Tag Archive for: eBay

Advanced eBay Listing Creation Tool With Keywords

For a long time now that businesses that do not employ software tools that have keywords available to them are restricted by not being able to leverage them and simply their eBay listing process.

So I’ve created a simplified, yet advanced eBay listing generator that will allow you to use keywords in a standardised template that speed up your eBay listing process by enabling you to break your listing template away from the data you’re entering into it and use a simple tool to create eBay listings quickly.

If you’re not using 3rd party tools to list onto eBay then you may not have come across this concept before so I’ve included two extra sections to this article for you come up to speed with a way that will allow you to list more quickly & efficiently.

It also helps a few weeks back I created two videos in related articles that reverse engineer this process so that you can understand this process using a live eBay listing example and I’ve included the video’s in this article to help you.

What Are Keywords & Templates?

Instead of manually adding data such as item titles into each listing, in this process you create your template and leave a “keyword” behind such as {{Description}} where you would like your description to appear.

Then using the Advanced eBay Listing Creation Tool I’ve created, you just enter your description by itself, separate from the template and then press the huge button at the bottom and where you added the {{Description}}  keyword in your template, it’s replaced with your description.

Neat eh? This is exactly what larger businesses are using to list millions of items on to eBay each week, they’re separating their listing template from their data and using 3rd party tools to create those data rich listings.

So that’s exactly why I have made a simplified version for you to use that does not require the complexity or cost of using a 3rd party software tool.

An Introduction to Keywords & Templates By Example

In a two previous articles I reverse engineered both the eBay template being used and the data being used in that eBay template and I’ve included the video’s below for you to watch:

Reverse Engineering a Template Reverse Engineering the Data 

View on YouTube

View on YouTube

Keyword List:

To begin with I have created a common set of keywords for you to use, these are below.

Standard

  • {{Title}}
  • {{Description}}
  • {{Buttons}}
    This is a special keyword to create the buttons in your eBay listings for “Ask seller a question”, “Tell a friend”, “Watch this item” and “Add seller to favourites”. There is also another very special button I am working on and will be released once I’ve finished coding it.

Bullets

  • {{Bullet1}}
  • {{Bullet2}}
  • {{Bullet3}}
  • {{Bullet4}}
  • {{Bullet5}}

Images

  • {{Image1}}
  • {{Image2}}
  • {{Image3}}
  • {{Image4}}
  • {{Image5}}
  • And so on…
  • {{Image15}}

Future Additions

Now that I have got the tool beyond the proof of concept stage, I had to learn how JQuery & Ajax worked and also improve my PHP skills over the past two weeks, I’ll hand the project over to one of my developers and add in the additional keywords that I’d like to add.

Such as adding in your eBay shop link automatically, dynamic image galleries and wait for it…. logic testing (like in eSellerPro, see here for an example) so you can make eBay listings completely dynamic depending on what data you enter, plus CSV file exports for eBay File Exchange & Turbo Lister to make your eBay listing process as simple as possible!

While these are being developed, I’m going to work on integrating this listing generator more deeply into this site, so that as a registered user (free of course) you can set up a set of “default” options to make the listing process even faster for you and being supported in the multi-channel eCommerce forums I have also been developing.

eBay Listing Creation Tool

You can test the advanced eBay listing generator tool here.

Your Feedback

I know the current tool is basic currently (but it won’t stay like that for long), it has the potential to save you hours and help you create a standard listing process, so I have two questions for you:

  1. What do you make of the tool so far?
  2. Can you suggest any keywords that you’d like to see added?

Let me know in the comments box below

A Changing eBay – eBay UK Launches TV Campaign

eBay is launching a new TV campaign tonight on 3 channels, seeing as I tend not to watch TV at all (have you seen Ted.com?), you can preview the advert on YouTube and I’ve popped it below for you.

 

A Changing eBay

It’s interesting that the stance is towards “what you want” and leveraging the sheer volume of listings (not product’s) on eBay, which is around 30 million. Also judging by the programmes this advert is attached to, Location, Location, Location, The Mentalist and Criminal Minds is focused towards women, but features a man and more men (7) than women (4) in the advert.

I’m not converse with this type of marketing, but I do wonder why verbal no mention of the fashion outlet was included, although this might be subliminal due to the amount of product eye candy for the women’s department.

Also, take note on the wording from Alex Von Schirmeister, VP of Marketing for Europe:

“In the past few years, eBay has changed. It’s now a destination to buy the latest laptops and smartphones, high street fashion, even brand new car parts. We want to say to people that love shopping, and like to have a wide choice and great prices, ‘come and take another look at eBay’.  The selection people will find on eBay is truly unique.  The new retail merchandise is there alongside vintage, hard-to-find and second-hand items which we know our customers love to browse and shop too.”

You can’t disagree that eBay has changed in the past few years, mostly for the better, but for as much as I and the businesses I work with gain from the new style, I personally like using eBay for both fixed price items, but also the auction format that now only accounts for 39% of total sales.

Where else would I have got a Kodak Zi8 camera, as new, with a case and remote control for under £100?

Your Thoughts

Ultimately you’re funding the campaign, what do you make of the new advert? Money well spent?

Any marketers out there that would like to comment on the adverts contents either publically or privately or do you have any inclination on the demographics this advert is aimed at?

Let me know in the comments box below.

Making Sense of the Pending eBay UK Updates in May 2012

This quarter, eBay UK updates are a real mixed bag, on one hand there appears to be a lot taken away and the other little given back.

I’m going to be using a scoring system for each update, +1 if it I feel it’s a positive change for businesses and -1 if I don’t. I wonder what the total is going to be at the end of this article?

I’d love to hear from you, let me know if I have graded each change fairly (or not) and how you would have graded each change. You can let me know in the comments box at the bottom.

 

eBay Video Overview of the Changes

Below is the official video from eBay UK on the May 2012 updates with Angus McCarey


eBay UK Fee Increases x3

No one likes fee increases & there are three punches to the pockets of businesses in the pending update.

In last year’s update the Tech category fees were reduced from 6% and businesses enjoyed a 50% reduction in fees to 3%, this advantage is now gone. The first is the increase in FVF in the technology categories from 3 to 5%.

This now brings eBay UK in-line with Amazon UK electronics category at 7% (as 5% FVF + 1.9% = 6.9%) and make help businesses that are tech-heavy decide that price parity across the channels might be attractive as it was confirmed that Amazon do include eBay as a sales channel (no surprise really) as part of their price parity checks (see earlier article here & here).

