eBay Expert | eBay Consultant | eBay Professional Seller

Matthew is an eBay Expert & consultant with over 10 years of experience on eBay. Has worked for two eBay auction management companies and has helped hundreds of eBay based businesses sell on eBay, including his own for 3 years.

Having run his own business on eBay UK for 3 years, been featured on BBC News 24, BBC Radio 4 “In Business” with Peter Day and also featured in the Sunday Times.

eBay Top Rated Seller Hosting the very first eBay PowerSellers meeting of its kind in the UK, attended by eBay, which then lead to the eBay university program. Then working for the USA auction management company MarketWorks.com (now owned by ChannelAdvisor) here in the UK and then later on eSellerPro.com another eBay listing software company, Matthew has probably seen more eBay based businesses outside the confines of eBay than anyone else in the UK.

Matthew takes a different approach to eBay and it really shows in the articles he writes. eBay is just a sales channel, admittedly a rather large one at that, but this should never be forgotten and he knows that its all to easy to become caught up in a whirl-wind of noise that is generated by selling on eBay and does his best to help keep your feet on the ground and focus at the job at hand, making more profit.

Its unlikely you’re going to ask Matthew something he does not already know about eBay, you can contact him on his dedicated Contact Matthew page.

eBay Duplicate Listing Tool

April 14, 2011/by Matthew Ogborne

If you’ve been shelled up for the past few weeks, you’ll not have noticed that eBay are taking action on duplicate listings and from mid May in the eBay May 2011 update amongst many other changes.

eBay have released a tool so that you can check your listings in advance for duplicates and take action on them now before they end them automatically in mid may.

You can find eBay duplicate listing tool at the link below:
http://ebay.promotionexpert.com/sellercommunication/uk

As mentioned in May they’ll be automatcially ending any fixed price listings eBay see’s as being duplicates regardless of sales performace and will be happening to all categories with the exception of Cars, Motorcycles and Vehicles, Parts and Events and Tickets.

eBay give you some tips in their update information for duplicate listings, if you’ve not done so already, check to see if your category is having the variation format introduced and learn this forma very quickly as it will change the dynamics of your category. You can learn more about this and the other changes in the previous article Making Sense of the Pending eBay UK Updates in May 2011

eBay as a Business – Three Different Ways of Approaching It

April 13, 2011/by Matthew Ogborne

There are so many different ways that a business can be approached from, however I believe in keeping things simple where-ever possible and here are three top tips for when approaching eBay as a business.

#1 Think Like a Buyer

eBay buyers are a special breed, you need to at least try and understand them and thier whims, desires and fears when dealing with them.

After answering so many questions from buyers, I have come to the conclusion that they are:

Scared of being ripped off
Scared of being ripped off
Scared of being ripped off
Scared of being ripped off
Scared of being ripped off
Scared of being ripped off
Scared of being ripped off
Scared of being ripped off
Scared of being ripped off
Just like any other buyer

9/10 for being “Scared of being ripped off” is a bit harsh, but that is my personal conclusion. If you look at buyers emails, with this in mind, those mindless questions make sense. Why else would a buyer be asking a question, if it is not to test the seller to see if they are real (ignoring their thousands of feedback) and if they respond quickly, then they know if something goes wrong, they feel half assured that something will be done about it.

I never saw myself as a sales person ever on eBay, I saw myself as a provider of quality information, wrapped up in great customer service. Nothing else.

So its your job to ensure that the customer feels safe, by providing:

Good product images (although I am now certain that these need to be “exceptional” to make a real difference)
Accurate product specific information
An accurate description
Easy to read postage
A clear layout of the information provided
Quality branding of your business

The last one has almost become an absolute requirement. With the focus on customers, if you’re presented with something that looks like its been made by a blind monkey in a dog shed, to that of a professional, I’m pretty sure you know whom you’d buy from.

#2 Time Really is Money

eBay can be a very time intensive environment when compared to other marketplaces. There is a steep learning curve and the customer service requirements are high, its very easy to fall into a self centred trap, focusing on just plodding along, without focusing upon expanding and maintaining profit.

eBay can become very personal and its your job to ensure that it does not, a simple tool such as a time sheet can help you work out how many hours each week you are spending on each task.

Taking the time to make a sales projection can also be a good goal setting exercise, this does not have to be power point charts or excel sheets, literally by grabbing a peice of paper and writing “sales projection” at the top of it, will put you in front of 90% of the competition, because you are now working ON your business not IN your bussiness.

Ever considered working from a Shed?

Back to the sales projection, if you can use excel, that would be handy, using your previously recorded sales, use these to map out expected sales and what growth you would like to see. You do not need to worry about being accurate, that will loosely come with time and even the best strategies in hindsight, turn out to be a lot of luck in the right order.

