Helping you achieve your business aspirations. No BS. Real changes & fresh ideas that can take you to where you want to be, from someone who understands and has been there himself.

Sometimes trying to achieve your business goals can be clouded by the day to day operations or technical difficulties. Matthew can help you with mentoring or one-on-one business consulting. Matthew is extremely skilled in both eBay and Amazon marketplaces and has worked for two auction management companies.

Matthew has a Business Consultation page and you can contact him on his dedicated Contact Matthew page.

A Unique Opportunity for 5 eCommerce Businesses for ProjectE

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Time to raise the stakes! On Monday 15th August, I’m going to open a public invitation for 5 businesses to work with myself for a period of 8 weeks, consisting of 1-2 hours mentoring & consulting for free.

The infamous “ProjectE” should be no surprise to you if you’ve read any part of this site or if I’ve worked with you before, its to be focused on eCommerce, with a hefty slant towards eBay & Amazon.

This is a huge & equally unique opportunity for you and your businesses, as I’m offering support, guidance and mentoring, at a critical part of the year. With Christmas with in easy reach, just imagine what you could achieve with the right guidance and actions on your part.

If you’re interested in working with me for free & for 2 whole months, watch this video now  as I’ve put together a brief overview for this unique opportunity and more details will follow on Monday.

I will be providing a submission form on Monday and the closing date for applications will be 17:00 Friday 19th August 2011.

Really Bad Product Video for #ProjectE

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I needed a video to use as a product video for an article in #ProjectE. I had some electrical tape and Facebook open (bad I know) and saw “Pistols the Pirate” on there. The scene was set for possibly the worst product review ever.

The HUGE question for ProjectE

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Howdy, I need your help in answering the following question. Its ProjectE related and thus would be a massive benefit for me to help understand how I can help you the most.

Any feedback you have would be exceptionally useful and I’ve created a simple form that allows you to post the reply without using the comments system on the site if you’re uncomfortable with leaving your reply publicly.

The Question.

Imagine a website that is targeted towards helping small businesses on eBay and amazon, what topics, resources and content would you find most useful to you?

Your Feedback

You can use the form below to post your reply/comments or use the comments box at the bottom.

[contact-form 3 “ProjectE Question Form”]


Part 3 (Final): More Inventory – The 3 Ways to Increase Your Online Business

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This is the final part in the three part series on how to increase your on-line business. In the first part we covered the two sides of efficiency, internal efficiency and external efficiency and then in the second part (which I had to cut short due to time) we covered more sales channels.

Recap

I want to quickly recap on the sales channels section, these provide the largest spikes in turn-over for businesses. Even when done poorly, they can still offer the quickest returns on investments of time and money. Over time, both internal and external efficiency will kick in and make the new channel(s) more productive.

I didn’t really cover the the how and the where-to particularly well in part 2, I’ve got this noted to look at it again in more depth at a later date, as the article is compounded by the use of multiple tools for backend systems and I’d be looking at creating one larger article that covers the common ones.

Moving on…

To the final instalment, the title has already given the thunder away, its simply “More Inventory”.

“More Inventory” could mean a couple of different depending upon its application, it could mean the leveraging of ‘range selling’ so that you’re better able to tackle the exit strategy (for when the item being viewed is not the item desired) for listings on different sales channels or completely new products (or services) to be added to your business.

Range Selling

Staying with “Range selling” for a few moments, this simply means that you offer the majority of a range of products. As its raining here currently I’m thinking umbrellas. So imagine you have a couple of umbrellas that you sell quite frequently, also the supplier has 20 or so  other umbrellas, that you’ve just not ventured into as of yet. These are different colours and different sizes.

Instead of sticking with just the few that sell or you’ve found that sell in the past, take one of each and add them to your inventory (virtual stock is much better for this) . Now if you’ve not included them in a multi variation listing (best case) or via size/colour attributes on Amazon in a single record (again best case) you could add extra images & links to promote the other umbrellas in the listings themselves (on Amazon this is related products). The simplest way of look at this is as a buyer “Oh I don’t like this one I’m looking at, but I might like that one”.

Note: “Range selling” was introduced to me by a seller in the toys category several years back. I didn’t really get it at first, but once I started treating them as “ranges” and cross-promoting them as such, I would find that the entire range would do really well, rather than just a few more popular items. And often as the other items in the range did poorly for others, I was able to negotiate better pricing on the entire range of products.

Simple Fact. Product IS Product

It frequently surprises me when I explain this to clients and they get the “ah-ha” moment. It does not matter if you are selling an house or a pen, the selling process is essentially the same. You document the product, you market the product, the product sales, funds change hands, the product is delivered.

A Product
= An Umbrella
= A Computer Keyboard
= A House
= …

With this in mind, what is stopping you from expanding your current product range outside of the ‘safe boundaries’? Think about it, you probably already have access to hundreds if not thousands of extra products already within your supplier groups, its just a case of looking for them.

Once you’ve found one supplier, finding their competitor is relatively childs-play. But every supplier is different and with a little effort you can easily move around the supplier-food-chain. If you’re using backend tools as mentioned in the first article, the efficiency of adding more products is amplified both in the backend creation process (internal efficiency) and also in the steps you make towards greater external efficiency. These are both universal regardless of product type.

Note: I always pick a house as the opposite end of the extreme, it has its complexities, but its still a product…

<Insert negative here>

Frankly some people either don’t like this concept or just don’t get it. The former is because they “believe” you should be specialised and I agree, you should be specialised, specialised in making more money. You’re either growing or you’re dying. Pick one.

Conclusion

Through these three articles you should have a better idea on how you can increase your on-line business. From using tools to make both internal efficiency and external efficiency greater, to adding more sales channels (hint this is the second largest spike producer in turnover) and finally to adding more products, because they’re ALL essentially the same.

The 3 Ways to Increase Your Online Business Part 2: More Sales Channels

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Welcome to part 2 of a 3 part series that covers the three ways in which I consider the quickest and easiest ways of increasing your online business. If you missed the first part, this was on efficiency both internal efficiency, everything that happens inside the business and external efficiency, being more effective on your customer facing side of the business.

In this part, I’m going to be covering the thorny subject of ‘More Sales Channels‘. I say its ‘thorny’ because if not done well, then its going to have repercussions, however I feel its critically important that you diversify your risk and reach.