Matt’s Rating: -1 as no one likes fee changes.

The second is the eTRS  discounts are being reduced by 10%. eBay are quick to add that the eTRS status does promote businesses in the Best Match, their value of 15% is obviously a site-wide figure, as I know from experience the gain (or loss) of the eTRS status to actually account for a difference of 30-40%.

eBay eTRS Fee Changes
Currently Discounts New Discounts
20% 10%
25% 15%
30% 20%

This one is really going to hurt and I really mean hurt. If you’re fees are £10,000 a month, this is a cool £1,000 extra that you’re going to be paying and even at a medium sized business with £5K of eBay fees each month, this is £500 which at any business size will make owners re-evaluate current overheads, which include staff.

You can quickly work out what impact this will have by checking your billing section of eBay here, if you’re a high volume business then you’ll have to download the transactions or use the drop down box at the right to see the history of invoices and look for the “New Fees” value in the report summary and your current discounts are shown as “Discounts”.

Matt’s Rating: -1 as again no one likes fee changes.

eBay Motor Fees Increasing

Also for Business sellers in the Motors category, the insertion fees are changing from £8.00 to £10.00, although you are getting the listing upgrade “Gallery Plus” as part of the update, just like the C2C did in November (see this announcement). The motor fees for business sellers in Ireland they’re seeing the fees increase from 9 to 12 Euros. But they get free gallery plus too.

I’m not sure why eBay aren’t just blunt with the motor fee changes, its a proven fact that listings with images sell more effectively and for a higher sales value than listings with no images. Just a simple inclusion of that fact that “eBay listings with images in the motor category sell for X % more, so we’re making the use of gallery featured compulsory” would have been quite effective.

Matt’s Rating: +1. Yes it’s a fee change, but for the buyers this has to be a positive change.

We’re at -1 for the updates so far. Let’s start digging into the others. Remember if you feel that I have graded one or more of these incorrectly, let me know in the comments box at the bottom.

Note: I’ve used a couple of acronyms in this article, these are explained below

  • eTRS = eBay Top Rated Seller
  • Best Match  = A biasing search mechanism to promote or demote search results
  • FVF = Final Value Fees, which is the fee that you pay when the listing is successful.
  • C2C = Consumer to Consumer or private sales in plain English.

Say Hello to Adverts & Other Sellers Items In Your Listings

Adverts have been in private seller listings for some time now, however in this release business sellers are going to be seeing adverts below their seller credentials on the listing pages and potentially other sellers items above their listings too.

Now if you’ve not seen the bundles functionality a screenshot of this below, expect eBay to be split testing options showing other sellers items, above this, below this and also at the bottom of the listings and if it was me split testing, instead of showing the bundle options too.

An eBay Bundles Example

I’ll be blunt here, if I was a business trading on eBay, then I would see this as a step too far (let me know your thoughts in the comments box at the bottom). The insertion (or via eBay Shop subscription) fees are paid to display my businesses products, not anyone else’s and you could say I’m not a fan of this sacred area being played with when it does not immediate benefit the business directly, like the bundles.

Yes, this is going to be an opt-in and if you allow your listings to show other sellers items, then yours will be shown, that’s nice, but frankly I’d turn it off.

A screenshot of this in action is below:

new merchandising placement

Considering that buyers have already got to scroll a mile downwards to get to the actual product details, this puts extra emphasis on what you do above the fold (this is the top of the page before you scroll down), titles, subtitles, images and multi-variation attributes have never been so important to motivate the buyer to scroll down and get at your product details.

Matt’s Rating: -1 as I feel this is a step too far for business sellers

eBay Buyer Protection Extended

In April the number of categories covered by the eBay Buyer Protection are being extended to:

  • Custom made products
  • Airline flight tickets
  • Licences
  • Anything equivalent to cash
  • Gift certificates

Any process that fits in with the current processes such as the eBay Buyer Protection to help buyers feel more protected has to be a good thing in my book.

Matt’s Rating: +1 Helps buyers feel more comfortable.

KCode Updates

I don’t believe that this in the formal update, but the next update for the KCodes is in April. If you’re in the parts category, look out for these changes.

There is no rating for this, as its not part of the release. If you were wondering, it would get a +1 for keeping them updated.

Category Updates

There are a number of eBay category and item specifics changes in this update. Businesses dislike category and item specific changes, however I see them as an opportunity to adapt quickly and gain a temporary edge over other businesses.

The current list I have of these are below.

  • Baby
  • Clothes, Shoes & Accessories
  • Computing
  • Consumer Electronics
  • Crafts
  • Health & Beauty
  • Home & Garden
  • Jewellery & Watches
  • Musical Instruments
  • Toys & Games

The full list of category changes is in PDF format and you can view them here
http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/uk/categorychanges/UK_Category_change_May2012.pdf 

Matt’s Rating: +1 This will cause some fun for businesses with products for these categories, but as I mentioned at the beginning of this section, this could give you a temporary edge.

The eBay Catalogue Extended

Its curious that eBay sport the inclusion that “On average, sellers who use the catalogue sell 50% more than sellers who do not use the catalogue” which indicates how effective the new catalogue system as been.

The following product groups have been extended:

DVD & Blu-Ray:

  • Region Free DVD Players
  • Portable DVD Players
  • DVD Players
  • Region 2 DVD Players
  • DVD & VCR Combo Players
  • DVD Recorders
  • Region 2 DVD Recorders
  • Region Free DVD Recorders
  • Other DVD & Home Cinema
  • Blu-Ray Players & Recorders

Home receivers:

  • Tuners
  • Analogue
  • Digital

Multimedia Projectors:

  • Projectors

Home Theatre systems:

  • Home Cinema Systems

Home Theatre Speakers & Subwoofers:

  • Subwoofers
  • Other Speakers
  • HiFi Speakers
  • Bookshelf/ Wall Mount Speakers
  • Floor Standing Speakers
  • Surround/ Home Cinema Speakers
  • Standmount Speakers
  • Speaker Components
  • Portable Speakers

The help file for the eBay catalogue is here and the catalogue adoption tool is covered in a video from eBay here.

Matt’s Rating: +1 I’m not saying its flawless, however this has to help buyers find items more quickly & efficiently. For businesses, adding the EAN or manufacturers part number (MPN) is strongly suggested as it will also help your eBay items be found in Google product search.

Manufacturer Warranties to Item Specifics

Item specifics are going to support manufacturer warranties. I’ve seen this in certain listings where the business has added it as a custom item specific, however by the very nature of it being a custom item specific, that lacks uniformity across the eBay site and by eBay setting a standard field for the inclusion of the warranty period has to be a good thing.