Its also likely that you are working from a home office, if you are struggling with excessive hours, then why not take a serviced office, for what is peanuts a month and actually make the step of “going to work”. Most amusing, you could join the millions that work from a shed, see shedworking.co.uk.

#3 Know that eBay is Going to Change & Embrace it

I was looking at the eBay.com community boards and those on a few American sites and they are littered with people going nuts about the pending updates on eBay.com, there are some hefty changes going on in the eBay May 2011 update that I documented a few weeks back.

Fact. eBay always changes, it always has done and always will do.

My point is simple, let everyone else bitch about the changes, you should be smart and work out how they affect you and then plan to change with them.

Conclusion

Those who know me well, know that I commonly preach and personally aspire to the following statement:

What you focus upon, expands.

I sincerely hope I’ve given you a slightly different outlook on eBay and how to approach it. Not only as a buyer with their ‘concerns’, but as a business, with a simple timesheet and sales projection and finally that eBay always changes and its much easier to work with it, as with anything, than against it.

eBay Turbo Lister Tutorial Video’s

April 12, 2011/by Matthew Ogborne

I first started using eBay’s Turbolister about 7/8 years ago and and it was pretty basic and not particularly stable either. Its come on leaps and bounds in the past few years and is now a feature rich tool to allow smaller sellers to list in volume on eBay.

Which Business Type is the eBay TurboLister Ideal For?

eBay’s Turbolister is ideal for businesses that need a tool that is beyond the Sell Your Item form (SYI), can schedule listings and help them grow to the next stage of their evolution.

The following statement is what certain parties will not like being published:

As with any tool, no matter if that is TurboLister, Selling Manager Pro, eSellerPro, ChannelAdvisor, 247TopSeller or similar, any form of automation is going to speed up the business and ideally (as not always) lead to more sales.

While there are extremes in all cases, I personally suggest using Turbolister, when a business has an inventory base of around 20 to 150 and the business is exclusively eBay. Where the business has outgrown or outgrowing the SYI form, has a set limit to the number of SKU’s (Stock Keeping Units, or just “products”).

You can also use Turbo Lister to list onto multiple eBay sites, this is a feature that is sometimes missing in paid-for-software products. Ironically Turbo Lister is still defined as being “NEW!” on eBay’s documentation, however has been around on eBay longer than myself :X

Which Business Type is the eBay TurboLister Not Ideal For?

Turbolister should never be dismissed entirely, infact its a great tool to help smaller sellers build up to using more comprehensive tools for running their business from. Its almost a “right of passage” to be able to say, “I’ve toiled with eBay’s turbolister”.

eBay’s Turbolister is not ideal for merchants that are or are aiming to sell on multiple platforms, the reason is simple, its eBay only and there are inexpensive tools/software products that can allow you to sell on multiple platforms at once and still have a similar power to that of TurboLister. Also when trying to manage large catalogs of stock/data, then there are far superior tools out there and inversely, if you have a small number, then Turbo Lister can be a distraction.

eBay Turbo Lister Tutorial Videos

These are not mine, they’re straight from eBay. They will give you an inside view on the tool and how it works in real life.

Download eBay Turbo Lister

You can download the UK version of Turbo Lister here:
http://download.ebay.com/turbo_lister2/setupUK.exe

If you are a USA eBay seller, you can download the US version here:
http://download.ebay.com/turbo_lister2/setupUS.exe

eBay Turbo Lister Links

Here are links to find out more about the eBay Turbo Lister application:

How to Legitimately “Keyword Stuff” eBay Listings

April 7, 2011/by Matthew Ogborne

Lets be ultra clear here, I do not endorse this practice. It’s the reason why I am publishing this, so that its noticed and then action is taken upon this practice.

In the next few minutes I’ll be taking you through the practice of how to keyword stuff eBay listings in a manner that gives them extra weight to normal search.

Ground Work

Before we can start we need to understand how the eBay search works. A while back eBay introduced something called ‘Best Match’, while I’m not going to cover all the factors right now that i suspect are included, one of the biggest changes that best match allowed was the inclusion of factors outside of the listing title itself and time the listing had left to run. A obvious variant to the search is the eBay Top Rated Seller (TRS) status, this I used to suspect caused a +/-20% increase in sales, now seeing this move on three accounts, its more like a sales increase/decrease of at least 30%, this is how pivitol a single factor can be in the eBay “Best Match” search.

So, we now know that eBay search is based (by default) on a process called “Best Match” and like any algorithm it can be bent and its this bending and the manner in which it can be bent I’ve taken a dislike to.

The eBay Title

In days gone-by, it was only the title that impacted the search result, however with the new best match method of returning search results can be influenced and as suggested its not only the title that can effect the results. However in this instance I’m going to be looking at how the title and crucially the variations can influence the “Best Match” results.