I did cover part of this in two previous  articles, the first called How To: Selling on eBay with more than one eBay ID and the second as the first caused quite a stir, called Part 2: Leveraging more than one eBay ID I’m going to be drawing from these two articles and explaining a little deeper on why you should consider duplicating (tactfully & gracefully) your current business.

Why more sales channels?

Lets get this out of the way first, as its the common question. As I mentioned yesterday the use of software tools such as  eSellerPro, ChannelAdvisor, Linnworks, 247TopSeller etc… force the business to use a set of processes, that are most likely far superior to what is being employed currently. This alone (after some hardwork & sweat learning these I hasten to add) will typically result in more turn over, as the business is some 5x times more efficient at the tedious, repetitive processes. Also the core users time is normally freed to focus on other important tasks, namely better descriptions, more stock, faster order processes and so on… resulting in more sales.

However… The critical point here outside of ‘efficiency’, is that the largest spikes in clients turnover is when they plugin another sales channel.

The simple sum here is:

More sales channels =  More Turnover

The Largest spikes

The largest and most immediate spikes happen when a business employs eBay or Amazon, when it was missing from their current sales channel mix

First lets imagine a solely Amazon based business that is not selling on their own website or eBay, as soon as you plugin these in, typically this is where you see the largest spikes in their companies turn over.

The same is true of the reverse, where a company may be solely eBay, when they add Amazon to the mix (because they can relatively easily as they are using one of the said tools) they’ve added another sales channel that responds quickly to their actions and thus, more turn over.

Certain software providers will use a clients growth as testament to that companies software product is the ‘better choice’; While this is partially true because such tools enable more efficient processes for unifying scattered business operations and like to shout about the growth companies experience when using the said tools, in reality they’ve just become more efficient and have added a major new sales channels into the mix. The real question is, what happens when you have done these steps?

Shoot me now

I’m going to go out on a limb here and actually say that when you’ve hit the natural growth points, ChannelAdvisor might be the better choice for you because of their dedicated “account management” structure & crucially experience.

While the other software products I’ve mentioned have such layers of varying degrees, when you’ve truly automated what you can, you’re stuck. The reliance for the business expansion goes back to the business owners & third party consultants like myself. If this is an area you know you’re going to struggle with, the extra fees could be a sound investment.

Note: For those who don’t know my history here, I spent over four years in direct competition with Channel Advisor in two SaaS products. If there is anyone that has the right to be anti-Channel Advisor, I’m them. Hey I even suggested I should throw their MD over the desk in an earlier article :)

I’m aware of changes that are occurring in another product and quite frankly I don’t like them, there is too much reliance on the product being the be-all-and-end-all. It gets you so far, but after that, you need that extra support.

And yes I am suggesting you could/should pay more for a software a product and saying you may not need my services (just yet), but that’s OK. You need to get as far as you can on your own.

I’ve already done this, what now?

If you have already implemented one of these software tools and have Amazon & eBay running well, then you are primed to expand.

What I mean by this is that you’ve gone through the learning curve of the software tool, you’ve got your data prepared for both of the key channels and probably have added on a website at the same time.

Sooo to recap you have:

  1. The majority of the steep learning curve completed
  2. Staff (hopefully) trained up on its use
  3. Processes in place to deal with over 10 times more orders
  4. Clean data that is just waiting to be “abused” to more channels
  5. More time to focus “on” the business, rather than working “in” the business

Note: If you have not got to this stage yet, then you should seriously consider using one of the software tools I mentioned as soon as humanly possible. The quicker you start using one of these, the quicker you reap the rewards of ‘efficiency‘.

Which leads nicely on to the next section.

The principles

Going back to the earlier article on selling on more than on eBay ID, we need a refresher on the underlying principles behind this and my views on these marketplaces.

For the vast majority of manufactured goods, you are not the only company selling them, thus every single day, customers choose your competitors over you. There are an infinite number of reasons for this, timing, colour scheme, layout, description, title are a few factors.

Which leads on to this pivotal statement:

So if you’re selling widgets, there are lots of other widget sellers for customers to choose from, so why not be one of the other widget sellers?

I included a simplified calculation on what this could mean in the article, a rough outline is that if you are 1 of three sellers for product X, with all things being equal**, you have a 1 in 3 chance of selling to the buyer, however, if you added an additional selling account so that there is now a 2 in four chance of selling to the buyer, you’ve not increased your odds of selling from 33% to 50% and I like the latter.

** None of the sales channels are equal, there are a large number of factors that influence each of them. However if you’re using a business model that works, then there is a fair chance you’ve got the majority right.

Also risk is an important factor to be considered, imagine that your sole channel ID gets a stream of negatives and you get left in the brown stuff, even with the eBay TRS protection for 3 months that’s kicking in, its going to be difficult to recover. By diversifying risk over multiple selling identities, you’re able to lower the overall risk to the business.

The other key point, is that if you’ve already created the inventory record once, then altering it to sell it again (but differently, see the important section on this in a few moments), then you’re 75% on the way to being able to add multiple identities.

Original Time To Create the Record
+  (Original Time To Create the Record / Number of ID’s + Time to make edits)
= Overall time to create inventory

From the calculation above, the largest amount of time is spent creating the first inventory record, as soon as you add duplicates, they are what they are, copies of the original and then needed to be altered with minor details for leveraging more channels.

What do I mean by “sales channels”?

Maybe I should have included this sooner, however to clarify, one eBay ID is a sales channel, one Amazon account is a sales channel, one website is a single sales channel etc…

Stop

(You can see where this is going)

Imagine you had to start your business again tomorrow, scary thought right?

Realising that you have already got 75% of the hardwork done, the learning curves for software, the processes in place, great, clean inventory thats being pushed out to your main sales channels, hey you may have even added a few channels while going through the set up processes, does duplicating your business onto additional sales channels sound that scary?

Potential new sales channels

While not exhaustive, here is a list of sales channels that you could leverage.

  1. eBay
  2. Amazon
  3. Website
  4. Comparison search
  5. Affiliates
  6. Retail shop
  7. Play.com
  8. PPC
  9. Social (this is a special one, covered later on)

Are you using all of these? Are you using all of these times 5? 10? 25? more?

My point is, as soon as you’ve completed the steps for one of these channels, duplicating it again is only a fraction of the work.

