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 SellerHosting 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.

How Much Did eBay & Amazon Spend on Google Advertising in 2011?

While researching for an article working I’m working on in relation to Google Adwords and the eBay & Amazon marketplaces, I came across the info-graphic below and I’ve got to share!

The numbers are just unreal

In 2011:

  • eBay spent $42.8 million
  • Amazon spent $55.2 million

On Google advertising in one year.

Yes, in one year!!!

Question: How much did you spend on Google Adwords last year?

Was it £0, £10, £1000? You can let me know in the comments at the bottom

Googles Earnings Breadown for 2011

Googles Earnings Breadown for 2011

eBay Comparative Pricing Policy & It’s Ramifications

A hit tip to Marcus for this one, as I had overlooked it and focused on the better use of the eBay resolution centre that is coming soon, that was announced last year in the Autumn 2012 updates.

Marcus has pointed out that there is a new “Comparative pricing policy”  and when you start to read the details, this is going to cause some fun.

 

eBay’s Comparative Pricing Policy

In short this is an attempt clean up of the wild RRP’s that are being used on eBay & to be fair on most Internet sites too and makes it clear that as a seller you can now be held accountable for any RRP claims on a product that is being sold.

The are a few parts of note, these are as follows:

If you’re a brand owner, you can’t set an RRP?

RRP will not be used for products that are only supplied by the Seller.

You’ve got to keep them up to date

The referenced pricing will be accurate and current throughout the entire duration of the listing (if the RRP changes, the seller will promptly update the listing information accordingly).

But we’re allowing you this loop hole

In relation to each item, the Seller held a reasonable expectation that a significant number would sell at the higher price.

Prove it

Upon eBay’s request, the Seller will provide (within 2-3 days) written documentation to substantiate the previous selling price (receipts or detailed sales records showing that a number of the items were bought by customers at the previous selling price), or RRP (e.g. letter from the manufacturer confirming that the RRP used is up-to-date).

Play nice now or we boot you where it hurts[in the wallet]

eBay may, in appropriate circumstances and at its sole discretion, suspend or terminate a Seller account, or impose other consequences (such as removal of eBay Top-rated seller status) as a result of failure to provide substantiation, or our, or a regulatory body such as the Advertising Standards Authority’s, determination that the comparative price is false or otherwise misleading or deceptive.

The full Comparative pricing policy can be found here:
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/comparative-pricing.html

This goes live in just over a months time (12 March 2013) but right now I’m thinking this could cause some fun between fierce competitors the moment that this policy comes into effect and I also wonder how many sellers will actually get requested to prove an RRP in the end.

What do you think of this pending update?

Is it a good move or do you think this is just going to be a tool to wind up competing businesses with?

Let me know in the comments box below, Matt

Brightpearl CA101 Live This Thursday in Bristol

Are you available to be in Bristol this Thursday for a breakfast meetup?

SS Great BritainBrightpearl are holding their first “Commerce Acceleration 101” live event at the SS Great Britain at 08:00 and I’ll be joining Chris Tanner one of the co-founders of Brightpearl, who will be discussing growing from one store to multi-channel the easy way and Lee Adams, who is showing us how he built an incredible online business.

Register here for free to reserve your place.

I’m up last out of the 3 speakers (is that a good thing??) and will be discussing “How multichannel can transform your 2013” in a fast paced presentation with one single goal, to ensure that when you leave the room you’ll be thinking “I must do marketplaces right now“.

[I am] opposed to the laying down of rules or conditions to be observed in the construction of bridges lest the progress of improvement tomorrow might be embarrassed or shackled by recording or registering as law the prejudices or errors of today.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel

The event is being held at Bristols famous landmark,  Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s stunning SS Great Britain, just outside the city centre. Starting at 8am sharp, a complimentary breakfast and refreshments are being served on arrival.

To stir your interest I’ve included a couple of slides from the presentation below, will we be seeing you on Thursday?

Register here for free to reserve your place.

What is Order Aggregation & How Can it Help Your Business?

Aggregating orders from multiples sales channels is one of the main features in 3rd party software, but what are the benefits of doing this and how can it help your business?

I delve deeply into order aggregation in this article and explain how this can help your business tackle multiple sales channels and still leave you with (some) hair.

I’ve also included a video accompany this article and I would value any feedback you have in relation to the aggregation of orders from multiple sales channels, maybe this is something you take for granted through your current provider or maybe it’s something you’re pulling your hair out with right now. Let me know in the comments box at the bottom, I’d love to hear from you.

 

Order Aggregation Video Overview

What is Order Aggregation?

This is a process that collects orders from more than one source and aggregates them into a single location, this could be into your own system or that of a 3rd party.

Simply put, while you may be able to manage one, even two sales channels and even possibly three with a low velocity of sales and/or inventory, the moment you try to scale the business or add any increase in sales or inventory you’re going to run into a brick wall.

Order aggregation at any level of complexity can help you and your business deal with sales orders from one or more sales channels in a structured manner.

Winding Back to the Order Life Cycle

Let’s consider the typical life cycle of an order before we dig any deeper into this subject. We make one or more products available on one or more sales channels for customers to buy, this could be eBay, Amazon, your website(s) and maybe even a trade counter or retail store or may be many stores.

A customer commits to purchase one or more items and an order is formed. We may take payment straight away (cash over the counter or electronically) or the payment could be delayed (think eBay here) and some common details are taken and we then need to process the order.

For orders taken over the counter in a store or trade counter are orders that require little packaging in most instances, however for orders that need to be fulfilled by a delivery process you will likely need to create any documentation to pick & pack the line items and then possibly bespoke courier labels to prepare the order for despatch.

Once the order has been despatched, then typically with most online order sources, we need to update the channel source with common details, such marking the order as despatched and some other luxury data, such as the method, time of despatch and tracking details. We may also desire to email the customer to let them know that their order has been processed and despatched.

In the background, for the line items on the order, we need to keep track of their quantities, which is super important when dealing with multiple sales channels, so we can notify the other sales channels of stock updates or maybe to identify that the stock level for one or more products has fallen below a set level and a re-ordering process needs to be triggered.

Typically when you first started your business with one of the online channels, keeping just one channel up to date is relatively straight forwards for low volumes of orders, however as soon as we mix in multiple sales channels, a high velocity of orders and/or large inventory base, keeping everything in-tow can be an impossible task to complete manually.

Locating software that can solve all or part of this process can be hugely beneficial to the efficiency of the business, resulting in costs savings and sanity of the staff & business owners. It’s these benefits that I delve into for the rest of the article.

Benefits of Order Aggregation

Even if we just had two eBay accounts, logging out of one account and then into the other is cumbersome and time-consuming, as we’re duplicating the effort placed to process orders. It’s amplified when we have many order sources, in some cases to the point it would be almost impossible to do so.