The eBay Title

Up to 55 characters, it used to be less than this and the extra 10 chars were welcomed a few years back. These for most sellers are the main focus of keywords.

Item Specifics

When these were first introduced, it was said that these would not influence the search results, however they do, but not all the time. I not looked at this properly, but it appears there are mixed results on the use of item specifics in main search results.

Variation Detail

Now here is the jackpot. Its become clear, as I will prove in the examples to follow, that the labels for the variations do appear in the primary search result and these effectively extend your items by an extra 31 characters per variation value.

Lets spell this out in plain English:

If you use variations and add extra variations, the values you place in the variation field directly influence the eBay search results.

And then to top this off, again in plain English:

This does not stop at just a possible extra 31 characters extension to the title, you can do this numerous times, if you did it twice, you load your listings up with 62 extra characters

Now, can you understand why I disagree with this?

No Apologies

I’ve pondered whether I should use a live example or not and decided that I just cannot show the results properly without using a real life example.

I strongly disagree with this abuse of search and make no apologies for highlighting this seller specifically, because I feel is wrong, a blatant abuse of the best match and in direct violation with the eBay Search and browse manipulation policy.

The Example

For this I’m going to be including a new format to the site, video. Now I do apologise in advance, this one of my first attempts and just like the rest of the blog, its a learning experience and you’re learning with me. SO any feedback you have, good or bad, please post in the comments box below.

The Title

From the video, you will see that this seller has in fact three titles, extending their title by up to an extra 62 characters.

Original Title: LADIES PINEAPPLE TOE POST FLAT FLIP FLOPS SHOES UK 3-8
Sub Title: Girls Ladies Womens Woman Bell
Sub Title: Wedge Sandals Comfort Leisure

The following keywords were not in the main title:

Girls
Sandals
Comfort
Leisure
Womens
Women

However as clearly shown in the video, these are in fact part of the search.

I Need Your Help!

This is where I need your assiatance to help me. As mentioned before, this whole blogging experience is new to me and the video format is also very new too and I’m out of practice from the video’s I’ve made in the past and the format is entirely different.

Could you read the questions below and post any feedback either directly as comments or directly via my contact page I’d really value any input you may have.

What did you think of the video?
Did you like the insert of myself in the bottom right?
Did you think I looked a “tool” with the big headset I use?
What could I do to improve?

Congratulations to eBuyerExpress on eBay!

March 18, 2011/by Matthew Ogborne

The day I released the article called ‘Argos is Kicking eBuyer’s Butt on eBay‘ the web stats went bonkers with the staff over at eBuyer looking at it and earlier thread called ‘Dear eBuyer.com, You Could Be Doing So Much Better on eBay UK. Here is How!‘.

17 different people I counted from the webstats at eBuyer and I’m happy to announce that they’ve taken stead and revamped their current listing design, from what was a mildly embarrassing layout (but none the less an amazing start it has to be said) to what is now something more visually attractive and should see them break the £1M monthly sales bracket again.

The Latest eBuyerExpress Design

You have to agree its a massive improvement on their old design.

New eBuyerExpress eBay Template

You can view the new version here on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290546129749

Karma

The effects of a person’s actions that determine his destiny in his next incarnation (Hinduism and Buddhism)

Acknowledgement is all I ask. However here’s the thing, you’re happy to take, but not to give back. You’ve made a little mistake (its actually quite a serious flaw). I’ll let you find it, its quite obvious when you hit it.

Making Sense of the Pending eBay UK Updates in May 2011

March 17, 2011/by Matthew Ogborne

If you’ve not heard yet, you have now, there are some stellar changes coming up for eBay UK in the May 2011 update. You can read the full update here and in the next few minutes, I’ll be discussing what this means for you and your business.

As far as I see it there are two options

#1 You cry like a little girl

This option is normally chosen by merchants that are on the edge or so rammed up the whole idea of selling on eBay arse, that they get stuck, throw toys around and eventually burn out. Lets hope your competitors either do not twig there is an update at all or select this option.

If you would like to select this option go to the eBay community boards and start ranting how eBay ruined your life.

#2 You fully embrace the changes in advance

This is what smart merchants to. They analyse what the landscape is going to look like knowing what the updates are and work out how it affects them and how they can change to leverage this to their advantage.

If you would like to select this option, read on.

The Updates

I’m going to follow the structure in the update page from eBay, but give you the spin you need to turn this into plain English and see where its going to hurt and where there is potential and where work possibly needs to be done to ensure a smooth transition.

‘Value for Money’ Fee Updates

I’m just not seeing how the ‘Value for Money’ part is going to be interpreted by merchants, all I’m seeing is almost a universal hike in fees. Yes there are a few winners, but overall, expect to be paying more after this lands.