Plus if its used heavily then it’ll appear in the left navigation bar when in search or browse screens and an option to indicate if the current warranty is transferable is a nice addition.

Matt’s Rating: +1 Definitely a change for the better, for both sellers and buyers.

Handling Time Changes – Show Same Day Despatch

This is welcomed addition as many businesses work exceptionally hard at ensuring that their orders are despatched the same day, with the larger ones working with couriers to extend the collection times past 6pm to add efficiency.

Its curious that you’re unable to change the despatch time at a seller level, with eBay’s cut off being midday nor will you be able to change this on a per listing basis just yet (which sucks for pretty much all businesses using a hybrid business model which have a “Just In Time” slice).

Its going to be an account wide setting in your site preferences which once live you can find here.

An interesting addition is the ability to give a reason why a businesses despatch/handling time is longer than normal, this is exceptionally well received because if your business is selling custom made items that take 1-2 weeks to be designed and built, you can let your buyers know in advance.

Matt’s Rating: +1 Definitely a welcome addition. Just hoping that this will be expanded upon at a per listing level.

Automatic 5 Star Rating for Communications

There are a couple of conditions for this to happen which are below:

  1. Tracking is uploaded or the item is marked as dispatched within 1 working day after payment has been received
  2. Stated handling time is 1 working day or same day
  3. The payment method is PayPal, making the payment date visible to eBay.
  4. No communication took place between the buyer and seller from 14 days before the transaction up until the point that Feedback was left. This includes messages within My eBay and any opened cases

If these conditions are met, then when feedback is left you’ll be automatically awarded 5 stars for communication.

Points 1 to 3 are do-able, point 4 is one that will annoy businesses, as we know that eBay buyers are the most vocal of all the sales channels and certain verticals of businesses will rarely meet this fourth condition.

Matt’s Rating: +1 We’re going to have to see how this pans-out. Some businesses will benefit greatly from this, while others won’t notice any difference. Let me know what you think of this change in the comments box at the bottom.

Clarity on Customs

I only work with one business that will benefit greatly from this addition, however as a whole it’s not a bad update, its just extra wording to help the buyer realise that marking goods as gifts is bad practice (oh come on we all know what its referring too!) and there could be delays with the delivery due to customs issues.

Clarity for international buyers on customs

Matt’s Rating: +1 Any extra clarity for buyers has to be a good thing (although that doesn’t mean that buyers will notice it).

Automatic Removal of Non Paying Buyers

Finally, the removal of eBay feedback from buyers that did not pay, if they haven’t left feedback yet then they’re going to be blocked from leaving feedback as well.

The caveat to this is this statement:

This applies whether or not you are using Unpaid Item Assistant as long as you are only offering PayPal and no local pick up is offered.

Matt’s Rating: +1 YAY!

Business Polices

This is going to get another +1, anything that simplifies the policies for businesses and buyers is a good thing. These polices are taken for granted in advanced selling tools such as ChannelAdvisor, ChannelGrabber or eSellerPro, however for businesses without these tools, then they can be a pain.

I’m not going to cover these in any great depth, as the video with Dave Forest below explains them really well.


Matt’s Rating: +1 While this will be helpful for smaller sellers who have a variety of different product types, the extra awareness around return laws has to be a good thing.

eBay As a Payment Processor in Germany

This also applies to eBay Austria as well, but you need to be fully aware of what the implications of this mean to us in the UK. eBay UK is not the second largest eBay site, eBay Germany is and for such a fundamental change to be made on that site, means that we’re likely to be seeing this change in either the next update or the one following.

Currently for eBay UK sales, you can opt to choose a different payment method other than PayPal, say bank transfer or cheque, however in Germany where bank transfers are the norm, eBay are now stepping in as a the payment processor. The customer pays eBay for the order and then eBay pays the seller.

I’m sure the intentions are good, if its been identified that eBay need to step in as the trusted party between the seller & buyer to ensure a smooth transaction, then this can be easily understood, however does this not sound familiar? *coff* Amazon.

There are a couple of topics that we didn’t see in this update.

Bundles
The first is that there was no mention of the pilot bundles facility being release site wide for all businesses to use. This feature is still in pilot mode with several larger businesses on eBay and allows sellers to create “special offers” at the top of their listings.

I checked the eBay API documentation this morning and there is still no sign of this being added to the core trading API, which means that to use these, sellers need to manually upload their bundles via CSV files. Once this hits the API documentation, I suspect we’ll be seeing in the following update, assuming that it does leave the pilot scheme (which it should do).

No eBay Shop Updates
In a previous article I found that there are 400,000 eBay shops currently on eBay UK. While the enterprise businesses have a new structure to the eBay shops (that’s why the outlet stores look and act differently differently to normal eBay shops) the tools & features that are included have not changed for years.

I’ve been waiting for an update for the eBay shops for the past two years, because if you look in the HTML of eBay shops there are three very interesting additions, these are are below:

Meta Tags for search engines

The only way these tags work is that if the domain where they are being served from is in the control of the business, with it being on a eBay domain its clearly not. So will we be seeing CNAME aliases for eBay shops soon or maybe eBay is working with Google & Microsoft just for eBay Shops? I just don’t know. But from the code snippet above, its clear there is something going on with them.

Mobile Optimised descriptions
As an observation, if eBay is experiencing a rapid increase in the number of transactions made via mobile devices (one pound in every ten), would it not be a good idea to ask sellers for a duplicate description that is optimised for mobile devices?

Have you tried viewing an item on eBay on a phone? It looks awful and I personally always end up going to the main site to view the item. I know what I am suggesting, two descriptions for eBay listings, but larger sellers with tools in the background will be easily cope with this and would be easily added to most eBay platform specific tools.

The Final Score

So… Quite a few changes to digest, that’s why I have been keeping track of them using a scoring system, the total count comes in at +7.

There were 3 negatives around the eTRS fees being reduced, the insertion fees going up for Tech and the addition of adverts & other sellers items in item detail pages. I’ve spoken to a couple of businesses already and I asked them what they thought, universally the reply was “fee changes”.

However generally, as shown by the 10 positive scores in this article show that while it may frankly suck that its going to become more expensive to sell on eBay for most, the updates included in the pending release are generally positive overall.

What do You Make of the Changes?

  • Would you have scored eBay at just minus one for the fee increases?
  • Do you agree with the ratings I have given each of the changes?
  • How are the fee increase going to affect your business?