Early conclusion

I’m stopping here as I need to work on ProjectE related tasks today. I know I’ve not covered the ins-and-outs of this topic thoroughly and I’ll be revisiting this either here or with you when ProjectE goes public.

One topic that I have clearly avoided is how to to duplicate these sales channels, this is where the line kinda-goes-grey for many reasons, however the biggest one is that it directly competes with ProjectE.

However there are two points I feel is important to add. The first is that if you make a direct clone of your main eBay ID, then its unlikely to add any huge value to your customers, the channel and ultimately the business.

There are normally many “threads” (verticals is the correct term, you’ll probably understand ‘product ranges’ more easily) that can be followed to create the new ID with and the second is that duplicating Amazon should be given a wide birth for the reasons covered in the earlier article here. Everything else is fair game.

The 3 Ways to Increase Your Online Business Part 1: Efficiency

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time-warp-spiral-clock-face

As far as I see it there are are three core ways to increase your online business, this is pretty much universal across all the marketplaces and yes, I am blatantly ignoring some of the “traditional methods” in this article.

The first of these three ‘ways’ is “efficiency” and I’m looking forward to detailing the following two in the next few days or so, but for now, lets get right into ‘efficiency’.

Efficiency

Efficiency in general describes the extent to which time or effort is well used for the intended task or purpose. It is often used with the specific purpose of relaying the capability of a specific application of effort to produce a specific outcome effectively with a minimum amount or quantity of waste, expense, or unnecessary effort. “Efficiency” has widely varying meanings in different disciplines. Wikipedia

This article has two spurs, the first is internal efficiency and the second is external efficiency. They are quite different and I’m looking forward to showing how they differ and what they mean for you.

Internal efficiency

What I mean by this is making the processes you use each day more efficient. This could be the implementation of software products like eSellerPro, ChannelAdvisor, Linnworks, 247TopSeller etc… What you’ll not be openly told, is that such tools add processes and normally the gains made by using such software stem from a single source, which is…

Efficient Processes!

None of these tools (yes they are tools, they are not the be-all & end-all) are not quick to learn, however if you’re migrating from one to another, then they are generally all very similar, they just have different interfaces, features and dare I say it quirks too. But the underlying factor in them all, regardless of design, is that they enforce processes onto the business and typically they are a lot more efficient than the processes the business was using before.

This might be inventory creation, unifying the data that is created, so that it can be ported across many sales channels, courier rules to match orders to the most cost/time efficient service or just simple order processing of orders from multiple channels in a single place.

The list goes on, however ultimately, these tools are designed to automate the labour intensive tasks and this is where the one of the largest gains can be made by a company, because after the initial learning curve** (see note), strict (ish) processes are in place and the bi-product of efficiency here is time gained, which typically goes into three places:

  1. Sourcing & creation of more stock
  2. Greater focus “on” the business
  3. More leisure time (lol, I had to add this one, I’ve only seen one do this thoroughly and I envy them greatly)

** This varies greatly from not only one software product to another, but to person-to-person also. Noting that some people just fail at this stage, its typically tied to either the person not being capable (through lack of applicable skills) or through their unwillingness to let-go of certain tasks.

Outside of “software products” that add obvious efficiency gains, focusing on the processes that are used to do the following, all allow extra efficiency to the business

  1. Sourcing stock & supplier relationships
  2. Managing accounting
  3. Managing staff (internal and external)
  4. Create new, better products (and/or inventory data, if not a manufacturer)
  5. And so on…

Internal Efficiency Summary

Internal efficiency is everything that happens inside the business, this could be the use of software “tools”, that typically give the biggest gains or becoming more efficient with accounting, so that the funds that are in the company move quicker (or slower) or even developing better relationships with your suppliers to then leverage a greater buying power outside of pure monetary forms.

External Efficiency

To define what I mean here by “External Efficiency”, this is everything that happens on sale producing platforms and not internally related (such as accounting or sales order processes). I know these are directly linked, but if you simply think of the internal efficiency as everything you do in your offices and the external efficiency as everything your customer sees.

As the majority of readers here are focused on three areas eBay, Amazon and Website commerce, I’ll keep to these three areas.

eBay.com LogoeBay Efficiency

Starting with eBay, I am implying that gains can be made through more efficient listing practices & styles. This could mean using more item specifics data, reworking your listing titles, especially if you consider that the titles on eBay are going from 55 chars to 80 chars soon, why not rework your current titles now, but also rework them so that you add-in the extra characters later, when the longer listing titles have been launched.

Note: I’m thinking reworking listing titles now using market research, but also keeping track of the current title in excel, the new title (to be changed now) and a longer title that is ~80 chars long, all with the custom title, so that they can be updated through the said third party software, or if you are not using these, then something like eBay File Exchange to update them en-mass later.

Adding of cross-selling modules to listings, better product images, reworking item descriptions that you know are poor or have caused numerous questions and so on…

I could (but I’m not going to) go on a bender here with regards to eBay, however, let me pose you this question and leave you to make your own decisions:

If you were starting from scratch and could change anything you wanted about your current eBay set-up, what would you change?

Now change them.

Amazon Efficiency

Focusing on the external side to Amazon, when was the last time that you looked to see if there were any duplicates of your products on Amazon and listed against those as well?

While Amazon is supposed to have a single record for a single product, with so many merchants creating inventory on Amazon, you’re bound to find duplicates across your product range and you could leverage these to gain extra sales and sometimes for more money too as there are less competitors with these records.

This is just one area of many that can be employed with Amazon, the other two note-worthy tasks in relation to Amazon is to increase your exposure across the other Amazon sites, as Amazon have recently enabled UK accounts to sell across Europe and the second is FBA.

Have you looked at Fulfilment By Amazon yet?

If not, do so now here http://services.amazon.co.uk/services/fulfilment-by-amazon/features-benefits/ oh and this tool is well hidden, I only found it a few days back, here is Amazon’s FBA calculator! https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/fbacalc/fba-calculator.html

Website Efficiency

Perhaps the biggest opportunity, yet the biggest challenge for online businesses. With eBay & Amazon, the marketing fees (yes eBay and Amazon fees are MARKETING FEES, not a fee for being party of a community and drooling over feedback counts), its hard for merchants to comprehend that they need to spent more on the promotion of their website than they do with either of these channels.