Single Interface to All Orders

If we imagine that you have several order sources, these could be two eBay accounts, Amazon Seller Central or Marketplace, two websites and the desire to take manual orders in a retail or trade store aggregating the orders together for unified processing can by hugely beneficial and even if you have just one sales channel.

However, if we mix in the other features of the software providers offer, making use of a single orders screen can be an added feature to gain efficiency.

Customer Services

By bringing in orders from two or more sources into a single location can be hugely beneficial. Not only for ease of processing orders in mass, but also as a single reference point for all processes relating to orders, thus lowering the time spent by customer services in resolving order-related issues.

Some applications also include the ability to process payments & refunds from the orders screen. besides the obvious of not having to jump to a different system to conduct such an action(s), a by-product is that you are easily able to administer this and keep a history of the transactions have been made (such as who, when, why and for what amount in a refund).

Platform Specific Functions & Marketplace Integrations

If the order system that you use also has direct integrations back to the order sources, such as eBay, Amazon or Magento, then payment processing issues can be tackled from a single interface. For example if we need to check a PayPal payment or to make a refund, instead of giving all the members of staff the login details, it can be controlled in the orders system so that this is no longer needed and depending upon the system used, an audit history can be maintained for referencing later if needed.

If we pick on eBay for a few moments (as this marketplace certainly has some platform specific functions!), just because we received an order, this doesn’t mean we were actually paid for the order.

eBay have the disputes process that is unique to eBay and when processing large amounts of orders, the amount of unpaid orders can become a concern to your business (turning on immediate payments doesn’t suit all businesses). Some software applications allow the automatic processing of disputes back to eBay, so that stock  that isn’t going to be paid for, can be released with the minimum amount of effort of you or your staff and with minimal time lag. So that the order can either be committed to that customer (after payment) or released back onto the sales channels for resale.

Amazon is not without its quirks, specifically around the fact that unless you mark an order as shipped you don’t have the funds released for that order. So being able to mark multiple orders as despatched from multiple locations and then the system going back to update the different sales channels to confirm they’ve been shipped can not only keep customer service communications down to a minimum (especially if you include the despatch method, time and tracking information), but to also to get paid for those orders.

Amazon also keep track on how quickly you despatch orders, remember Amazon only cares about ITS customers, then if you consistently ensure that your orders are processed ASAP for this channel and keep within their allowed levels (and far higher than these are strongly suggested) then you will ultimately benefit from a stronger relationship from them.

Here are some examples of what such an integrations could offer you:

  • Leaving feedback when orders are shipped
  • eBay dispute integration for unpaid orders
  • Marking orders as shipped when marked as shipped in the orders screen. In the case of Amazon this means getting paid for the order.
  • Updating the sales channels with the despatch method and tracking number, so the customer can see these details within their marketplace account

Business Rules

A by-product of being able to collect the orders from multiple channels is that you are able to process business rules on the orders. You might become confused here with these, this is not as simple as matching the delivery method chosen by the customer to the right order, that’s just matching, I’m talking about business rules and I’ll explain these now.

Business rules might be as simple as if an order arrives and is over 2Kg, then a courier should be used as the despatch method. Maybe if an order has an order value over £30 and as such its deemed by the business that it would be safer to send via a courier or a recorded method of delivery. Not just the shipping method that the customer chose at the time of checkout.

Also couriers are renowned for having exceptions to their services and typically there is either a delay in posting to certain locations or an extra charge. By applying a business rule (or several) to your orders, you could create an exceptions list of postcodes and select a different despatch option.

An excellent example of this is Northern Ireland, almost all couriers charge a premium for delivery to this location. Lets say we receive an order from Amazon and there is two line items and normally these would be sent via a courier, however because the courier wants $10 more to this location, using a service such as Royal Mail tracked would be more suitable. Its still relatively quick and it’s a traceable method, but works out cheaper than the main courier and has the attributes not found with normal Royal mail offerings.

Here are some of the attributes of orders that you may want to apply business rules to when processing them:

  • Order Source
  • Shipping service selected by the customer
  • The value of the shipping selected by the customer
  • Order value
  • Weight
  • Quantity
  • The destination of the order (postcode/zipcode, state, region and/or country)

Unified Processing & Documentation (Including Email Notifications)

Integrated Label ExampleAnother benefit of aggregating orders is that all the orders can be processed in the same process, so that could be the same (or similar) despatch documents, thus saving an array of custom documents to each order source and standardising the entire pick, pack and despatch process.

Obviously I’m guessing that you would desire customisation to the despatch documents, as if we have one part of our business branded in a certain fashion and another part to another, ensuring that the documentation is either universal or customised to the sale source would highly beneficial.

Depending upon the software being used, some allow you to fully customise each document, this could be the picking slip, shipping document and invoices. These documents could also be depending on the shipping method set by the business rules be customised paper stock, for example if the order has been allocated to Royal Mail 1st or 2nd class, then the document printed could include the PPI label, so  there is no need to stamp or add a stock for this.

The paper stock could also include an integrated label, so that once the contents of the order have been checked, you peel off the label, pop it on the front of the package and then spike the sheet or pop the rest of the sheet into the package itself for the customers reference.

Going beyond the paper documents, we must not forget email notifications. It’s quite possible to include a PDF version of the invoice for the order in the order despatched email and also for the email notifications to be tailored to each business identity and order source. Of course if you have the courier details from a courier integration to the orders aggregation software, then including the tracking information (and ideally links to track the order) could be a huge win for your business.

Despatch Process

If you can imagine that you have your orders in a single place of reference and have control over the documentation and business rules being applied to your orders, then we shouldn’t forget the ability to find a process of despatching orders that works well for your business.

Some businesses have really simple despatch processes, this could be a single document that fulfils multiple roles, such as invoice, picking slip and shipping list. Whereas another business may require barcode scanning of orders and products to ensure the accuracy of the despatched orders.

Whereas others may be required to enter or scan a serial number of the product being shipped in the order, for security or tracking. Having a software product where the despatch process can be altered, either globally for all orders or specific order parts can be hugely beneficial when working out a despatch process that works for you.

To add an extra dimension here, it’s not uncommon for a business to be looking at the despatch process and idealising other people’s businesses when it comes to order efficiency. The biggest eye-opener for me personally was during a visit to Expeditors in Avonmouth, Bristol.

This company specialises in warehousing and despatch of orders for 3rd party companies (amongst several other services). When I queried the team over despatch process and whether they used a unified process, the eye-opener was that for each business they worked with, they each had a tailored despatch process. Some had barcode scanning, some had picking lists for later processing and some just had a single sheet for all the despatch functions.