Let me know in the comments box below.

eBay’s SellerSphere Featured Seller BamfordTrading Out-takes Video

John & Gill from BamfordTrading passed on solid advice in their recent article that was featured by eBay SellerSphere in January, you can see the article and the three videos they included in the full article here.

However… Those polished videos were not without a few slips and with John & Gills permission here are the out-takes.

Your Feedback

I’m also working on persuading John add more video content, you can do me a huge favour by subscribing to BamFordTrading’s YouTube channel.

Let us know what you think of the video in the comments box below :)

How eSellerPro’s Channel Profile Can Help Your Business

One of eSellerPro’s core features is a function called a ‘Channel Profile’, in this article I’ll be covering the basics to what a ‘Channel Profile’ does and how it can help your business.

Multi-Channel selling is now an assumed practice for eCommerce businesses, unlocking the power to reach a much wider audience than you could ever have imagined, but sensibly. The Channel Profile feature in eSellerPro can enable you to achieve this.

I’ve put together a short video, where I describe the key benefits of using a channel profile and how it could help your business when dealing with multiple sales channels.

What is a Channel Profile?

The purpose of the channel profiler is to maximise the exposure of your inventory exposure across more than one channel, then once an update has happened to let the other channels know of that update to the stock level.

In eSellerPro you can create more than one channel profile (hence ‘profile’ in its name), which you can apply to more than one inventory record and each profile can have different attributes. I’ll cover these later on in this article, but for now the easiest way of explaining what a Channel Profile does is by using  an example.

Let’s say we have 10 of the same mugs in stock and we wish to sell them on:

  • One eBay account
  • Amazon
  • Our website.

For maximum market exposure, we’re going to use the channel profile to list ALL 10 of these mugs onto eBay, Amazon and also show them on our website too. A couple of hours later, a customer called Jane buys one from eBay.

We now only have 9 in stock and the channel profile will now update Amazon to 9 and the website also to 9. Then another customer, Jim buys from the website. Again the channel profile will update the other marketplaces, eBay & Amazon with the new stock level of 8.

The next morning a new delivery of these mugs arrive and we have 10 more, so we now have a stock level of 18 mugs. The Channel profile will now update each of the selling channels where the products are listed with the updated stock level.

In this basic example, we gain maximum market exposure for our products and keep each of the selling channels in-line with the latest stock levels. Neat eh?

The Negatives of Using A Channel Profile

I’m going to note here the negatives you might have already realised are minor in comparison to the positives of exposing your inventory across as many channels as possible. However you need to be aware of them.

In theory if you only have 10 in stock, then you only have 10 to sell. By exposing your inventory across just 3 platforms in the example above, you are actually exposing 30 items and again in theory if they all sold at the same time, you could go to a negative inventory count of 20 (that’s the 30 sold, minus the 10 you had in stock).

The Channel Profiler is a process that runs on eSellerPro’s servers and it does not update the marketplaces instantaneously, there is a time lag on eSellerPro’s side and with the marketplaces themselves. While I now don’t know the exact figures, a period of about 30 minutes would be about right for each passing of an eSellerPro account to make updates to the 3rd party platforms.

We also need to understand that eSellerPro is a 3rd party to the marketplaces and as such there are time delays in the communication to them. Again referencing the earlier example, the orders from eBay & Amazon are not picked up instantaneously, they’re scheduled. Plus we also need to account for time delays in the marketplaces themselves, Amazon orders are not immediate, they tend to sit for 15-30 minutes before being released and also you can only ask for order reports every 30 minutes or so.

So it’s perfectly possible for Jane and Jim to buy on two different marketplaces within a time window of say 10 minutes and eSellerPro is not capable of updating the other channel to let it know there is a deduction of the inventory level, if there was only one left, this could have caused an oversell or back order. Hardly ideal.

It should also be noted that in relation to eBay, eBay auctions and BIN listings of 10 days or less, are regarded as being committed to the eBay marketplaces, thus if you have 10 in stock and 2 of those are in two auctions, then eSellerPro sees an available stock count of 8 and will use this value to keep the platforms updated.

Note: You can use the true stock level of 10 called “Percentage of On-Hand”, however this is where you’re most likely to be caught out, as using this option I strongly advise you never to use this option (although there are situations where it does not matter, such as virtual or limitless stock).

Channel Profile Tolerances

The channel profile process also has “tolerances”, for items over a stock count of 20, there is no compelling reason to keep the selling platforms updated with the latest stock count for each change.

If we had 10,000 of those mugs in stock, then updating them every time we sold one would be silly and slow down the really important updates for other stock items which have much left. As such eSellerPro has different tolerances for different stock levels and they can be found in their Wiki.

A Simple Example of a Channel Profile

A really simple example of a channel profile is the first example, where we were listing all 10 of the mugs on the 3 platforms. In this example we are committing 100% of  the “Available stock” (10) to each of the channels.

An Advanced Example of a Channel Profile

There is likely to be situations where you don’t want to commit all your stock to all of the channels all of the time and this is where the ability to create multiple profiles comes in really handy.

For the first example, we would have named the channel profile something like “List 100% to eBay, Amazon and Our Website” (naming the profiles to what they do is again strongly suggested, it makes them “Matt proof”).

For this second example, we’re going to want to keep two of mugs in stock at all times, this is because they’re end of line and we want to keep safe just in case we get a return of breakage.

Similar to the previous example, we’re going to commit 100% of the “Available Stock” to platforms, but we’re going to add a number 2 to the column called “Min. Qty Avail”. By setting a value of 2 in this column, we’re saying list 100% of our stock, but when we get to our last 2, take them off all the platforms.

We could of course just set this value of 2, to just one platform, so that when we get to our last 2 items, we take it off Amazon, but leave the 2 on eBay and the website. I did say that this was ‘neat’ :)

Further Examples

The abilities of the channel profile doesn’t stop at just listing 100% of items onto marketplaces and keeping their stock levels in-tow and basic stock control. You can also configure a channel profile to use these cool features:

  • Percentage based listing, not just 100%, maybe only 50% to eBay and 100% to Amazon & the website.
  • Force set inventory levels onto one or more marketplaces, that never go out of stock
  • Force set inventory levels onto one or more marketplaces that are removed when the available quantity drops below a specific level
  • Using a “Cost Formula”, dynamically calculable your selling prices for each channel and also the minimum and maximum prices for Amazon & Play.com accounts.
  • Cap the number of listed items on a platform to a maximum number
  • And there are some funky things you can do with sequences and stocked sub skus of products that 99.9% of the people reading this wouldn’t ever use.