Fact: eBay UK will become more expensive that it is currently.

I would like to point out that eBay is amazing value for money, even at its higher closing rates the amount of exposure you gain to customers is immense and its never been so cheap to sell on eBay and the barrier to entry for new merchants is extremely low.

Remember I come from the era of SIF (Shop Inventory Format) where we paid 20p for 30 days/GTC and had no exposure, now you can pay a few pence or nothing (with an Anchor eBay shop) and gain access to the main listings and all its exposure as a normal listing. Bargain.

Summary of Fees Update

Insertion fees are staying the same, except for Anchor eBay Shop owners who go from 1p to free and Basic eBay shop fees are from 20p to 10p.
All the categories are going to a flat percentage final value fee.
If you see Technology products, you’re likely to be better off.
If you sell anything else, you’re paying more.

The ‘simplified final value fee’ is a bit of a hoax, yes it makes working out what you will end up paying easier, but I’d like to point out that sellers did not care before with the multi tiered final value fee approach, as they relied upon eBay to calculate the different levels of fees and it was absolutely no issue for the seller.

Lets be brutally honest, anchor shops are poorly marketed, so sellers who have them either have not worked out this or have more inventory that makes it more economical for them to upgrade. If you’re at this level then the 1p to free listings make little difference and again with the Basic to Featured shop upgrades, the lines are so close, you’re better off going for the featured shop as soon as your’re allowed to.

If you’re selling technology based products, then there is a fair chance you’re going to be much better off if you have a ASP of under £100, over this you’re going to be paying more, with a 200% increase on sales of £600 or more.

Parts sellers are going to have a mixed experience, again ASP’s come into play, if you’re sub £30 going to see a 1.9% saving, over this due to the ‘simplification’ you’re going to be loosing out to the tiered fee structure that was in place before the update.

CSA (Clothes Shoes & Accessories) sellers are worst hit, this to me personally sucks somewhat, as its CSA that has seen the largest growth for the past year and now eBay are ‘tapping it’. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, there are updates that if actioned properly and effectively will give us an advantage over slower moving clients (or those that ‘rant’, I’m just making a little point, remember option #1?).

PowerSellers: Focus on quality

I’ll be quite open, I read this part of the update as blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah. Again, taking my own advice, I am not inserting a rant about DSR’s, I’m just going to point out they are flawed as indicated in a previous article I wrote How to add icing to your competitors Christmas on eBay: Top Rated Seller Flawed?. Ultimately upping the standards of sellers has to be a good thing for the overall community.

eBay Express is Back!

Whoops, sorry its called ‘eBay Shopping Basket’, silly me :X

The New eBay Shopping Basket

If you’ve not heard or seen this, go to this page immediately, print it off and read it thoroughly, this is a critical update you need to know about.

In the update, its described by eBay as having these attributes:

Faster and easier shopping
Better value
Fewer fixed price unpaid items
Make payment simpler
Bigger orders

Let me translate these for you, the duplicates are not typo’s:

Buyers are (almost) forced to pay with immediate payment
You can offer them more stuff in more places and eBay will probably charge you for this later on
Buyers are (almost) forced to pay with immediate payments
Buyers are (almost) forced to pay with immediate payments
You can offer them more stuff in more places and eBay will probably charge you for this later on

Now we know eBay buyers are not the brightest of bunnies and quite scared creatures too. So it is a sensible suggestion by eBay that you re-think your postage strategy and start with a free option and then expedited options at sensible (lucratively cheap) values. You’ll also want to check on your postage discounts and ensure that you are using them where ever possible.

New Feature Bundles

Well almost, all that has been included is a sniff at the bundle feature that certain sellers are using in BETA currently. This is one feature that has been sorely been missing from eBay for a long time. Expect this to be rather similar to that automatically created by Amazon.

Item Specifics Updates

For CSA sellers, this is either going to be a huge task for sellers with large inventories and no back office tool, or a bit of a bind for more technologically advanced sellers. As I have a conflict of interests here (due to me publicly showing I work with My1stWish on LinkedIn yesterday), I’m just going to boast I have a tool that will tell me which records are affected and I’m not prepared to share it.

Being slightly more constructive for other CSA sellers you’ll need to check the table that shows the requirements in the May 2011 update, hopefully these should not be too painful and there are bulk editing tools such as this.

Electronics Category gets Amazon-Fied

Have you tried buying ‘tech products’ on eBay lately? Its a nightmare, Amazon is so much easier imo, eBay should be better by this time next year.

The requirement of EAN’s and matching existing records has been around for quite a while now, there are many reasons why I believe this is a good change overall, such as cutting down on the clutter on eBay and more transparent pricing for buyers.

Stellar Update – Variations!

An Example of Variations. Just note the sales volume to the right. Yes that really is 12,686 sold!