Stock Control

If your orders are being collected to a single location, then if we know what your stock level was before the order was received and the amount sold. We know what your true stock level is and this can be uesed to update the other sales channels where you are selling the same inventory.

This process varies from system to system, but the crux of this process is exactly the same, we know what we had to begin with, we know we have X number less and where from and where the item is being sold to, thus we know where we need to update with the latest stock level, so that we still achieve maximum market exposure of our products, but minimise the risk of overselling.

Note: See this article relating to the eSellerPro Channel Profile which is a process that does just this.

Accepting Manual Orders

One order source that we shouldn’t overlook is manual orders, these could be orders taken over the phone or trade orders. By allowing these to enter the normal despatch process can also be a huge win. Taking an order over the phone, checking stock levels and taking payment can be a tricky task when using multiple sales channels and without this basic information to hand, it can be impossible.

By having ALL the information about your inventory in a single place and being able to process an order with this information at your (or your staff’s) finger tips can make a call with a customer into a few minutes rather than 10’s of minutes and saving awkward situations of taking an order and not actually having the stock available to fulfil the order.

External Fulfilment

Not every company fulfils their orders internally, with the process of fulfilment becoming cheaper and cheaper and whole host of specialised companies out there that are capable of dealing with both stocked and just in time despatch (ProFS and Expeditors are two good examples of these).

With such orders, you can either allow the 3rd party company access to your orders or even in some cases integrate to their EDI or API systems for automated exchanges of the order data for them to fulfil the orders for you.

How Can it Help Your Business?

Bringing orders from multiple sources to a single orders screen will give you an exceptional business advantage. You can see your orders, process them in-mass, most likely be able to integrate with couriers, expedite the time it takes to process issues in customer services, apply business rules to the orders and have a clear picture of what is happening in your business, right now.

Going to the extreme, any and I mean any! order aggregation software will help your business become more efficient.

The processes in even less ‘evolved’ applications will allow you to process your orders more effectively and apply one or more processes to your despatch process. Some applications will go much, much deeper and allow for the full customisation of the processes, documentation and integrations involved with collecting orders from multiple sources.

Your Feedback

Maybe this is something you take for granted through your current software or maybe it’s something you’re pulling your hair out with right now. Let me know in the comments box at the bottom, I’d love to hear from you.

Report a Buyer Now Live on eBay UK

In the eBay Autumn updates which we covered in-depth here, one of the sellers favourites was the ability to be able to report a buyer for naughty behaviour. This is now live on eBay, YAY!

 

Video with James Stewart

In the video below from eBay, James Stewart, Director of EU Seller Protection explains the reasoning behind this being included and how to leave a report for a buyer.

How to Report a Buyer that Exhibits Bad Behaviour

When the process is put live it will be really straight forwards to notify eBay of a bad buyer and it is important to note that this can only be done through the eBay website and cannot be automated using the eBay API.

Step #1 – Select the “Report a Buyer” Option

After an item has been purchased, on the Leave Feedback page here http://feedback.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?LeaveFeedback a new option will appear called “Report a Buyer” where the eBay account is the seller for one or more transactions.

Select Report a Buyer on eBay

Step #2 – Select a Reason

Next you’ll be able to select from one of the five options, these are:

  1. Buyer has made unreasonable demands
  2. Buyer has left inappropriate feedback
  3. Buyer abused the buyer protection program
  4. Buyer misused returns
  5. Other problems

And there is an appropriate link to solve unpaid items through the eBay resolution centre.

Report an eBay Buyer Step 2

Step #3 – Submit Report

After making your selection, you then submit the report, noting the text in the confirmation notice “Bad Buyer”.

eBay Confirm Bad Buyer

Have You Used This Yet?

So have you have to use this for a buyer yet, let me know in the comments box below.

Podcast 003 – The 101 of eBay Variations + 7 Tips

They weld themselves to the top of eBay search results and now that eBay’s paid promotion tool for “Featured First” is going, using variations on eBay has never been so important.

In this Podcast with myself Matt (waves) and Dave Furness, we discuss eBay variations and why you should be using them, the benefits and the downsides and give you 7 tips to follow for success using variation listings.

We’ve listened to your feedback and today’s Podcast is a half the length of our previous Podcasts and comes in at a trim 30 minutes. If you think we’ve skimped on value, you’d be wrong, wait until the end :)

[powerpress]

Because this is may be new to you, above is a green play button. Press play and you’re listening!

If you’d like to download the podcast for listening to on your iPhone, Droid or iPad you can do or you can press the “Play in new window” button to be able to listen to the Podcast while browsing.  If you use iTunes, you can subscribe here for free.

 

What are eBay variations & Why do you want to use them?

Variations allow you to keep a product that has a range of options in a single listing. This makes selecting the right product as a customer much, much easier as they no longer have to go and find the variation they want, such as a shoe size, they can pick from a single listing.

eBay Variations Example

Several good examples of how these are used and are easier for both buyers and sellers are:

  • A pair of shoes that come in multiple sizes
  • A dress that comes in different sizes and colours
  • Rugs that come in different colours, styles and sizes.
  • Motorcycle helmets
  • A handbag that comes in multiple colours

Each of these products can come in different sizes, colours and styles. When linked together it makes it much easier for a buyer to make the right choice and also easier for you as a seller to track their inventory as instead of an individual listing for each colour/size/style, they are all contained in one listing.

Variation listings are now supported in 20 categories on eBay UK and you can see the full list and the exceptions here.

What other Benefits are there for sellers?

There are several key benefits to using variation listings and for best match rankings which is of special note and we cover that shortly too.

Key Benefits of using Variations

  • First picture is free so that if you have can extra free pictures on eBay, that swap when the buyer makes a selection
  • Saving money on listing fee’s as one insertion fee
  • The subtitle upgrade is better value as its £1.05 for a single listing
  • Increase of product visibility – every time a sub SKU sells the whole listing benefits
  • Stays clear of duplicate listing policy
  • Makes it easier for the buyer to find what they want which should make your listings stickier and increase conversion.

Note: You will hear us call them “multi variations” in the Podcast, even if you item has one variation, it’s the same thing. It’s just a term we use and it’s the same as variations, whether there is 1 variation or 5 variation options.

eBay Variation Tutorial Video

Earlier this year Dave Forest from the eBay UK seller team created a video to take you through the creation and use of eBay variations.

Dave takes you through a live listing on the eBay site, a Men’s T-Shirt that has colour and size variations and we can see how the price changes with his selection and also the how the image changes for each colour variation. Then how to create a variation listing in multiple colours and sizes like the example listing.

eBay Best Match & Variations

Listings that are variations become welded to the top of the search results. Even by eBay’s own admission in several categories you cannot compete unless you are using variation listings. They took hold fast and have completely changed the dynamics in every category they have been released in.