It should also be noted that if you have the WebXML interface enabled for up to 10 external channels, the channel profile can also apply inventory update rules to these too and via the new eSellerPro API, the status of the SKU can be checked to see if its been set to list on several of the ‘channels’ in the channel profile.

My eSellerPro Channel Profile Tips

Here are a collection of tips that you may find useful:

  1. Never edit the default profile
    Think of this profile as a off switch, keep it set to manual and use this profile to take items off all the platforms and for new records that are not ready to be listed yet.
  2. Keep calculations to a minimum
    The more you ask for a channel profile to do, the long it will take and the slower it will run. Where ever possible, keep calculations for prices to external tools lke excel or PHP before entering into eSellerPro.
  3. Never use product specific channel profiles
    If you create product specific channel profiles, you’re missing one of the huge benefits of eSellerPro ‘profiles’. If you do have an exception product that needs its own rules, just create another profile and name it accordingly. Then ALL your profiles are in one place and easy to administer.
  4. Name the channel profiles sensibly
    If the profile is listing 100% to eBay, Amazon and the Website, name it that. In the bulk update tool, in the inventory record and in the import/export system you only see the names of the profile, thus name them clearly in relation to what they actually do.
  5. Think through each channel profile thoroughly before creating it
    Take a few moments to write down what you want the profile to do, then once written, use this to guide you to the configuration of the profile.
  6. Use ‘Bulk Update’
    You can use the bulk update tool to update as many records as you would like, remember that naming them clearly will make this task a cinch.
  7. Import/Export with care
    Don’t forget you can import a channel profile name as part of the custom import/export sheets. But use this with care, as you can enable products to be listed from an import sheet, this may not be desired straight away and may cause other issues, especially if you are loading new products and images need to be collected from a 3rd party before listing, the listing may go live and be incomplete!

The Channel Profile Summary

Using a channel profile is not without its risks, as you can in theory oversell heavily if the products which have been assigned a channel profile are in ultra high demand, accounting for the lags of the platforms themselves and giving eSellerPro enough time to react (although in reality this is quite rare, I can only remember of two instances in 3 years of this happening).

Sensible configuration of your channel profiles for different velocity products is key and also keeping them as straight forward and aptly named is strongly advised.

The examples in this article are quite basic, however if you consider you may have thousands of inventory records, numerous eBay accounts more than one Amazon Seller Central account (yes this is possible), multiple websites and maybe 3rd part integrations to other selling platforms, being able to expose your entire inventory across ALL possible channels and keep them updated when items sell and stock deliveries are made, makes the “Channel Profiles” in eSellerPro one of the core parts of the entire system.

Try doing all that manually. You’ll have no hair left like me!

Your Feedback

Do you use the Channel Profile in your eSellerPro account, is this something you could or couldn’t live without? Let me know in the comments box below.

Reverse Engineering The Data From an eBay Listing Part 2

Welcome to the second part of a 2 part series in this final part I’ll be looking at the data that is posted into the template to show you how easy it is to create a fantastic eBay listing, but with minimal data.

In the first part here, I worked out what the probable layout of the eBay listing template that was used, introduced you to keywords and pointed out that eBay templates don’t have to be a single template, they can be made up of lots of smaller templates, that once combined form the the final finished eBay listing.

So let’s have a look at the ‘data’ used behind an eBay listing.

Reverse Engineering the Data From an eBay Listing Video

To make this as easy as possible for you, I’ve put together a video to explain how this works and where I have pulled the data from and I have attached the excel spreadsheet that I created from this video later on in this article.

While you’re watching this video, keep in mind how ‘light’ or ‘easy’ the listing data is when you look at it in its purest of forms.

Data File

The Excel file that was created during the video is here and includes the formulas that were explained to create the price saving value & percentage.

What Have We Covered?

While it may appear that large eBay sellers spend a lot of time ‘listing’ items to eBay, they’re actually not. They’re in fact spending time on quality data to create eBay listings through listing tools that allow the use of one or more templates to create the finished listings that we see everywhere on eBay.

When you break down the actual data requirements for a product (a fashion item in this example) then the amount of data is actually very, very low. What makes it look great is the way the data is formatted through the listing template and most larger sellers are clever to recycle data that is needed for item specifics, into the eBay listing too. What looks complex, is actually very easy to do.

In this two part series, I have shown you how an eBay template could work, what the elements are and in this final part what the data behind the actual listing could look like before its been sent to eBay. My question is, did you expect for it to be this straight forwards? Let me know in the comments box below:

That’s Curious BrightPearl is Releasing a Magento & eBay Integration?

Brightpearl LogoBrightpearl, now that’s a curious one.

It appears they’re adding a Magento & eBay link to their arsenal (see their shhhh page here) and I’m super curious!

If we look at the different SaaS (Software as a Service) providers out there, they’ve all originated from different angles:

  • ChannelAdvisor came from the perspective of eBay
  • And so did MarketWorks too
  • eSellerPro came from an order processing perspective, for which the marketplaces & listing were added later.
  • 247 TopSeller has hefty Amazon slant to it
  • StoreFeeder came from a Fulfilment perspective
  • Linnworks came from an ERP and MRP satellite systems
  • ChannelGrabber from a need to combine eBay & Amazon together

Brightpearl, Where Did They Come From?

As we’ve seen above each of these providers have come unique points of view and Brightpearl isn’t exception. Brightpearl came from two entrepreneurs and co-founders Chris Tanner and Andrew Mulvenna, whom was frustrated with the likes of NetSuite & Sage and how everything from a website (osCommerce) & accounting perspective was not linked and hindrance to his business at the time called “Lush Longboards”.

A years coding bender in 2006/2007 led to the development of Brightpearl, two investments later from Eden Ventures & Notion Capital, Brightpearl have over 6000 customers, a solid product that combines the features of a inventory management system, full-blown accounting (including purchase orders, quotes & invoices), contacts & a CRM tool (which is excellent I hasten to add! They’ve extended the Rapportive extension that links with Gmail), a web-based EPOS system (this is very cool) and an eCommerce offering for integrated websites.

Recently Kate Gover from Lahloo Tea discussed how Brightpearl helps her business. The video is below:

When I met the team at Brightpearl last year (hola!), the irony was that the businesses using Brightpearl felt it so valuable to use Brightpearl for their online channels that they were manually importing sales orders from other sales channels like Magento, eBay & Amazon, so that they can leverage the functionality of Brightpearl to its full potential.

eBay can get deep very quickly and Magento API is pretty poor currently, especially if you want to do complex tasks. I don’t know how far they’ve gone with the integrations yet, but even if they’ve done the basics such as stock control and order aggregation, it could be pretty slick.