Rather excited about this one and you should be too. Multi variation listings have been around in the CSA category for ages now. There are again many reasons why you should be using these, the biggest is because they are common place now and make it easy for customers to select goods that are available in variations (such as colour or size), however there is a distinct benefit for best match search too (whoops did I say that?).

If you’ve never sold with variations before, then see this help page on eBay and also it would be a wise move to have a scan through the CSA category on eBay also and see how they are used by sellers in a category where its been a feature from when they were first implemented.

If you’re using a tool such as eSellerPro, 247TopSeller or ChannelAdvisor, dealing with multi level variations differs and I strongly suggest if this your first interaction with them, to start by manually listing an item as a variation in one of the clothing categories and then making the correct inventory structure (with the tool’s support team if needed) so you know how to prepare for this type of listing.

Its critical that you realise also that you cannot form a new multi variation listing from existing listings and you will loose the best match history on old items when moving from single items to variation styled listings. To be brutally honest, the sooner you move, the better.

Duplicate Listings Removal

Now this is a smart move by eBay and its going to catch out quite a few sellers that are perhaps bending the rules a little too far. To see how you are impacted, eBay have released a tool that identifies possible duplicates and allows you to download them as a spreadsheet.

I tried this today on a few eBay accounts, amusingly none were true duplicates, it just highlighted the lag in the tool we’re using to deal with some listings that were ended.

The wording around what is a duplicate is a little sketchy, because it does not account for fashion items where one week you may get a “black lace dress” and the next another “black lace dress” and chances are you’re going to describe it in almost the same manner. I only hope that eBay has been vague on purpose and are looking at the item specific attributes for a more informed view on whether an item is a duplicate or not.

On a side note, if we think about what eBay are possibly doing here, they are indexing key attributes for each listing and then comparing them for similarities and rejected some that are matching too closely. Now this by itself is quite simple, do this for millions of sellers, over possibly trillions of listings everyday, now that is truly amazing.

Global DSR Updates

This is quite a nice move by eBay as they are relaxing the standards for international sales and also giving sellers back the information they need to identify problem areas with international orders.

I have a saying that I previously shared, which is quite simple, but works very well for me:

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

Knowing, really is everything and this is a fantastic move. You can see the new global performance standards here.

Other Updates

There was an update to the Listing Analytics tool, some information about conditions for media items, buyer email spam was cut down with the removal of some duplicate emails from SMP, tracking numbers can now be taken for all couriers and also some category changes coming in April 2011.

In Summary

For me, the sole area for leverage as a merchant is to jump on the multi variations as soon as possible. Yes fees are going up, there are some other changes blah, blah, blah.

Variations are were your attention need to be, screw everything else in this update, go learn about variations immediately, they are going to change the dynamics of your almost ALL the categories you sell in.

Updated Services List, Forthcoming Articles & Client History

March 10, 2011/by Matthew Ogborne

I’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

March 3, 2011/by Matthew Ogborne

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

In 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.

Go to eBay and Sign in
Go here: http://my.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MyeBay&CurrentPage=MyeBayManageStore
On the left click on ‘Custom Pages’ (or go here)
Now under ‘Active Pages’, hit ‘Create new page’ (its a little hidden, keep looking)
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
Enter a Page Title. I suggest ‘Home’
You now have a big text section, the HTML for this will follow in a few moments
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!!!!).
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.

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!

The Example Code Output with Live eBay Items

Easy-Peasy

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

The WOM Factor – Why ALL eBay Sellers are Not Equal

February 25, 2011/by Matthew Ogborne

The Word of Mouth Factor

I’ve answered too many eBay’er questions over the years, its probably why I have such a tainted view on specifically eBay buyers, my personal ‘resounding’ conclusion is that they’re scared and really scared at that, almost to the point of paranoia.

In the next few minutes, we’ll be looking at the different types of buyers and a new system of gauging sellers, not feedback, but a derivative of feedback, which gives a clearer overall picture of the seller in proportion to their customers views and perception of the business. I’m calling this the WOM factor.

Multi-Channel

For multi-channel businesses, they’ll know that there are three different breads of customer and they vary enormously. These are:

#1 The Website Buyer

Website customers are the most relaxed of them all, you’ve woo’ed them with your marketing and reassured them with your subliminal security and reassurance factors. They’ll be happy with a couple of days shipping time and normal have already answered their questions before even buying from you.

#2 The Amazon Buyer

Its extremely rare to receive a question from a Amazon buyer and if you do its 99.9999999999999999999999999% of the time related to shipping or a broken item. Besides that, they’re quiet as a mouse.

#3 The Psycho eBay Buyer

I feel sorry most of all not for the sellers on eBay, but for the buyers. Mentally unhinged, these buyers are the stuff of customer services nightmares, they’re scatty and nuts, they’re lunatics and time wasters. But most of all they’re just scared.