To make the point, we’ve made some searches on eBay below. Take a look for yourself and the listings that you see without “More Options” under them, you’ll find very few because for all the BIN listings, the single listings just don’t get a chance.

Example Searches of How Variations Weld to the Best Match Search Results

In the Podcast we refer to a rugs listing that has 17 colours and 10 sizes, you can view that item here http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150669779518 at the time we looked at it, it had around 2216 items sold. Now it has 2255 at the time of writing!

Are there downsides to using eBay variations?

Although these are minor when compared to the benefits, unfortunately there are a couple of downsides to using variations.

  • Can’t rename the master variation SKU in eBay
  • Creating them can be slow
  • They are not supported by all 3rd party tools and even eBay’s own turbo Lister you cannot import or export them.
  • Cannot add separate EAN’s for Google search/shopping results for each variation

In the next updates we are seeing

eBay variations and Pricing UpdatedI’ve covered the eBay Autumn 2012 updates in huge detail, however the variations didn’t get much hype from eBay, but they were one of the biggest winners with numerous changes that will improve their performance.

  • We’ll be seeing “£9.99 – £129.99″ instead of the highest price only
  • Also seeing image swatches for colours, when common colours are used (shades)
  • Intelligent variation search – search for Pink shirt and eBay will show you the image of a pink shirt (Providing you have one uploaded).
  • Featured first is going, so your listings need to be as good as possible to get to the top spot…

Our Tips for Variations on eBay

Myself and Dave have put together 7 top tips for you on eBay variations and the last one is golden.

  1. Where-ever possible use them
    If your category supports them then you should be using them (we have the entire list on the website at… ) http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/listing-variations.html#categories
  2. Keep the options to a minimum
    Think of your buyers! Try and keep the variations to a minimum, Size and colour.
  3. You can change prices if needed
    Remember you can change the pricing for each combination and if one variation goes out of stock, the listing remains.
  4. Take advantage of eBay’s Fast N Free Option
    Don’’t forget that eBay are going to be showing products as “Fast N Free” when you have an estimated delivery of 3 days or less. So that means if you have a handling time of 1 day and first class or a courier of 24hrs or 48hrs with the same handling time.
  5. Don’t force variations if your products don’t suit.
    Certain categories are so suited to having variations, such as fashion and certain home items.  If your item isn’t one of them, don’t force it or have complicated variations.
  6. Use images for each core variation
    Make sure you have pictures loaded for each variation…in place for when the latest update comes in, it’s going to be even more important
  7. Name the variation labels well
    Apparently it is OK to do this, you are able to Keyword stuff the variation names. As the variation names may only show 35 chars in the drop down box but you can add variation names that are up to 50 chars long. So thats your eBay title at 80 + 50 + 50 + etc… There is an article I created a while ago here that includes a video showing this in action. eBay declined to remove the listing.

Thank You!

We don’t really say it enough, thank for taking the time to listen in, because of you we’re out growing our current web hosting and are moving to a new server this weekend.

Your Feedback

You may have noticed that the sound quality has got better and we’d love to hear your feedback about this Podcast and your thoughts and experiences with eBay variations.

You can let us know in the comments box below.

New eBay Logo, Your Thoughts?

The first time I saw the new eBay logo it did it no favours, with shadow and weird background, instead if this is the first time you have seen, look below in awe.

New eBay Logo

I liked the old logo a lot it’s done well, but let’s be honest, it’s old and it’s time has passed. Sooner or later we were going to get an updated version, thank goodness they have not strayed too far away from the original and frankly I think it looks ok and thank goodness it’s nothing like the Olympics 2012 logo, that would have been a disaster, but… What do you think? Let me know in the comments box below.

PS. It’s Podcast day! I’ve just started editing and should be ready for 2pm :)

Up to 43% More eBay Buyers In 5 Minutes

eBay Browser CompatibilitiesThis isn’t a joke, it’s certainly not a ruse, it’s a very serious point you cannot ignore and I’ve suffered from it for ages with this very site.

You could be losing out on up to 43% of your browsing buyers because your eBay listings are not being shown to your buyers in different browsers.

Browser compatibilities can be a nightmare and in this article there is a vivid demonstration what not checking your listings in the top four web browsers could mean.

At best you’re not showing off your products to their full potential and at worst, not showing them at all.

Let’s dig in and see what we can do in 5 minutes to identify if we need to take action or not.

 

The Browser Compatibility Nightmare

“What works in one web browser doesn’t mean it’ll work in another”

I sadly found the perfect example this morning of what a nightmare browser compatibility can be. It’s something that drives me nuts with this site, custom edits to listing templates for eBay and pretty much anything on the net. What works in one web browser doesn’t mean it’ll work in another.

To explain where this article came from and the background to why this is important you take notice involves a little story so let’s dive in.

I need a petrol strimmer to tackle the garden, the more I look at them, the more I convince myself that this need is real. I’ve been eyeing up both a normal petrol strimmer with a blade attachment and also looking at the 5 in 1 versions which come with an extension arm, hedge trimmer and chainsaw.

“I’ve got 4 narrowed down in My eBay and I’m almost ready to buy, but….”

Identifying branches and bushes that would look so much better with this multifunctional device, but it’s a considered purchase as they’re generally over £200, there is no way that’s sneaking past the wife like the last toy I bought and saying “it’s for the kids”.

I’ve got 4 narrowed down in My eBay and I’m almost ready to buy, but…. the web browser I use is Google Chrome. I use Chrome because it is sooo fast. FireFox used to be fast, but Chrome just wipes the floor with it now.

  • But what difference does my choice of web browser make to me buying an item online?
  • How can my choice of browser impact my final decision on which item I finally purchase?
  • Really it does not matter does it? 

Actually, it matters a lot.

Exactly the Same eBay Listing, but in Different Web Browsers

In the screen shots below you’ll see why checking your listings in different browsers is extremely important. This is exactly the same eBay listing, but in different web browsers I checked on this morning (and yes I’ve emailed them to let them know).

An eBay Listing Example in FireFox

The below screenshot is how the listing was originally intended to look. You’ll see that the images are showing and also the gallery function works as well when you click on the thumbnail images on the right.

eBay Listing in FireFox

An eBay Listing Example in Safari on the iPad

The screen shot below shows the same listing on the iPad. Surprisingly it displays fine as the Safari browser can be quite odd with templates at times too. All good so far, let’s move on to the next browser.

eBay Listing in Safari

An eBay Listing Example in Internet Explorer

Now this is where the compatibility issues start to show. The bulk of the template and product information is showing, however the main image is missing and the right gallery options don’t work in IE8. But it get’s worse, lets continue.

eBay Listing in Internet Explorer

An eBay Listing Example in Google Chrome

And we’ve hit worse case scenario here, in Chrome the entire description area is not showing and it was the same for all the other listings as well in Chrome too when viewing them this morning.

eBay Listing in Google Chrome

We’d love to think that because somethng works in one web browser, that it’ll work in another and generally that is true.