Now it’s looking like they are adding a Magento integration and an eBay integration…. From a different perspective, that of website & accounting, that’s why I’m curious.

You can find out more about Brightpearl on their website and Shhhhh page where I found this information is here http://www.Brightpearl.com/shhh.

Reverse Engineering an eBay Template from an eBay Listing Part 1

Following on from the article series around eBay listing templates I recently covered in Part 1 and Part 2. In this article, I reverse engineer an eBay listing template from an eBay listing and show you the parts that make up an eBay listing template.

This is again going to be part of a two-part series and in the second part, I’ll be showing you the template that makes up the eBay listing, which is probably a lot like the one used to create the eBay listing we’re dissecting today in this article.

So let’s dive in!

Introduction to Keywords

Wait……………. Before we dive into this, I need to introduce you to something called “Keywords”. Keywords come in many names, macros, variables, shortcuts, custom fields are a few common names, they all mean that they are a placeholder for data to be entered into.

For example, if we had a product whose colour is ‘Black’ and its data field is called ‘Colour’ then it’s quite possible that when we see a listing extract in the image below, that the actual template on the left is using such a keyword, so that when the item is listed, it becomes like the right-hand side.

introduction to template keywords

This is how large sellers on eBay are able to create consistent eBay listings, they’re not making every single listing by hand they’re using tools that are advanced and allow them to focus on each core element of the listing separately.

Note: These ‘Advanced Tools’. You’ll be seeing a few of these over the next few weeks and what they can do.

Reverse Engineering an eBay Listing Template

What I am now about to do could be explained in a couple of thousand written words, but I can do better than that I’m going to show you using video and take you through stage by stage to reverse engineer the template that site beneath an eBay listing.

From the video, I have included the template I reverse engineered as a screen shot below, so that you can see how the sellers listing template could look like in their backend tool.

ebay listing template with keywords

Summary

I remember the first time I was introduced to keywords (or Macros as they were called in MarketWorks), they were quite odd I have to admit and it took me a while to get-my-head around them.

eBay Templates enable businesses that use 3rd party tools to sell on eBay to crucially separate their product data from their eBay templates.

I eluded to the fact that some software tools allow you to template the templates. At eSellerPro, the boundaries of what can be done with templating was pushed to a level I didn’t think was possible (or even needed) and I’ve been known to create some complex structures of product templating & data that have allowed exceptionally slick data input methods for businesses in the background and what the  customer sees as in the eBay listing, looks superb.

This article was designed to introduce you to what an eBay template could look like in a back-end tool, what I didn’t cover was the data that powers the listing in the background and that’s in part 2 of this series.

How to Save eBay Searches and Have the Results Emailed to You

A heavily under-used feature for both buyers and merchants on eBay is the ability to make a search, save it and then to me notified of the results on a daily basis via email.

This is very handy if you’re a buyer and are looking for a rare item, a seller who is conducting Market Research or an intellectual property rights owner (someone who owns a brand name for example) who has a desire to monitor eBay for their products and keep track of merchants that are using the marketplaces to distribute their goods or services upon.

In this article, I’ll take you through how to save a search, how to manage them and how to set up email notifications for them.

So What is a Saved Search?

Each time you make a search on eBay,  there is an option to save the search so that you don’t have to keep looking for the same search terms over and over. You can then manage these searches in your My eBay section of eBay and also set up email notifications for daily updates.

There are several instances where this functionality would be very useful, these are:

  1. You’re looking for a rare item
  2. You want to save the search you’ve made and reuse it at a later date
  3. You want to be notified of the latest listings that match the search criteria

Note: I won’t be covering advanced search techniques in this article, this will be coming soon in the form of an eBook that goes way beyond what I could sensibly fit into a single article.

How to Save an eBay Search

For this example I am going to use a real search that I have saved in my buying account, its for a device called a “Neuros OSD”, it’s a network device that allows me to play media files over a network on a normal TV. They’re very useful, but they’re around £100 new and I’ve picked up 2 so far from eBay sellers for under £20.

#1 Make The Search

First of all you make the search as normal on eBay. The search in this example isn’t particularly advanced, but it is looking in the item title and the items descriptions.

eBay Saved Search 1

 

#2 Press ‘Save Search’

Below the search box there is a “Save search” option, click it and a new window appears as shown in the two screen shot below:

eBay Save this search

#3 Rename & Set Email Options

In the pop-up panel that appears you are now able to save the search. But before doing so, give the search a name that you’ll easily recognise, it makes life so much easier later, especially if you can image that you have 5 or even 50 of these in your account.

Once set, press “Save”.

YAY. Easy-peasy!

eBay Saved Search - Name the Search

Managing Saved Searches

My eBay: Saved searches

You are able to manage your saved searches within My eBay, a direct link to this section of you account is here or you can follow this path:

Got to eBay > Along the top press “My eBay”> On the left click on “Saved Searches”

Obviously you can delete any saved searches you no longer need, this is a simple case of selecting them on the left and then pressing delete at the bottom.

You can manage the options for each of the searches from this page also and crucially redefine or copy searches too. A really handy feature is that you can add notes. A good use for this is if you were drilling down a selection of seller accounts for a specific search or needed to add extra information which is perhaps too long for the search title.

Redefining a Saved eBay Search

Once you have one or more searches saved, you are able to redefine them. On the right-hand side of each saved search, there is the option to “Edit Search”, if you click this you’re taken to the search results page.

I show this in the screen shot below, take note that there is an extra option in the search results that allows you to save this search as either the same search name or if you’d prefer as a new saved search.

Saving as a new search could allow you to easily separate the different condition of items, such new and used items. If we think back to the example if an intellectual rights owner, they could easily be altered to both new products and also monitor how the second-hand market for their products is shaping up.

Editing a Saved eBay Search

Saved eBay Searches Summary

Saving searches can literally “save” a lot of time, especially if you’re going to be using the same or similar searches over a period of time.

Having them emailed to you is a handy feature, but for power users that are using this functionality to research eBay it’ll prove to be too much information and as eBay only allow a daily email, a summary email for the weeks listings sadly isn’t an option.

My biggest tip for you is to name the well and add notes to the searches. While eBay shows the search criteria, when you’re working with more than 20 searches, adding a note that explains what the search is supposed to return, will speed up your activities.