They’re scared of being ripped off, they’re scared you’re going to steal their money and emigrate to Nigeria and then sell all their personal details to a chap in a mud hut who will spawn 10 versions of themselves as the victim.

Harsh, but that’s the kind of metal thought patterns that go through these paranoid buyers heads

Word of Mouth

This isn’t a new concept, infact its a very well documented concept, in short it simply says, that for a good experience a customer will tell two people and for a negative experience, they’ll tell 10 people.

Loss & Reward

This also sits well with the experiences of reward and loss. If I take your pet cat called “puddles” away from you right now, never to be given back, the sense of loss you will feel will be immense; However if I give you back a kitten called “Spot”, you’ll learn to love the little ball of fluff, but it will never replace puddles, who’s loss carries a far far greater sense of loss, than any gain can give.

Also word of mouth is extremely strong, companies are scared of the extremes that can occur with terms being coined such as ‘Brand Terrorists’, those customers that have been so pissed off by a business or brand, there is no stopping them ram-raiding the company or brand at any opportunity.

Inversely, when tribes are formed (Seth Godin’s input here) “Brand Sponsors” are created, those people that are just nuts for a product or service, the most immediate example I can think of are Apple fans. I’m an Apple product fan, but I’m to the level of what I would call excessive, that some of these Apple nut-mini-Steve-Jobs are.

Using “Word of Mouth” to Measure eBay Seller’s

Its not hard to see why either, if we use the rule of that one positive comment will create 2 positive word of mouth reviews and a negative or neutral comment -10 word of mouth reviews, then its not hard to do the maths on a random selection of sellers and understand that eBay’s growth is actually tainted by its underlying feedback system and also that all sellers are not actually equal.

The DATA – Random Sellers Feedback

These were taken completely at random, I picked four categories and picked a couple of sellers for each category from the top of the list (yes I’m aware this is weighted by the best match algorithm) and included their feedback for the past 12 months and neutrals are counted as negatives.

I have not included revised feedback, I could not decide whether these were positive or negative events, so have elected to ignore them completely. If I was forced to add them, I would class them as a negative event, as it was not a “perfect” transaction, perhaps I should look at this again in a few weeks and maybe I’ll attribute a +3 or +4 to these, but for now, I’m not sure.

PS: What do you think? Post in the comments below!

Random eBay Sellers Feedback Scores

ID	Positive	Negative	+Points	-Points	WOM Factor
jpe_enterprises	189	2	378	20	5.29
loco_gadgets	378	1	756	10	1.32
benthamltd	80791	1008	161582	10080	6.24
argos	259217	6181	518434	61810	11.92
xia090729	561	7	1122	70	6.24
glamorousoutlet	22585	530	45170	5300	11.73
bench_outlet	40274	530	80548	5300	6.58
bessy0302	2960	12	5920	120	2.03
online4babyltd	55870	614	111740	6140	5.49
babzeeonline	19549	217	39098	2170	5.55
tennis-deals-2008	4221	24	8442	240	2.84
poshtotz-store	5337	34	10674	340	3.19
little-devils-direct	773	10	1546	100	6.47
flyingplaneman	4765	68	9530	680	7.14
kmsdirectshops	14069	198	28138	1980	7.04
aqua_spot	894	7	1788	70	3.91
Totals	512433	9443	1024866	94430

Understanding the Data

I’m quickly adding that several of these sellers actually had either 100% or 99.9% feedback scores, this is only one factor that I am indicating in this article. While the vast majority of these sellers are above 99.0% feedback, Argos stands out for two reasons:

They have a feedback score of 98.7, the lowest of the group
They have the worst ratio 11.92% of WOMF

The second, is on face value an OK seller, they have a score of 99.1% currently, which is good enough and almost all retail stores in the physical world, would probably never be able to achieve this.

Glamorousoutlet are turning over a decent amount of items, with 22,585 feedback in the last year, this is probably around +32,000 orders, however they have incurred 530 negatives, or using the WOM Factor a negative score of 5300, giving them a WOM of 11.73 which when you look at Argos with their 98.4% feedback, is actually worse in proportion!

How to Calculate the WOM Factor

Calculating this is easy, you take your positive feedback for a set period of time and times it by 2, then you take the negative and neutral comments and times them by 10. Then divide the negatives by the positives and times by 100 to gain a more friendly number. In short the lower the better.

How to Calculate "The WOM Factor"

What Customers Really Think

Being able to gauge what your customers truly think of your business is stuff of marketeers wet-dreams. This new factor, I’m coining as the “WOM Factor” can be one tool in your arsenal to accurately gauge what your customers actually think of you.