Its a common complaint, that they[merchants] do really well with regards to the other two channels but fail completely when it comes to their website channels. If you’re focusing 99.9% of your time & resources on eBay & Amazon, its no wonder that they account for 99.9% of your sales. What would happen if you flipped this on its head, do you think you’d make a pretty hefty dent in the 99.9%?

I’m over a thousand words at this point, so if you’ve got this far you’re doing great. This topic deserves hundreds of thousands, but I’m going to cut it short to stay on topic and detail a few ideas you could focus upon to make your website more “efficient”.

  1. Look at page load times
  2. Improve categorisation
  3. Add better category descriptions
  4. Create backlinks in forums
  5. Create a email marketing campaign
  6. Create a blog
  7. Do some article marketing
  8. Add tracking counters (or set events/funnels) for critical pages, such as home, category, item detail, add to cart events, cart, checkout stages and the cart final page. So you can measure them and then make changes to improve them and have quantifiable data to measure the impact.
  9. Try some simple A/B testing using www.google.com/websiteoptimizer
  10. Set up a Google Adwords campaign, if you already have done so when was the last time you looked at the ad groups or where you were gaining links from, could you create some targeted backlinks on the content sites that are delivering click through’s?

Efficiency Summary

While both mutually dependent & a little tricky to get-ones-head-around to begin with, internal efficiency is everything that happens in the background and external efficiency is everything that the customer sees. In both cases there will need to be efforts made to improve efficiency, some will be simple and quick to do, while others are much longer term.

Reading

I’m inclined to include two books for some light reading here (both aff links) and the full list of my reading materials can be found in my library:

  1. 4 Hour Work Week
    The first is the 4 Hour Work week by Timothy Ferris whom takes the concept of efficiency and smashes it to pieces (also introduces you to a concept of dreamlining, but that is quite a shocker and you need to read the book to at least comprehend this, its why I sat in the sun all day yesterday with the kids & friends enjoying a picnic)
  2. e-Myth Revisited
    The second is another personal favourite, E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. Sarah and ‘All About Pies’, I can vividly imagine the manager of the hotel taking the file off his shelf and showing him the processes, the walk from the reception to the restaurant & the orchard.The last chapter is rubbish compared to the rest of the book, but if you need (and I’m guessing you do, because I did) a easy step into the franchise model, even if you have no intention to ever franchise your business, this is a fantastic starting point. Oh and when you’ve read the book, I have the managers hat on currently, whom is whipping my technician in to writing this article.

This concludes this section of a three part article on “The 3 Ways to Increase Your Online Business”. The next two… I’ll release in the next few days, but for now, did you find this useful?

Updated Services List, Forthcoming Articles & Client History

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Forthcoming ArticlesI’ve been really quiet again on the article front this week again. I’ve not given up, quite the opposite. I’ve been beavering away in the background updating other content on the site (like Amazon & eSellerPro category pages) and that’s what this article is about, what is coming up and what I have completed in the past few days.

Also, I have a draft article on my MBA progression that is due for tomorrow morning (Friday 11th March), if you have any background on working with someone whom has an MBA, been through the process, employed, read about or have any information you may feel would be of use to me, please contact me today, as I’m at the OU in the evening.

Forth Coming Articles

This is not a complete list as there are a few that I wish to keep in my ‘back pocket’ for later use. However should give you an idea on the topics that are due to be released here in the forth coming days:

  • What is Fulfilment By Amazon & How much does FBA cost? (FBA Calculator included!)
  • Should I be using Amazon’s FBA (Fulfilment By Amazon)
  • Which eBay Shop Subscription Level should I be using? (Fees Calculator included!)
  • The untold truth about using 3rd party software such as Channel Advisor or eSellerPro
  • Is eSellerPro really worth +£2,000 plus fees?
  • Why choose Channel Advisor, aren’t they Web 1.5?
  • What is 247 TopSeller?
  • An Ex Employees/Insiders guide to eSellerPro
  • Get Ready, Get Set. Facebook Credits are going to change EVERYTHING
  • How To: Using eBay Shop Keywords to Leverage the Extra eBay Shop Pages

Client History!

This page is really is in its infancy currently. however it has been an interesting experience, remembering all the different companies I have worked with. The stark reality that there are so many and how different each of them were. The Client History page is not complete yet, however it visually shows the breadth of businesses I have had and still have the joy of working with.

New Service Offerings

I’ve been documenting what exactly I can offer potential clients and what I have been helping businesses for what is a very long time now with. Its been quite an interesting process as I am well-rounded-character and have experience in a lot of fields, that is a quality that makes me unique, however I do have key offerings, these are:

Business Mentoring & Consultation
The person you can turn to for advice, suggestions and solutions to your issues. If you want to work 4 hours per week we’ll work towards that, if you want to grow by X% then, we’ll do what is needed to achieve that goal.

Competitive Intelligence
A legal and ethical business practice, which allows executives and managers in making strategic decisions for an organisation. Competitive Intelligence is the defining, gathering, analysing and distributing intelligence about a company, its products & services, its competitors and any aspect that affects the company in question.

In short, knowing your competition better than they know themselves.

Data Manipulation & API Integrations
I am an expert with MS Excel, can write VBA, iMacros, PHP and JavaScript by hand, however I know that there is no point in adding complexity, if the lowest skilled user cannot use it. That’s why I have for a long time used the term I coined ‘Matt Proof’.

From SOAP to CSV, XML to HTTP Post, if it needs to be altered, chopped, changed, manipulated, uploaded or abused to a much nicer format for use elsewhere, then there is an extremely high chance that I can aid you with this. I’ve included several examples on this on the Data Manipulation & API Integrations page.

If you are interested in any of these services, then contact me today.

How to Make Your Own eBay Daily Deals & Weekly Deals

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This is a precursor to the full article on how to leverage eBay shop tags which I may finally complete for tomorrow (ok, may be Monday). However this is the most immediate application for your eBay shop and can be implemented in minutes. Plus I’m including code for you to copy/paste with! 73MAR2VX5JRS

What are eBay Shop Tags?

Before we start, you need to quickly learn that there are special tags, or keywords that can be used in the eBay shops. These tags that allow you to dynamically show your listings and other data on your eBay shop. I’ll be covering these fully in an article I’ll be releasing shortly, that describes each of them and includes a practical example of each.