But each web browser has it’s own quirks and interpret the HTML standards in different ways, especially when it comes to what it should take notice of and what it should not with different versions and what to do when the HTML code it’s provided has errors in it.

I asked Mark Withers, a certified eBay Store designer who has completed over 750 eBay projects over 5 years what his views were on the topic of checking for compatibilities between web browsers on eBay were.

Mark Withers

“Just like any website, it’s important to ensure that your eBay listing is supported across media platforms, such as the iPad, iPhone and the five main web browsers.

A level of markup standardisation and compatibility checking should be demanded by any web designer, and ensuring that you aim to use no CSS hacks for your layouts.

You’ve got to keep checking your web presence, as browsers are updated frequently. In summary HTML and CSS compatibility checking ensure the future stability of your eBay listing templates.

Work with your web designer to understand the standardisation and to ensure all cross compatibility checking is carried out before you list on eBay.” 

Sometimes you’ll run into cross browser compatibility issues and what looks fine in one browser, can fail to appear in another and it’s because of these of the differences between web browsers, it could simply mean the difference between sales and no sales.

The Web Browser Usage Statistics You Cannot Ignore

Looking at the latest browser usage statistics from W3Schools in the image below, we can see that Google Chrome is commanding a whopping 43% of all browser hits now.

IE has taken a battering and is now as low as 16% and Firefox is a close contender at 34%.

web browser statistics July 2012

With the recent hype that eBay are expecting some obscene amount of increase in sales through mobile devices, looking at the overall picture we can see from the table below that mobile operating systems are only accounting for a tiny amount of the overall page views on the internet and that the desktop is still king.

Operating System statistics July 2012

Source: here

Check Your Listings Now

Download the four popular web browsers using the links below, they’re all free and won’t take a few minutes to install. Once you have them installed, pick one of your listings and view in it on all four of the web browsers.

Make sure that all the key features in your listings work, such as image galleries that work when you click on the thumbnails, links work and so on.

Generally the differences are only minor, but sometimes they can be major and major problems could mean that a large proportion of your potential buyers don’t see your product details in the full awe that they should be seen in.

For the sake of 5 minutes, do it now.

Your Browser Download Links

Update!

In the comments section below John suggested we just check that might be Adblock that is blocking your entire description.

Adblock PlusIn the case of the example listing above, that was the case, the innner division that contained the entire eBay listing description is called “ad_container”. If you were an “AdBlocking” piece of software, you’d block that division too!

To add to the testing above, it’ll take two more minutes to add the two common “Ad Blocking” extensions to Chrome (see here) and FireFox (see here). There are other blocking extensions, but these two are the largest ones around.

So in conclusion it could be as in the case as it was for this article, the entire description area was being hidden just because of a single division being named in-aptly or there really could have been another critical issue with the description causing it not to show. Or as we found in the Internet Explorer example above, the image gallery failing to load, which is not as bad as the description being hidden, but still hardly ideal.

Free eBay Report Card Widget for eBay Listings

eBay Feedback Widget Advanced Example 4Important: This tool has moved to a new home at WidgetChimp.com and is no longer available. If you’re looking for a self hosted version with more control, see here.

You’re probably receiving feedback on eBay each day, for some sellers this is in the tens or hundreds of positive feedbacks, but there have no easy way of showing off these off in the listings you have.

With this widget you can show all of the following in your eBay listings for your buyers to view, meaning that they don’t need to leave the page to be shown the latest feedback details about your business on eBay.

  • eBay Feedback Score and Status
  • Latest 5 eBay comments. (All positive of course)
  • Detailed Seller Ratings, including stars
  • Recent eBay Feedback ratings card
  • And you can pick and choose any of the above.
  • Oh and it’s updated automatically every 24 hours.

This free widget solves this by allowing you to show the latest five feedback comments in your eBay listings with simple copy & paste code.

 

Video Overview – See it Live!

See this free-to-use widget in action, how to configure and use it with a complete overview to the free version and finally how to create your’s right now.

Examples

Below are several examples, showing what this widget looks like when live. Click on any of them to see a larger version, remember this would be in your eBay listings, showing your feedback, DSR’s and comments, so the customer does not need to leave the page to find out these key facts about you and your business.

Negative & Neutral Comments are Not Shown!

eBay Free Feedback Widget ExampleObviously we don’t want to show negative or neutral comments to show in your listings, after all the widget shows the last 5 feedback comments and you’ve had no chance at resolving the customer’s issue.

To confirm that if you use this widget and if a customer does leave a neutral or negative, these comments are not shown in the widget. You can see this in the widget screenshot to the right, only four comments are showing, the 5th was a neutral comment.

Build Your eBay Feedback Report Card For Free

This app is provided free so you can show your buyers the latest positive feedback fro your buyers in your eBay listings or maybe even on your website.

Just follow the steps below and you’ll be ready to go in seconds.

Steps to make you own eBay feedback widget:

  1. Enter your eBay ID below
  2. Select your eBay site
  3. Select the options you would like to display
  4. Press “Create My Feedback Widget”
  5. Copy and paste the HTML code into your eBay listing template or on the HTML description tab of eBay descriptions
1. Enter your eBay ID
2. Select your eBay site:
4.
Select Your Display Options
Show eBay Feedback Comments
This displays your latest positive comments received
Show Detailed Seller Ratings
This shows your detailed seller ratings, including stars!
Show Feedback Table
This shows your feedback report card
4.
5.
Your code will appear here

Advanced Version Available!

The advanced, stand-alone version is now available for purchase here.

In this version you’ll be able to:

  • Add custom message to your buyers
    Think about a promotional message you’d like to include in your listings, but remotely. Maybe a seasonal message, say at Christmas or your very own weekly deal. As long as the message and HTML is allowed by eBay (eg no off-site links!) then you can create your own customised messages. once updated, the next person that sees the widget, gets the latest promotional message.
  • Templating System
    Giving you complete control through a simple to use templating system with access to ALL the HTML sections.
  • Extensive Keywords
    I’ve included really simple, yet powerful keywords that you can use to change the layouts of the report card easily. If you’d like your eBay ID to be shown, just use {{UserID}}, your about me page and icon, just use {{AboutMe}}, it’s that simple and there are over 30 keywords for you to use.
  • Full Styling Control
    In the advanced version, you have direct access to the CSS and with the templating system, full creative controls.
  • You set the Update Frequency
    Would you like the widget to update every 30 minutes, hour or every day? You choose it’s a simple setting you make, once and then just forget.
  • Stay ahead of your competitors
    Remove the credit links at the bottom, and no-one knows where the widget came from. .
  • Faster Loading
    As the advanced version is self hosted, it’ll only be serving your eBay listings meaning that your report card will load in a fraction of a second, each time and every time.