To give you a measurable and a new dimension on what is just raw numbers. The WOM Factor gives you an indication of what is the actual effects and general response of your business on the outside world.

I wonder what the WOM Factor for Microsoft is?
I wonder what the WOM Factor of Apple is?
I wonder what the WOM Factor for the entire eco-system of eBay is?

Whats Your WOM Factor?

This leads to the pivotal question, whats your WOM Factor?

How To: Knowing the 10 eBay Shop/Store Design Mistakes

February 3, 2011/by Matthew Ogborne

Oh how these drive me nuts, please, please do not make the same mistakes. We can’t blame the shop owners featured in this article, they just don’t know better. You however cannot use this excuse after reading this article though!

Top 10 eBay Shop Mistakes

Here are top ten common mistakes sellers make when designing their eBay shop.

#1 The Giant Header

This award goes to http://stores.ebay.com/connies-bargains-galore

Check the header area out on this page!

Navigating the page to the line items means you need to scroll an entire page (yes an entire page I could not believe it) and more to get to them. Plus the header is on every page, so they’re all doomed pages.

Matt’s Tip: Keep your header to 250 pixels high as a maximum, anymore than this leaves the buyer having to think what to do next and we all know that’s a bad idea.

#2 The logo is not a Link

This award goes to a previous winner, http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Camisera-Clothing

Oh how this drives me nuts, the logo in the top header should always be a link, I covered this off in an earlier article, you can see the full details My #1 Pet Hate of Poor WebSite Design

Top left logo = Link to Homepage

Never forget this. Its basic common manners on the net. Making user the think again is a bad, bad idea.

#3 No categories

Awarded to: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/phatpocket

102,169 that is over one hundred thousand items and no categorisation?

Even adding categories by Author Name (which they have, see the listings) would help.

You can have up to 300 categories, three levels deep, there is really no excuse for this.

#4 No Description

Awarded to: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/AZCARPARTSUK

Take a look here http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/_sl.html?_an=1 and note that these are anchor stores, each paying £350 a month to be in this list. Now how many have no description?

Even though this store uses a custom header, you can still fill out the shop description area, because this description is not only used in the header, the shop search page (which we just saw), but also in the meta description.

#5 CAPS LOCK

Awarded to: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/YES-4-CAR-PARTS

Using caps lock is widely regarded as SHOUTING, also using caps lock for all the text, does not make the text clearer to the reader, it actually helps the person typing the text.

Never used excessive amounts of caps text in a description, title, or in the case the categories because its VISUALLY VERY ANNOYING.

PS. I am ignoring the image in the header that is in the header, they appear to have forgotten to re-register their domain name

#6 Paying for a design but forgetting how it will look

Awarded to: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/megabooksuk

Never fork out cash for a design without seeing how it will look with your information in it.

I’m guessing that if this seller had realised that they have no categories and that they were not using any gallery images at all for their listings, they might have ended up with a different design and layout.

It all looks a bit bare.

#7 Forgetting the rest of the Shop

Awarded to: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/The-Superdry-Store

This one is brilliant and had already earned a ribbing in six articles, you can view them here: http://lastdropofink.co.uk/?s=superdry

So what’s wrong? They have a stunning homepage, but kinda have forgotten about the rest of the eBay shop, no categories, no real header, no left navigation, just a stark white page. This is the best case of ‘homepage blindness’ I have seen in years.

#8 Not doing anything

Awarded to: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/all-your-music

Well, lets be fair here, they did open an eBay shop, 1/10, but have left it as that. No categories, pretty sure that the default design, no description, no logo, no nothing.

Quite sad really.

#9 Main logo, not a home link

Awarded to: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/RSJ-Motor-Factors-Ltd

Nice design, although was a contender for #10 spot, however as I was typing I spotted the issue. I recently included this in an article My #1 Pet Hate of Poor WebSite Design.

They’ve forgotten to realise that the default user action to go back to the homepage is to click the icon in the top left, the logo part where RSJ is written, sadly this entire header contains no a single link, so the browser is left flapping with no-where-to-go.

#10 No custom pages

Awarded to: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/WHATEVER-LAPTOPS

I’m not knocking this store to much, the owner has completed a great job, added a logo, changed the header, added a shop description (not shown on this layout, but it is there), has really nice categories, two feature boxes along the top, nice product images, decent titles.

But has not picked up that there are up to 15 ebay shop custom pages to be abused.

Not making the Common Mistakes

For those eager readers, yes the lack of header logo link is here twice, it drives me bonkers, don’t do it! Its like a door to a house, but with no handles.

I know its really hard, there is normally a lot going on in a small sized business, its not surprising I was able to find all these issues in a few pages. But at least you now know what the most common mistakes are and to avoid them.