The eBay Shop Tag – eBayStoresItemShowcase

Example ItemIn a few moments we’re going to be leveraging the eBay shop tag eBayStoresItemShowcase and using the attribute called ITEM to specify an eBay item ID to then bring this through on to our eBay shop.

This tag (or keyword) has several other attributes, I cover these in more depth later in the full article, but for now, rest assured you can have more control than this.

Create a Custom eBay Shop Page

For this to work, we need to create a custom eBay shop page, as long as you have an eBay shop, you can do this as the basic eBay shop has 5 pages included.

  1. Go to eBay and Sign in
  2. Go here: http://my.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MyeBay&CurrentPage=MyeBayManageStore
  3. On the left click on ‘Custom Pages’ (or go here)
  4. Now under ‘Active Pages’, hit ‘Create new page’ (its a little hidden, keep looking)
  5. Now there are a couple of formats, but we want the most control so go for the bottom one called ‘1 text Section/HTML’ along the bottom and hit continue
  6. Enter a Page Title. I suggest ‘Home’
  7. You now have a big text section, the HTML for this will follow in a few moments
  8. You can elect to show or hide the left bar at the bottom, this is a choice I’ll leave for you (leave it shown!!!!).
  9. On the next page, after pasting the HTML verify its as expected and hit save and publish

Notes: You may have already noticed that some of these templates include featured items, that’s really nice for simple users, I’ll be giving you some HTML in a moment that you can edit to your own liking and have maximum control.

If you would like this for your homepage, there is one extra step to do this, go back to the eBay shop custom pages page here and near the bottom there is a section called ‘ Shop Homepage’ and a drop-down box, you can use this to set the shops homepage. This is how people create custom pages and create some those superb landing pages you see.

Grab 6 Item Numbers

We’re going for the maximum control option, which is specifying the item numbers that are to be shown in our daily and weekly deals section. There are other options, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to be wanting to specify exact items.

We need 6 numbers, 2 are going to be our daily deals, the other four are going to be our weekly deals. So before we can do this, lets go and grab six items. If you do not know what item numbers are you can find these by looking at your listings, using this listing as an example.

I have put an arrow next to the eBay item number.

ebay-shops-item-number-1

Where you can find the eBay item Number of a Listing

The Keyword

We’re using two keywords, on that has two items specified for the daily deals and one that has four item numbers set for the weekly deals. In this example I’ve also set the attribute BACKFILL to on, so at least if you forget to update the listing or it ends, eBay will back fill for you.

Daily Deals Keyword:

{eBayStoresItemShowcase ITEM=”ItemNumber1,ItemNumber2″ DISPLAY=”1″ BACKFILL=”On”}

Weekly Deals Keyword:

{eBayStoresItemShowcase ITEM=”ItemNumber3,ItemNumber4,ItemNumber5,ItemNumber6″ DISPLAY=”1″ BACKFILL=”On”}

The HTML

Now this is clearly not going to be a one size fits all, but it’ll get you on the right track. It is s a single column format that has titles, descriptions and the eBay shop tags in and will point you in a the right direction.

I’ve added some comment tags to guide you to which sections you can edit and also remember to replace ItemNumber1, ItemNumber2, ItemNumber3, ItemNumber4, ItemNumber5, ItemNumber6 with the eBay item numbers you harvested before.

Code:


  

    Our Daily Deals
  

  

    
    	
    	Welcome to ebay shop XYZ we have two amaizing deals for you, these are Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam et rutrum lorem. Morbi eget mauris enim, ac interdum lacus. In non interdum est. Nulla facilisi. Donec vel nibh ac purus faucibus volutpat. Praesent nec neque dolor. Aliquam id lectus sit amet augue aliquam accumsan. Morbi lobortis eros lacinia erat facilisis suscipit. Donec eu urna nec elit vestibulum ornare ut ultrices arcu. Donec in nibh ante.
	
	

	

    
    	
    	{eBayStoresItemShowcase ITEM="ItemNumber1,ItemNumber2" DISPLAY="1" BACKFILL="On"}
    
    
  

  

     
  

  

    Our Weekly Deals
  

  

    
    	
    	Take advanatge of our amazing weekly deals, thee only last for one week  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam et rutrum lorem. Morbi eget mauris enim, ac interdum lacus. In non interdum est. Nulla facilisi. Donec vel nibh ac purus faucibus volutpat. Praesent nec neque dolor. Aliquam id lectus sit amet augue aliquam accumsan. Morbi lobortis eros lacinia erat facilisis suscipit. Donec eu urna nec elit vestibulum ornare ut ultrices arcu. Donec in nibh ante.
	
  

  

    
    	
        {eBayStoresItemShowcase ITEM="ItemNumber3,ItemNumber4,ItemNumber5,ItemNumber6" DISPLAY="1" BACKFILL="On"}

Real Life Example

This is the example code live on eBay, as you can see, it only needs the descriptions and you’re ready to roll!

ebay-shops-daily-deals-example

The Example Code Output with Live eBay Items

Easy-Peasy

You’ve now got the keywords, the HTML and the instructions. Easy-Peasy. Enjoy.

11 Reasons Why People Don’t Buy From YOU & How to SMASH Them

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In a recent white paper I was reading, a brilliant question was asked and then researched by ‘RichRelevance’ & ‘Bazaarvoice’. The paper was called ‘The “New” Rules of Engagement for Today’s Empowered UK Shopper‘ and its actually pretty darn good.

I am going to take their research and focus on one key area which I felt was skipped over, why a purchase was made offline (and not online), then port it to help you SMASH every-single-one of these reasons.

The Question That was Asked:

Thinking about a product or service you researched online and purchased offline most recently, why did you purchase that product offline?

why a product was purchased offlineI’m going to now tackle each of these with you and give you examples on how you combat these, to SMASH them to pieces and give you workable suggestions that you can implement into your business right now, today.

55% – I wanted to see the item before I purchased it

This was the biggest reason found at a whopping 55%. Quite frankly. if your customer is thinking this, then you are failing as an eCommerce business badly.

That’s a pretty harsh statement, but I stand by it. Why? Because you should know better! It has never been so easy or cheap for you to add photos, video, specifications &interactions to your products and services.

You must categorically remember that this is a flat screen (ignoring 3D) and the customer cannot touch the product or service you are offering, so this simply equates that it is your role to ensure that the customer is left without a single doubt on what he/she is going to be receiving.