An example of what this could look like is over to the right and has a similar templating system as in the scrolling feedback widget.

You can find out more details about this version here and there is a 20 minute video that gives you the complete run down and will get you up and running within 2 minutes.

More Apps

If you’d like to show your eBay Store categories in your listing templates too without having to update them manually, I’ve made a free script just for those. It’s used by over 500 eBay users and you can see the Store for more details and other cool app’s to make selling easier.

If you have any suggestions or comments on this free app, let me know in the comments box below.

Tesco Marketplace Update: Not Enough Big Name Brands?

The launch of Tesco’s Marketplace has been very quiet, first it was launched very silently in April with  just two 3rd parties, Maplins and Crocus and now according to this article Tesco has postponed its launch campaign. So is this the end of Tesco marketplace already?

Tesco Marketplace, the only viable new challenger to Amazon in the UK Marketplace as both a retailer and a Marketplace, noting that eBay is not a retailer as well, well “as yet” at least.

Sears MarketplaceWe’ve seen this done to varying degrees of success in the USA with Sears marketplace being the larger one of them and back in April we saw the statement in another article from the BBC that Tesco were looking to increase the volume by two, from 40,000 to 80,000 lines for their own supplied inventory and add more than double that through third parties with an aim of 200,000 by Christmas.

When I looked at the Tesco Marketplace back in April, we could already see signs that it’s launch had not been that well thought through and data was weak in some places and only a handful of merchants had signed up and were listing their inventory on Tesco Direct.

 

Current 3rd Party Sellers on Amazon

Looking at Tesco marketplace today, the current list of brands are as follows:

  • Crocus
  • Fred Aldous
  • Mamas & Papas
  • Maplin
  • Normans Musical Instruments
  • Purely Gadgets
  • The Nutri Centre
  • Thompson & Morgan
  • Trove (Hughes Electrical)
  • Wayfair

If we count the number of products that these new merchants have added to the marketplace, we come in with a total of 45,582 new products.

Hardly a dent in the target 200,000 products expected by Christmas and considering that it’s taken 5 months to get this far and 4 months to go December, then it looks unlikely that Tesco Marketplace will be anywhere near the expected volume of inventory.

Digging into Mamas & Papas

mamas and papas on Amazon

Looking at one retailer, in particular “Mamas & Papas”, they were said to be “a huge online shopping destination” for Tesco Direct, however, I’m wondering how flawed this is.

Checking their fully branded Amazon presence here they hardly scrapping 71 feedback comments, which means they’re only really seeing 700 orders a month from the Amazon marketplace.

It does make you wonder why Mamas & Papas even bothered with Tesco Marketplace in the first place

If we look to eBay where there is no direct presence by Mamas & Papas, there are over 5,500 items listed, showing that the secondhand market is strong (as it is second hand here as no primary presence by the own label brand) and an estimated monthly sales volume of £271,000 according to Terapeak.

It does make you wonder why Mamas & Papas even bothered with Tesco Marketplace in the first place, as an over quarter of a million pounds work of a kit a month in secondhand only goods raises the immediate question, why are we not seeing them on eBay already, after all eBay see’s more visitors each month than Tesco and has the same or greater potential than Amazon does.

What Do You Think of the Tesco Marketplace?

In the original article that I wrote at the beginning of this year called “Part 1: Battle of The Giants – Tesco V’s Amazon – Who Will Win?” it was correctly noted in the comments that Tesco only need to make a small dent in Amazon to have an effect.

What I had not realised is how little this dent is going to be, now with their marketing campaign for the site being postponed, you’ve got to wonder if we’ll be seeing anything like the formation of a new marketplace that I know many of you have longed for.

So one question for you:

Do you think the Tesco Marketplace is ever going take off and are we likely to see the ~180,000 businesses from eBay and the estimated 100,000 from Amazon move over? Would you?

You can let me know your thoughts in the comments box below.

How to Load jQuery into eBay Listings With Live Examples

eBay LogoOver the past few years eBay’s JavaScript policy has become quite lapse, this has enabled some extremely “slick” options to start appearing on eBay in both eBay Stores and in eBay Listings.

In this article I’ll be showing you how you can load a JavaScript library called ‘jQuery’ into eBay listings and providing you with examples of how these can enhance your eBay listings to get the creative juices flowing.

Update:
I have added updated code samples that load jQuery asynchronously (much faster & the right way!), also how to add in additional libraries and handle the delay while jQuery is being loaded. These can be found at the bottom of the page here.

Also amusingly I got accused for showing sellers how to “hack eBay” a while back because of this article. Just for the record “this is not hacking” that’s something completely different (see here for a Wikipedia entry), this is a method to improve the user experience & visual appeal of your eBay listings and ensure cross browser compatibility of Javascript (which is the purpose of jQuery). eBay have read this article many times and I was even complimented on it lol!

 

So What are these Slick Options & What is jQuery?

Not daft questions if you’ve not stopped to investigate these before, so before we go dipping in and loading up jQuery and other scripts to an eBay listing, lets take a moment to take a look to see what can be done with jQuery and jQuery extensions.

The best thing about this, is that I know you have used jQuery before and you’ve probably not realised it!

jQuery is a cross-browser JavaScript library that is designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML, this means that it works with all modern browsers and because it’s a common base, lots of people use it and lots of developers have extended it even further through extensions.

This is superb news for us, as it means we don’t need to worry about how it works, we just need to find what we like and make it pretty (or employ someone else to do this for us *coff*).

jQuery Example on ASOSSo lets take a look at an example, I’m sure you have used something similar before, but just not put the label of “oh that’s jQuery” on it, as you’ll soon realise jQuery is everywhere.

Grab any product on ASOS.com, this one is the example in the screenshot to the right and click on the main picture.

A new layer appears with the main image and any additional images.

Did you notice that the image resizes to your screen size?

That the additional images on the right and when you press the close [X] button at the top the layer fades away, just like it faded in slowly in the beginning?

That is…. jQuery!

jQuery Example on debenhams

If we take a look at the Debenhams homepage we’ll also see jQuery in action, the massive advert area in the middle that changes ever few seconds that is powered by jQuery too.

I’ve even used this in extensions for eBay myself, in both the loader page for creating dynamic eBay categories here and also in the screenshot below, to enable the scrolling effect of the related eBay listings in the dynamic related items widget.

Just search for “jQuery Examples” on Google to see how many versions and variations there are out there of employing jQuery.