Have you used the eBay saved searches before? How did you find them? Leave a comment in the comments box below.

The Top 8 Pitfalls of Using 3rd Party Software To Manage Your Business

“I thought using 3rd party software to automate my online business was one of the best decisions I ever made?”

I asked myself this question back in November last year, since then certain events have happened and  I strongly feel that adding software to manage repetitive parts of an on-line business is a sensible move.

This is to the point that it doesn’t matter which tools you use, as long as they’re automated and take less work than processing the tasks manually would take is a good thing. However, sometimes the pitfalls are overlooked and in this article I delve into these.

Setting the Scenerio

Let’s make a fictitious company called “Widgets Ltd”.

This company started from one person and as the business model was proved, several members of staff were added and a team formed.

Widgets Ltd sells on multiple channels, they started with eBay, dabbled with Amazon and also have their own website, they also have a trade site and a trade counter with a simple till, with no real stock control over any of the platforms.

Approximately a year into the business, multi channel software was employed and while this took a few weeks to employ & for the staff to get up to speed, due to the forced efficiencies of the software, better stock control & they looked at Amazon more seriously, sales grew within a few months, compounded by a seasonal period, sales figures rose to levels they’ve only dreamt about and everything looks rosy.

Pitfalls, What Pitfalls?

On first glance, Widgets Ltd has done really well, mainly because they got past the one person stage and had a business model that worked at small scale, with efficiencies through the use of software,  the business was able to amplify the model worked and allowed them to add the important factor scale and grew.

As I suggested, everything looked rosy. More & more money going through the business, everyone looking busy, feedback rocketing & receiving some real kudos from their family, suppliers & friends.

To quickly clarify, automation especially when it comes to labour intensive tasks is a generally a “good thing”. By automating these tasks, it can allow the business owner(s) to work on their business and not always in it. Purely because of this, this is why most 3rd party tools are a positive to their business, to a point that is, which I’m making in this article.

The moment you add software to automate a process, you become removed from it and this is the stem of majority of the issues that 3rd party software creates.

However, I’m going to take the most basic of examples, probably the most highly desired automated process of them all, leaving feedback on marketplaces such as eBay.

Can you remember when you first started on eBay? You probably bought a few items and gained some feedback, you then started selling a few items and leaving feedback was a personalised affair, tailored to each customer, you were leaving them manually and keeping a keen eye on what buyers were telling you.

After all the rest of the selling process was probably all manual as well and you knew everything about the products, listings, questions, orders, customers etc… However the second you automate one of these processes, you become removed and tend to focus on the visually detrimental parts, such as neutral, negative feedback & DSR scores and forget about the positive comments that may hold the key to moving forwards with the business.

And that’s why it’s quite easy to identify the pitfalls, because the dangers are all around the business when automation is employed and this is what I have dedicated the rest of this article to.

The Eight Common Pitfalls

There are way more than just eight of them, however, these are the common occurrences.

  1. Not at ground level any more
    As I suggested in the simplest of examples above, when you automate processes, you can easily become removed from the ground level and only focus on the bad points, rather than the good points that become overshadowed. This happens throughout the business, as the decision makers become further removed the ground.
  2. Mistaking marketplace growth for business growth
    Focusing on eBay & Amazon, these sites have seen double digit growths over the years, however eBay has slowed down & Amazon has picked up pace (on a global scale), however we’re not seeing huge growths with eBay anymore and it can be misleading to assume that the 5-25% growth in your business has been to the effects that your actions have had, rather that the marketplaces have grown by these numbers and you’re riding the wave.
    Note: This is discussed in detail in two articles called The eBay “Best Match” Position Bias Modifier Hypothesis and Why do eBay Sales Stay Consistent?
  3. Unable to identify trends effectively
    This goes back to the ground level view again, when the business in the example above Widgets Ltd was only one or a few people, it was easy to identify which products were moving and which ones we not, because the staff knew them intimately. However as the owners moved up the ranks, they became further & further removed from the front lines and if the software that they’re using is able to report on data their business is generating, then can lead to the business hitting a plateau and no-one knowing why and in the next one the most lethal of them all is covered.
  4. Happy with the businesses performance
    Some business models have a natural plateau point in them due to the factors that make the business up and while adding automation to a business can remove most of the softer walls to a business to progressing, if we combine a spike of growth over a few months and the owners becoming complacent, the business becomes ‘happy’ with the current results and doesn’t take a serious look on how to expand further.
  5. Unhappy with the businesses performance
    And a complete inverse of the above is that the business owners may mistake the automation of their systems and growth of their business as a huge demand for their offerings, when in fact the automation part, just allowed them to work more effectively, focused on a few key issues like stock control, sourcing, customer service and order management, but continuously expect the same amount of growth of the business that the employment of automation first provided.
    I have one question for this, do you define success as a business that lasts 10 years with ever decreasing profitability or a business that lasts 10 years and keeps a competitive advantage and a decent profitability? Maybe both are right, but which one do you automatically get pulled towards?
  6. Unsupported or time lag to new features
    When working with multiple marketplaces, things are bound to move. This is especially true of eBay you release updates every few months, some of which can completely alter the way that the marketplace works, such as best match did or the introduction of multi-variations (see earlier article here for examples), the same goes for updates to other platforms & software products, take a courier integration, they shelve the older version and you’re forced to the new version.
    Now imagine that your current software provider, that was previously automating the courier process is unable to support the changes for 2-3 weeks. That’s a scary thought & while I’ve never experienced a courier software change that inflicted weeks of failure in automation, it can happen and crucially does happen.
  7. Owners are not always good managers
    Before you draw insult from this, I am the first to admit that I am not a very good manager. People that are brilliant technicians rarely make brilliant managers. While they are outstanding at ground level, maybe creating code or graphic design, they can lack core skills to be able to manage people & businesses effectively. Employing automation can blur this, but without a core understanding of the processes required to scale or adding members to the team that can manage such roles, then this as I know all too well, can cause issues.
  8. Tell others about their automation tools
    I’ve personally seen this a few times now, where business owners have seen obscene growths in turnover have spilled their tools to others (either knowing or unknowingly) and competitors and even suppliers have jumped in too and taken the advantages the automation provides.
    While I’m not going to name examples of the latter, I can note here that one of the first tasks I made when using MarketWorks (a tool to automate eBay processes), the first task that I took was putting a layer on top of the MarketWorks logo that was automatically inserted in the listings, so that competitors could not readily work out which tool I was using.