47% – I wanted the product immediately

Now there are some things that people need right away, nappies when you’ve run out etc… but the majority of goods & services can be delivered almost always next day and this is again your ‘job’ to deliver and to make this delivery option clear to a buyer.

When can I get this item?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anyone-Can-Do-My-Story/dp/0752881892/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1289547986&sr=8-1

When can I get this item?
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/242522

Its Friday at the time of writing this and they’re both offering me Saturday delivery…

When can I get your item?

40% – I did not want to pay shipping costs

I’ll share a personal experience here, Amazon, I buy lots of books and I mean lots, almost every single day I am scoping new books to be read. I choose Amazon for three reasons when it comes to books, these are:

  1. I trust them, explicitly
  2. I like free delivery & don’t mind waiting
  3. They can deliver to multiple addresses

Now my point here is that ‘I like free delivery & don’t mind waiting‘, now if I want an item faster then I will pay for it. So here with Amazon I have options, have postage included or for sensible prices, upgrade to expedited offerings.

If you’re an eBay seller, then there are weightings in the best match algorithm to boost you up the results, but I’d suggest still offer two more services above these and promote them heavily in your listings.

36% – It was more convenient for me to buy this product offline

You must make the interaction of, payment of, everything of, delivery of your product and services as simple, as easy, as convenient as your customers want them to be. This is achievable by a collection of several individual plans coming together as one.

I heard a quote recently that sums this up:

“You cannot improve one thing by 1000%, but you can improve 1000 little things by 1%”
Jan Carlzon, CEO SAS 1981-1994

25% – I knew it would be easier to return the product if I purchased the in the store

If you’re customer is saying this and you’re a 100% eCommerce business, then you are again failing, probably in multiple contact points.

You must make the interaction of, payment of, everything of, delivery of your product and services as simple, as easy, as convenient as your customers want them to be.

20% – I knew that I could not be home to receive the delivery

This is a valid question, the vast majority of people work for a living, which means they typically go to an office (losers). This is dead easy for you to tackle, offer delivery to work addresses.

This might send a few eBay sellers I know in to panic, but come on, fraud is not that rife and on the bright side I know where they work now! Also thinking out of the box, you could give them instructions on how to verify their work address in PayPal…

16% – I found the best price offline

This better be in your retail outlet.

16% – I needed to talk to a salesperson about the product

Email, Skype, Phone, Fax, Live Chat and on and on and on and on and on… Since day 1 our[humans] greatest ability has been to be able to communicate. You could easily add your phone number and contact details at the end of the description(s), add a clear call-to-action button for life support, do what eBuyer does and have a reviews AND a product Q&A section.

I have several other suggestions on this topic, I’ll save these for another day. Or you could just phone me and I’ll spill them, but I need to see what I am working with first on how best to deploy them.

11% – The product was not available for sale online

Woooohooo find out what this was and get it on line. I want to know what this was, any ideas?

9% – I redeemed a coupon in the store

This better be in your retail outlet, provoked from a media campaign. You have a media campaign don’t you?

5% – I prefer buying products offline.

I’m actually amazed people still choose this one. But if you do not have a retail outlet, then this should be a consideration on your road map.

Although I openly admit, I love retail stores, I love isle-ends, I love to be marketed, I like to take in and try analyse why a shop is laid out the way it is, why banners are placed where and when, to see the stocks alter with the seasons. I think that’s just me.

Summary

The survey results should not be any real surprise on what was said, just the numbers attributed to each one. Thankfully ‘I am not comfortable buying online’ was 0%, so at least there was a 100% audience.

Its extremely important that you put yourselves in the ‘shoes of the customer’ and ask yourself “If I had this concern/query does my current site/listing/item/description/marketing not only answer all of the above concerns, but smash this into dust to allow the customer to convert to become a buyer?” Think about, your buyers are. Take action now!

Success is Knowing You Made a Mistake. Knowing is Everything

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This is possibly one of the shortest posts I will ever make, enjoy:

A mistake or an error
=
An unexpected outcome, but none the less, an outcome. Knowing its a mistake or an error is critical!

Knowing is everything, knowing that the outcome is a mistake, means you can try something different, not knowing means you carry on making the same mistake.

How to: SEO for eBay – 10 Minutes Per Day

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Just because you pay eBay a fee for your eBay shop, insertion of a listing and a final value fee when items sell, unfortunately this does not mean that eBay unleash a team of experts to promote your business.

In many ways you’re left to your own devices and as long as you convert buyers now and then, it kind of keeps everyone relatively happy. But why should you be happy with mediocre?

chocolate-cake

I'd like to eat the entire cake, but I can only take one slice at a time

Cumulative effect

Once you’re in the game (see my earlier post on “getting in the game“) its only a matter of “practice to make perfect” and it does not need to consume hours each day. Just a few minutes here and there and the combination of lots of little things, make one monster!

Take this article for example, I conceived this while eating lunch on the back of a napkin, nothing major, a few notes, then prepared the layout, back filled it and this morning added some images and annotations. It is putting everything together, the idea, the notes, the layout, the back filling, the visual candy. The cumulative effect of this is the final product, this article.

Breaking it down

I was once asked this question:

How do you eat an elephant?

I paused for a few moments and honestly thought *k, that is a an enormous beast, I’m going to need a slab of garlic butter to go with that steak. While day dreaming on it for a few seconds, I was given then answer:

With a spoon

Yep a spoon. I got the point instantly. I’m hoping you do too.

elephant-car

See even elephants need spoonful sized mouthfulls too. Yummy. (Look at the people in the car, the dent on the roof and I'm pretty sure he's got his pinkie out too, rofl)

Only 10 minutes, set the calendar right NOW

Before you continue with this article, open outlook, Google calendar or write on your diary for the next two weeks, a 10 minute block at the same time each day, to look at and make these changes.

If you drink tea or coffee, all we’re saying is that we are going to have a quick 10 minute break, with a cuppa at a set time each day. With this done, lets dive in.

The areas of eBay to focus upon

We’re going to focus on a few key areas and then make the tasks really simple to do. These areas are:

  1. Research
  2. Listings
  3. The eBay Shop
  4. Reviews & Guides
  5. Outside of eBay

Research

If you are just starting the ball rolling, your first few mini sessions should be focusing upon looking at your competitors and understanding how they are better than you and how you can learn from this to ultimately sell more.