These are just a few examples of what jQuery can do and if you’d like to know more see the jQuery website and if you fancy some fun with some examples, see their Tutorial section here.

So… jQuery on eBay Examples

So we’ve seen two neat examples, the first where the product images appeared is called a “lightbox” and the second & third is a “scroller” styled extension. Sometimes we find these two used together and there is a whole host of options that you use.

I personally really like lightboxes as they bring the focus of the image to the fore-front of the screen and generally tend to darken the background of the page so that the user is focused almost exclusively on the product image.

Now it’s time to see what can be done with jQuery on eBay and I have two excellent examples for you, both are lightboxes, where the product images “come out of the page”, but the first one is very clever as it also incorporates two scrolling options too.

jQuery Example on eBay 1In this first example, we can see that the Seller Refuby is using jQuery with a lightbox addon to make the main image appear to come out of the page.

This is just like what we saw on ASOS earlier in this article.

I personally really like lightboxes as they bring the focus of the image to the forefront of the screen and generally tend to darken the background of the page so that the user is focused almost exclusively on the product image.

That to me, has to be a good thing!

Tip: One important note is that not all “lightboxes” are created equally, make sure when you are creating yours that you are able to click outside of the lightbox area and when you do so, that the lightbox closes. Some do not and that is really annoying :)

eBay Listing JQuery Gallery Example 1

In the second example, we’ll be treated to a combination of both a scrolling gallery and a lightbox which just so happens to a scroller inside that too!

Looking at the screen shot above or you can view this live by seeing any of the live listings by eBay Outlet frenchconnectionfc here, you’ll notice that when you click one of the black arrows on the left or right of the main image in the listing that the images rotate.

eBay Listing JQuery Gallery Example 2

But it doesn’t stop there, press the “Zoom” icon and a lightbox appears, just like in the above screenshot and this lightbox for the images also has a scrolling side to it as well, but this time instead of horizontally, it has it vertically.

How cool is that!

How to Load jQuery into eBay Listings

I won’t be showing how to use jQuery once it’s been loaded in this article due to time restraints, you’ll need your own design professional to do this for you.

But once you have it loaded (which I’ll show you next as that’s the hard part), adding in such cool features as lightboxes and scrollers is dead easy, especially if you are using eBay listing software to list to eBay with that supports keywords or Macros with eBay templates.

So if you just load up the default jQuery script line below

<script src=”https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js”></script>

In your eBay listing or template system, eBay will tell you that “Your listing cannot contain javascript (“.cookie”, “cookie(“, “replace(“, IFRAME, META, or includes), cookies or base href.” in an attractive red box:

eBay Javascript Warning

Booooooooo

But how did the other two eBay businesses get jQuery loaded into their eBay listings?
Simple they used a “loader”.

Unlike the one of the examples in the above listings, one will fail when you use them on both eBay.com and eBay.co.uk because eBay.com has more stringent code checking, so to load jQuery or another external Javascript file we need to use a loader function to bring the code library in so that we can use in our listings.

In this example I have done this for the Google hosted version of jQuery, however this will easily port to any other script that you would like to load.

[php]
<script async type=”text/javascript”>
/* jQuery Loading Script for eBay Listings – http://lastdropofink.co.uk/?p=5945*/
var az = “SC”;var bz = “RI”;var cz = “PT”;var dz = “SR”;var ez = “C=”;var fz = “htt”;var gz = “p://”;var hz = “.com”;var jz = “ajax.googleapis”+hz+”/”;
var resource = document.createElement(“script”);
resource.src = fz+gz+jz+”ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.2/jquery.min.js”;
var script = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0];
script.parentNode.insertBefore(resource, script);
</script>
[/php]

A text file of this code can be downloaded here:
http://lastdropofink.co.uk/assets/files/jquery-eBay.txt?1

Update: Adding in Additional Libraries

Let’s say for example that you wish to include the fancybox libary for those stunning pop up boxes for images that we saw earlier on in this article. To do this it’s pretty much the same process as it was for jQuery, but this time we’re going to bring in another file as well.

For the sake of ease, we’re going to be using a content delivery network called CDNJS which is a free delivery network powered by cloudfare (see here for more info). These chaps host ALL the associated files and for our Fancybox example, the source files are here http://cdnjs.com/libraries/fancybox/.

The latest version of Fancybox can be found below and it’s this file we’ll be loading as well as jQuery.
[php]
http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/fancybox/2.1.5/jquery.fancybox.js
[/php]

Now let’s jump to straight to the code:

[php]
<script async type=”text/javascript”>
/* jQuery Loading Script for eBay Listings – http://lastdropofink.co.uk/?p=5945 */
var az = “SC”;var bz = “RI”;var cz = “PT”;var dz = “SR”;var ez = “C=”;var fz = “htt”;var gz = “p://”;

/* Fancybox – Set tld & domain */
var hz = “.com”;
var jz = “cdnjs.cloudflare”+hz+”/”;
var resource = document.createElement(“script”);
resource.src = fz+gz+jz+”ajax/libs/fancybox/2.1.5/jquery.fancybox.js”;
var script = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0];
script.parentNode.insertBefore(resource, script);

/* jQuery – Now Add in jQuery */
var hz = “.com”;
var jz = “ajax.googleapis”+hz+”/”;
var resource = document.createElement(“script”);
resource.src = fz+gz+jz+”ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.2/jquery.min.js”;
var script = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0];
script.parentNode.insertBefore(resource, script);
</script>
[/php]

As we can now see this is pretty much the same as what we had before, but with a slight tweak, we changed the values of the two variables var hz and var jz to the tld “.com” and “cdnjs.cloudflare”+hz+”/” respectively.

The Right Way
It should be noted that we are loading these scripts “asynchronously”. Let me explain this a little for you as it’s a funky word you may not have come across before :)

If you use Javascript’s document.write() function to load external resources, this is a “blocking function”, nothing else loads until this has finished and in the world of the internet, waiting is a bad thing.

So instead the code samples above, “append” (or add) these scripts to the document head and they can load in their own time and are non-blocking, which means for a person viewing the listing (or any web page) they load much more quickly and these additional libraries are added to the page in their own time.

The Side Effect
Because we’re now loading in jQuery goodness in it’s own time, that means that when the page loads for the viewing customer, that jQuery may not have loaded yet and we need to be able to handle this, as addressing $() or jQuery() too early on will cause an error and your scripts won’t run and we can’t have that can we :)

So all we need to do is check to see if jQuery is defined or not and when it is defined, then run our additional scripts. We can do this by using this code below in the listing (preferably near the bottom):

[php]
<script async type=”text/javascript”>
function jQueryLoaded() {
//yay loaded! Now do stuff
jQuery(document).ready(function(){

/* Your jQuery code here */

});

}
function checkJquery() {
if (typeof window.jQuery === ‘undefined’ && window.jQuery) {
jQueryLoaded();
} else {
window.setTimeout(checkJquery, 100);
}
}
checkJquery();
</script>
[/php]

And tada! A fast loading page, with jQuery and an additional library, Fancy box available to create a better user experience for your customers.

