario,my this effort is also almost futile because of western recession. Thanx, Truly, Amitava
I have a downloadable version of Norton Internet security 2009 which I received it as a gift from my friend ,can I sell this on ebay..If yes then can it be listed under used product or new as its a 2 Year subscription product and I havent used it yet..Your suggestion and advise will be very helpful as I am a new user
Feedback to eBay India Team
Learn more about RSS
Must use Buy It Now and PayPal.
)
)
)
)
eBay Community News