Firstly we need to identify who the real competitors are, do not use gut-feel for this, use facts. Go to Terapeak/ and sign up for the ‘advantage’ account, its $25 or £16, it’ll be the best £16 you have ever spent.

Searching by category and keyword searches to find the real competitors, compile these into an excel list based upon value of turn over and make a point of reviewing each of these, noting the points you like about them and equally the points you dislike.

Oh and do not forget eBay Pulse, somewhat limited, but can help with identifying top keywords and top sellers.

Once you have found your list of true competitors, check this list once per week to see how they are doing. Then once per month, go back and review the list and see if any new competitors have arrived and track those too.

I know companies that know more about their competitors than they do about themselves. A healthy paranoia is good, although some to border on excessive.

eBay Listings

To focus on this effectively, we are going to break this down into further sections, these are:

  1. Listing Titles
  2. Listing Descriptions
  3. Additional Text

Listing Titles

Even the most seasoned sellers can improve their titles, using the research in part one, you should already know top keywords for your categories. If you only do 20 titles in the 10 minute session, in a week you would have done 100, two weeks, 200 and in a month, a staggering 800 titles. Get started now!!!!

Listing Descriptions

I’m pretty sure every single description every written could be improved in some way. Again do not panic, we’re not after the entire elephant, we’re just after a tasty spoon full. You may have already learned through research that others may be creating clearer, more friendly descriptions that what you have.

One by one, with some time. That’s all it takes.

Additional Text

I’ve added this as an extra section, because we’ve covered the main two sections, title and description, however what about the rest of the auction contents?

I’ll give you some idea on the degree of scale I was recently given from a client, there had two lines, totalling no more than than 40 words for the description. The other 1454 words were terms and conditions and other useless scary junk.

Make all other content so simple, you’re mother could read it with her glasses off. Shipping, simple, terms, simple, anything else, simple. Customers are paranoid creatures, do not scare them. Caress them with nice information. Kinda like I am doing to you now :D

The eBay Shop

Again, this needs to be broken down in to spoon sized chunks so that it can be tackled in just 10 minute chunks.

  1. eBay Shop URL
  2. eBay Shop Pages
  3. eBay About Me Page
  4. eBay Shop Description
  5. eBay Shop Categories
  6. SEO Keywords

eBay Shop URL

The first task when looking at the eBay shop is to look at the URL. If we are dealing with an extremely well known & established eBay shop, then do not alter it.

However, if you are just starting out or have only a small following, then choosing a eBay shop name, making a URL that includes a nice keyword right name is strongly advised.

Edit your eBay shop name (thus URL):
http://cgi6.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?StoreMgmtEditDetails

eBay Shop Pages

I have an entire article dedicated to this. You can view it here:
How To: Using eBay Shop Keywords to Leverage the Extra eBay Shop Pages
(This may not be live at the time of publishing this article)

Edit your eBay shop custom pages:
http://cgi6.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?StoreManageCustomPages

eBay About Me Page

I have this noted to dedicate an entire article to this page, however in short the eBay about me page is a very handy page, as it gives you an extra icon next to your eBay ID. Its the ideal pace to promote your business and is the only page you are allowed to include a link to an off-eBay store on.

Edit your eBay About Me page:
http://cgi3.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?AboutMeLogin

eBay Shop Description

The eBay shop description can appear in more than one section. The first section you need to be aware of is that its used in the meta description tag for the eBay shop, also on some eBay shop templates its also used in the header area.

You’re allowed up to 300 characters for the description. I’d suggest the first 40-50 are human readable and then the majority are a list of the brands or other unique attributes and then are ended with another human readable sentence of 10-15 words. This way it reads well for both humans (primary goal) and search engines (secondary goal).

Edit your eBay shop description:
http://cgi6.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?StoreMgmtEditDetails

eBay Shop Categories

You can have up to 300 categories, down three levels. Named what ever you want with in reason, up to 30 characters each. The added bonus is, that you can set separate keywords for these categories too!

Edit your eBay shop categories:
http://cgi6.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?StoreCategoryMgmt

SEO Keywords

You can give each of your shop categories up to two primary keywords and six secondary keywords, plus you can specify your own keyword sets for the homepage as well.

If you are dealing with a wrath of categories you created in the earlier step, just plod your way through them, Just think in a few weeks, they’ll all be super hot, loaded keywords words and the task will be complete for a short while. Because you’ll want to be coming back to look at these again later to improve them further!

Tip! Refuse the urge spam the keywords. Think or even better, research what people are searching for an how that matches your category and match the keywords you use to the products you have in that given category.

Edit your eBay shop keywords:
http://cgi6.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?StoreMgmtViewCustomKeywords

Reviews & Guides

These are stellar places to pick up well targeted browsing buyers. The last time I had a stab at the reviews, I got an account to the top 100 reviewers on eBay UK. It took a lot of work and I did have a team to help me achieve this. But it can be done.

Take a look at http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/ You can review almost anything within reason. I’m not going to cover why you should be doing this in great detail here as again I have this already noted for a future article. But in short, it will help you be seen as the ‘Authority’ in your given area.

Tip: Stuck for an idea? Pick three items and say why you like one more than the others, now go!

To create your first review:
http://cgi3.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?CreateProductGuide

Outside of eBay

Its all about tipping the scales in your favour

I’m not going to be lame and suggest Facebook, Twitter as you already know this. What I am going to suggest is that you start your own blog, so you can talk about your items with your own community.

In short ‘blogging’ only requires some time, you have 10 minutes each day, thats all that is needed. Articles do not need to be huge like this one is, short and sweet works well too. Just be honest and show your passion.

If you’re worried about costs, do not be, here are two free options and they’re both great:

  1. http://www.blogger.com/
  2. http://wordpress.com/

Forum posting and generally just talking about your business and products will attract people. The more you talk, the more people will follow, its quite simple.

One crucial point I feel I need to make is that you should categorically should not use paid search such as Adwords or similar to promote your eBay shop. If you are at this level, then focus your attention on a creating your own web store outside of eBay.

Again the 10 minute rule applies here too, get in and get going and by the end of the month you could have created at least 20 blog posts!