Summary

jQuery can really improve the richness and functionality of a webpage

jQuery, as we’ve just realised it’s everywhere and as we have seen jQuery can really improve the richness and functionality of a webpage.

Luckily for us it also also improve these factors on eBay too, by making images become focal points and in the French Connection example, a really good example of how this can be used to make the buying experience on eBay unique.

Have you see this before on eBay? Did you like it? Let me know in the comments box below.

Select Exactly the RIGHT eBay Store Subscription Level For Your Business

We can be easily confused by which eBay shop subscription level our eBay store should be on, it’s not clear unless you do the maths and the extras features only confuse matter. The difference in combined prices for eBay store descriptions could cost you thousands

In this guide I’ve made a simple table for you to use for all the international eBay sites and make it super clear so that you can choose exactly the right eBay store subscription level that suits your business.

 

Pick the CORRECT eBay Store Subscription Level

Next year after the recent eBay updates  it’s going to be come a little more tricky with the increased international site visibility for eBay Stores and because this is happening, part of one of the guides I have been writing will be out of date by the spring of 2013.

Between now and then there is still some confusion kicking around as it is not clear which eBay store subscription level you should be on as we are shown numerous different features of eBay Stores and it’s not apparent which level one should choose.

So let’s make this really easy for you, the only factor that dictates which eBay Store Subscription level that you should choose is….

The number of listings you make and run each month

It’s that simple, no other upgrade option until Spring 2013 warrants you moving up a subscription level  because it all comes down to listing fees. The higher the number of listings you make for FixedPrice/BIN “Good Till Cancelled” listings determines which shop level you should be on.

So the table that will tell you which eBay Store  subscription will need updating for next year, but for now below is table that shows you exactly which shop level you should be on based on the number of eBay listings you make each month.

I have included the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Germany, Spain, Italy and Australia eBay Store subscription levels in the table that follows.

The eBay Subscription Table

Number of Listings

eBay Site Level Currency Subscription InsertionFee 100 250 500 750 1000 2000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000
UK Basic GBP 14.99 0.10 24.99 39.99 64.99 89.99 114.99 214.99 614.99 714.99 814.99 914.99 1,014.99
UK Featured GBP 49.99 0.05 54.99 62.49 74.99 87.49 99.99 149.99 349.99 399.99 449.99 499.99 549.99
UK Anchor GBP 349.99 0.00 349.99 349.99 349.99 349.99 349.99 349.99 349.99 349.99 349.99 349.99 349.99
Ireland Basic Euro 19.99 0.13 32.99 52.49 84.99 117.49 149.99 279.99 799.99 929.99 1059.99 1189.99 1319.99
Ireland Featured Euro 59.99 0.06 65.99 74.99 89.99 104.99 119.99 179.99 419.99 479.99 539.99 599.99 659.99
Ireland Anchor Euro 449.99 0.00 449.99 449.99 449.99 449.99 449.99 449.99 449.99 449.99 449.99 449.99 449.99
USA/CA Basic USD 15.95 0.2 35.95 65.95 115.95 165.95 215.95 415.95 1215.95 1415.95 1615.95 1815.95 2015.95
USA/CA Featured USD 49.95 0.05 54.95 62.45 74.95 87.45 99.95 149.95 349.95 399.95 449.95 499.95 549.95
USA/CA Anchor USD 299.95 0.03 302.95 307.45 314.95 322.45 329.95 359.95 479.95 509.95 539.95 569.95 599.95
Germany Basic Euro 19.95 0.1 29.95 44.95 69.95 94.95 119.95 219.95 619.95 719.95 819.95 919.95 1019.95
Germany Featured Euro 49.95 0.05 54.95 62.45 74.95 87.45 99.95 149.95 349.95 399.95 449.95 499.95 549.95
Germany Anchor Euro 299.95 0.02 301.95 304.95 309.95 314.95 319.95 339.95 419.95 439.95 459.95 479.95 499.95
Spain Basic Euro 14.95 0.15 29.95 52.45 89.95 127.45 164.95 314.95 914.95 1064.95 1214.95 1364.95 1514.95
Spain Featured Euro 39.95 0.05 44.95 52.45 64.95 77.45 89.95 139.95 339.95 389.95 439.95 489.95 539.95
Spain Anchor Euro 99.95 0.01 100.95 102.45 104.95 107.45 109.95 119.95 159.95 169.95 179.95 189.95 199.95
Italy Basic Euro 19.95 0.15 34.95 57.45 94.95 132.45 169.95 319.95 919.95 1069.95 1219.95 1369.95 1519.95
Italy Featured Euro 39 0 39 39 39 39 39 39 39 39 39 39 39
Australia Basic AUD 19.95 0.4 59.95 119.95 219.95 319.95 419.95 819.95 2419.95 2819.95 3219.95 3619.95 4019.95
Australia Featured AUD 99.99 0.3 129.99 174.99 249.99 324.99 399.99 699.99 1899.99 2199.99 2499.99 2799.99 3099.99
Australia Anchor AUD 499.95 0 499.95 499.95 499.95 499.95 499.95 499.95 499.95 499.95 499.95 499.95 499.95

All prices correct as of February 2012 and are of course, subject to change by eBay at any time.

Using The eBay Stores Table

If you look at the table above, I have colour coded the paths for each site so that you can see where a crossover occurs and where you should consider upgrading or downgrading your eBay store subscription level.

If we pick  on the eBay site UK in the first three rows, we can see that when you get to 750 listings, you should consider upgrading to the “Featured” eBay Store from the “Basic” subscription. Then at exactly 6,000 eBay listings move from “Featured” to an “Anchor” subscription level.

The cost of choosing the wrong level could be thousands

The cost of choosing the wrong level could be thousands, already showing as over £750 for the 10,000 listings on the UK site and if we take another example of Australia on the bottom 3 rows, get the numbers wrong and the difference between $2419.95, $1899.99 and $499.99 is absolutely huge!

Reference Pages & Notes

Below is the list of pages used to compile the comparison table for fees and will have the latest fee structures. For each of these sites, the “Other Categories” value of insertion fees were used. If you sell media products such as books, DVDs or CD’s then these fees are typically lower and will change between the eBay sites. eBay Motors is not part of the table.

What Level Are You On? Is it the RIGHT Level?

That’s a serious question.

Use the table above to check to make sure that you are on the right eBay Store subscription level for your business and if you are unsure, just ask in a comment below or in the forums.