I have been working two other articles on the eBay shop, these are linked to below, the first article is already live, the second is due in the next 2-3 working days:

How to: SEO for eBay – 10 Minutes Per Day

February 1, 2011/by Matthew Ogborne

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?

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.

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:

Research
Listings
The eBay Shop
Reviews & Guides
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:

Listing Titles
Listing Descriptions
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.

eBay Shop URL
eBay Shop Pages
eBay About Me Page
eBay Shop Description
eBay Shop Categories
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:

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!

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.

Argos is Kicking eBuyer’s Butt on eBay

January 25, 2011/by Matthew Ogborne

Here is some irony for you, eBuyer the on-line technology retailer is getting its arse kicked by a catalogue store on eBay. I’ll be quite open when I say I am taking the piss a bit in this article, but on a serious side, I’d have expected a lot more from a solely eCommerce based company like eBuyer.

The thing is I really do quite like eBuyer, they are a natural second behind Amazon for technology purchases (eBay comes in third). eBuyer has to be one of the best examples of a company that has fantastic data, a great brand, but seems to think some-how that does not count for eBay.

Non Fluffy Version

This is actually the first version that you’re viewing now, I did create a second copy that was reworded in many areas, but I felt this version had more bite so kept it. Let me know if you think I was wrong to choose this version and that I should have released the ‘fluffy’ version instead.

Argos

Lets put this in perspective, firstly we have Argos, traditionally a high street retailer that leveraged the huge power of catalogues and in-the-home shopping. The Internet was probably somewhat of a second thought to them, but they’re doing a fine job now.

eBuyer

And then we have eBuyer a Rotherham garage start up whom had £250K pocket change (WTF?) and started an eCommerce giant which we know as eBuyer. Naturally you would be expecting that a leading on-line, technology led company such as this to be creaming anything eCommerce wise.

How wrong are we!

There is a saying for this, its called the ‘Face Palm’, as defined by Wikipedia:

A facepalm is an expression referring to the physical gesture of striking one’s own face in a display of exasperation. In Internet discussions, the term is used as an expression of embarrassment, frustration, disbelief, disgust or general woe.

Argos Rocks eBay!

Argos is the dark horse here, they have really got their stuff together. Lets take a look at one of their listings. A screen shot is below and you can view the item in the flesh here.

Click Image Above for Full Size version

Its blatantly obvious they have customer services issues but its also clear that they give a hoot and are following up comments and must be working hard in the background.

I like the Argos eBay outlet for many reasons, here are just a few:

Consistent branding across all channels
Not the best eBay shop, but it looks like Argos and they have done an awful lot more than some
Semi decent picture (in the listing)
Their listing templates are well laid out (*coff*, need shipping on the right lads!)
Descriptions are about the best you’re going to get from a company of this nature
We have integrated reviews! (monster unique selling point)
OooO I just spotted social links, that’s naughty the official line clarified with eBay only a few days ago that this was still a very grey area on the links policy and this was not allowed.
A categories menu with extra links
A featured listings gallery

I could go on and on, but in short I quite like the operation being portrayed. Yes they need some refinement but its doing them good for now. 8/10 for the lads over there at Argos. Wooohooo!

Brewery, Piss Up, FAIL?

Lets take a look at one of eBuyer’s listings, don’t get too excited though, there is very little to gawk at.

Click the Image for a Larger Version

Errr ok, credit is due for having three images and a better description than Argos. But where is the rest of it?

What about the shipping prices?
No images in the listing area?
What about the other products from Tenda?
What about the the 32 reviews FIVE STAR they have for this item on their website?
Where are the exit points?
How much is shipping?
Am I saving anything?
Is it new?
Is it used?
I’m an idiot TELL ME in PLAIN ENGLISH what this is about
Lead me, I am a sheep
That’s some horrible fine print bullets, can I buy this item, am I eligible?
What about the 14 forum comments for this item?
What about the consistent branding?
What about everything someone forgot to put in the listing?

The Irony Is….

That for the past 30 days, Argos are only just beating eBuyer for sales on eBay by a mere £160K. Argos have almost done £1.2M and eBuyer have done £1.04M for 30 days Dec 21st 2010 to Jan 19 2011.

But when you look at the average selling prices (ASP), Argos is shifting way more kit than eBuyer (about three times), as eBuyer has an ASP of £115 and Argos has an ASP of just £37.

Imagine If…

The technology company actually got its act together and focused on its listings and presence on eBay properly and stopped doing silly things like this video and focused on leveraging the sales channel to its full potential. All the things that an eCommerce should know and should be putting into practice and seem to have forgotten.

If you are eBuyer & are reading this:

Read this article, its in plain English Dear eBuyer.com, You Could Be Doing So Much Better on eBay UK. Here is How! I hope it helps, because I would be embarrassed to be having my arse kicked by an off-line, catalogue pusher.