Summary

I have shown you that all you need is 10 minutes with a cuppa to make a difference. We’re not after eating the entire elephant, or a VW with two people in it for that matter, but we can have a scoop of it each day and finally reach our ultimate goal. Now go get started!

Stop - Take Action!Take Action
Now that you’ve read this article, grab your calendar and put down a 10 minute window to make one small change, you’ll be amazed at the effect of this after just a week.

Part 2: Leveraging more than one eBay ID

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If you’ve not read the first part, you can catch up on from this link How To: Selling on eBay with more than one eBay ID. I strongly suggest this before continuing.

Swear-Box

Response

The response I received yesterday was hilarious to the previous article, here are two quotes from my email:

“What the ***** are you doing Matt? You can’t give this **** away for free. What you doing man?”

“Mr Ogborne[This was him being sarcastic, I think], we’ve known each other a long time now, I’m not sure what you are trying to achieve on your blog, the information you have passed on, in the multiple Ebay accounts document,  is fundamental to our business, you cannot go around giving this away”

I’ve added several * to replace two words, I am sure you know what they are. I also received two phone calls and quite a funny text message. I’m sure I’ll get more, hence this article.

As I have said individually to these ‘what-were’ concerned parties, it really does not matter. It is in the application of the concept where the true skill is required and its in exactly this skill, the reason why it doesn’t matter if I let ideas like this into the wilds.

No-one is you and no-one else is me. Soundly in the knowledge of this, no-one can be me or you. We have out own DNA sets and out methods of thinking cannot be duplicated (unless you’re a sheep called Erma or something, but even then that’s not enough to duplicate thought processes). My point is we’re all unique. People can copy, but they cannot be you.

This is the reason why this site even exists, if it was not as kick up the rear by a good friend, I would not be sharing this information and storing it up, like I have done for years now.

Its in the Application of Ideas & Concepts

Exactly, it doesn’t matter that I have let loose an software salesman’s wet dream in to the wilds or what a collection of small, medium and large companies do to drive more sales. Once you run into existing application of this idea with your eyes wide open, it is then glaring apparent.

Its in knowing that you can leverage such an idea and then applying it to your own business. Its in the application of the concept where the skill of a person such as myself, really  matters.

I read recently in an article (bloody good read, see it here) about Zara, here is an extract from it relating to the non-on-line world:

Zara has opened, on average, a store a day for the last few years. Each store brings new footfall and new customers.
The strategy may be hard to execute but is simple to conceive. Footfall – a given of the physical world where rent equalsguaranteed visitors – needs to be sought and bought online. Retailers with offline brands clearly get a base level of traffic “for free” but if they don’t play in the online marketing world, they are simply leaving prospective customers for their competitors.

Can you see the logic behind this? Spelt out simply as an equation:

More Stores = More Sales

Now if you business model, franchise, whatever works, then all you are left with is scalability. Lets take some other examples McDonalds are everywhere, Coca-Cola is known world wide (and deploys product locally), Pizza Hut and so on…  Get the point?

So why would it not work on-line too? See its simple. You have proven your business model works, so why not duplicate it over and over?

Going back to my earlier concept breaker:

For the vast majority of manufactured goods, you are not the only company selling them, thus every single day, customers choose your competitors over you. There are an infinite number of reasons for this, timing, colour scheme, layout, description, title are a few factors.

Which again leads on to this pivotal statement:

So if you’re selling widgets, there are lots of other widget sellers for customers to choose from, so why not be one of the other widget sellers?

I feel its important to add here that straight business copies on eBay especially are blatantly obvious and add no value to either party. This is where the requirement for someone like myself steps in and provides the fresh thinking and the guidance on the deployment of them.

Some Words of Caution

Now this is where it would be irresponsible for me not to tell you the following points.

Amazon

The first has to be Amazon. Let me spell this out, as simply as I can:

Do not mess around with Amazon. Ever

Please , I beg you soak this in, here it is again:

Do not mess around with Amazon. Ever

Are we clear?

Amazon UK

You really do not want to be pissing off Amazon, I mentioned in an earlier article, these people are not eBay. eBay is a lapse in numerous areas and can be bent to ones own needs with the right influence. Yes, Amazon can be bent too with the right know how (sorry not giving this away publicly). But its a risk not worth taking.

You can, with Amazon’s say-so have more than one Amazon account, this is only allowed if you have two separate business identities, running in two different product groups, for example an outdoor furniture company and DVD & media business. But everything else, no.

As I have tried to hammer-home above, don’t even try it. Trying to get back on Amazon is a nightmare, I’ve seen sellers booted numerous times, in almost 10 years, I’v seen maybe three get back on again, you need a golden contact list and a bloody good reason.

Software Tools

If you try and do this manually using ‘turd lister’ (thats ‘turbo lister’ to everyone else) you will quickly exhaust yourselves. I saw an elaborate system using excel once, it was pretty food too, but yep that failed as well.

You really need the use of a software product, I’m not mentioning names here (for once), but the tool has to be scalable, just like the concept I have been describing.

Recently I have come to the conclusion that one tool is not enough, when you start to factor in all the different aspects that a business requires. I have plans to elaborate on this in the future, so stopping line of thought here.

eBay Policy

eBay UK LogoI did indicate above that eBay is more lapse, they have been tightening up on the poorer deployments of this concept with policy changes to drive down the number of duplicates. Quite rightly so I hasten to add, some have been shockingly bad with no ‘unique selling angles what-so-ever’.

The USA got slapped pretty hard in the October update, see this article eBay: Doing ‘Whatever is Needed’ to Keep the Seller Entertained, while the UK got off quite lightly and at a far better time of the year.

Its because of the intrinsic flaw of the way eBay was/is designed, which allows this concept to be deployed at all. Each seller is allowed to design their own mini-page per product, so every listing is different.

Note: Yes I know about GPS etc… blah blah blah

Final Words

With the right implementation of the concept, you can tackle your niche from at least two more angles, depending on the business, it can go a lot further than just two more times.

This is really where the skill of a person like myself comes in and why clients like the ones that emailed me should not be concerned (and no longer are I hasten to add). Its the combination of your business, unique skills, a fresh, independent look on the business, my skills & experience that can readily expand the areas the business can grow into, without any new knowledge and leveraging existing information and processes.

To understand a little more why this blog even exists and where this knowledge comes from, see ‘Project Matthew Ogborne‘.