Summary

While the above was not exhaustive and that 3rd party software products can provide huge benefits to businesses through automation, there are downsides to using them.

Some are obvious, such as competitors or even suppliers picking up that the business is using certain tools to manage their business and then using them to compete more fairly with the business, while others less succinct issues like the owners not being competent managers, or time lags in changes to marketplaces or being unable to trend their business can all impact a businesses effectiveness.

Image Source

5 Questions for Dzine-Hub – A Professional eBay & Web Design Company

 

Following on from the two-part series “Why buy a professionally designed eBay listing template?” for which you can read part 1 here and part 2 here, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to interview a company that specialises in such designs and share with you first hand the experiences and feedback from such a provider.

Introduction

I’ve got 5 brilliant questions for Abbas from DZine-Hub.com lined up, but first let me introduce Abbas to you.

I first met Abbas when we were given an exceptionally large quote for a revamp of one of my clients eBay shops and listing templates, to the point we had to find an alternative.

It turned out to be somewhat ironic, the company that we chose had been busy creating templates for other businesses in the same category as this client and it was almost full-circle for Abbas to end up re-designing the original eBay shop that had inspired so many other merchants to up-their-game with a professionally designed template.

I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting Abbas face-to-face, Abbas came over to the UK from India where DZine-Hub is based in March 2001 for the Internet Retailing Conference. After the conference had finished, Abbas stayed in Bristol for the following week or so and we met up and took Abbas to my 3rd place, a cafe on the edge of Bristol docks.

Since then I’ve worked with Abbas & his team on numerous projects and its normally the first recommended design resource for all eBay related projects.

I’ve lined up five questions and over to Abbas!

Before we start, Abbas, can you tell us a little more about what your company does?

I originally started as a drop-ship business selling on eBay, building a team we cleared over 20,000 items in a 6 month period, but it was the designing that was my passion and we now use this understanding of how eBay works from a sellers perspective to help our clients set up businesses on eBay, through websites & the social platforms more efficiently.

My team now focus purely on eCommerce design projects, which includes eBay shop designs, eBay listing templates, eCommerce website design, Facebook fan pages and also customising clients Twitter pages.

When we first started Dzine-Hub, there were very few successful design companies, their turn around times were slow and the prices for services were highly impractical. We optimised our processes, focusing on quality and always aiming to remain small & nimble to keep the entire process as personal as possible, after all these are peoples businesses we are representing with the designs and impacts them greatly.

Why do you feel that people use services such as yours for eBay listing templates and eBay shops?

There are many many people selling on eBay and many using eBay shops. One of the best ways to get ahead of the rest of the sellers on eBay is to use a professional design for your eBay store and listings.

An eBay store design and listing template design is vital for three important reasons –

Branding

A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers on the eBay market increases by day. Time taken to create a brand, and then market that effectively is time well spent. Branding increases your credibility with the customer & concretes user loyalty. A unique high-quality design helps in effective branding.

Interface

A bad design interface can discourage a potential customer from making a purchase owing to the fact that the navigation is not too simple. A good interface can put the customer at ease, with navigation made easy between store pages and other information. Our store designs are not just good looking, we create a good navigation interface to make your eBay store more customer-centric.

[Matt’s comment: The basic eBay shop is fine to a degree, but after that they all look the same and 3rd party design companies can really add some flair to the eBay shops and add a superior user interface which ultimately helps buyers find items faster & more efficiently in both the eBay shop and the listings themselves ]

Cross-promotion

Another way of increasing sales / conversions is cross-promotion – let the customer know what you feel might be of interest to them apart from the primary area of focus. Creative banners and well-designed promotion category boxes can communicate with the customer more effectively.

Abbas, DZine-Hub is not based in the UK, while I personally have no issues with outsourcing activities such as design work that I am not specialised in, what 5 tips would give UK business owners when outsourcing their design work?

We have positioned ourselves as an Internet-based business, just like our clients, where the core competencies of our company are measured by the kind of services we offer and how we deliver them.

Beyond a point the location only matters little, it is about how we do what we do, to the best our abilities.

Here are 5 tips for UK business owners looking to outsource their design work:

  1. Look for experience
    Have a look at the portfolio, that would give you an idea on what they are capable of. Live links to eBay stores which showcase the work done.
  2. Genuine reviews
    Look at what people have spoken about their work (preferably on a third-party website).
  3. Service
    See the terms of service, after sales support and how easily contactable they are. Give them a call and/or an email and see what response you get back from them.
  4. Nature of their clientele
    See how big their clients are, their eBay feedback. If they’re attracting high volume, high value businesses, then they’re worth contacting.
  5. Expertise
    Many businesses use software tools to run their businesses on eBay. Its crucial that they have knowledge of the software system the company is working with.

[Matt’s comment: Just to add to the points above, never be afraid of picking up the phone and speaking to them. Look for a UK number or a Skype contact and call them. It’ll take no more than a few minutes and you’ll know first hand what the level of communication is going to be like. Maybe just like what your buyers do to your business ;-) ]

When we last spoke, you had exceeded the 600 designs mark, could you tell us how the journey has been this far?

The journey this far has been an exciting one to say the least. In the last couple of years of us being fully functional, we have learnt an amazing lot and grown from strength to strength.

We have launched 600 eBay stores and it’s not so much the volume that matters – but the fact that we have personally dealt with and successfully helped launch that many businesses on eBay. We’ve also designed a fashion outlet store in the UK along with the many others and have launched 50 eCommerce websites (and counting) based on the Magento platform.

Myself & my team are looking to an even more exciting time ahead – our next year should feature us venturing into Amazon web-stores, and launching more designs for other eCommerce websites that function on different shopping carts other than Magento, like OpenCart, Volusion, BigCommerce, Prestashop to name a few.

First impressions are huge, how do you work with your clients to ensure theirs are first-rate?

My1stWish Design ExampleHaving been in the business of eBay selling for quite a while, we’ve identified how critical it is for the designed templates to have the right balance of design and cross-promotion, suited to each individual business model.

We have been designing templates for varied set of clients, selling products & services across a very wide range of categories. A lot of our time is spent on deciding with our clients, what to do and how for each small / medium / large business, which we plan to have an impact on.

We understand how important it is for our clients to instill trust and confidence in their prospective buyers minds and all this is achieved with well designed professional templates.

First impressions count everywhere – we do our best to ensure that our clients make a very good first impression on their customers.

Some examples of our work are below:

Thank You

Abbas, thank you for taking the time answer those questions for us.

You can find out more about DZine-Hub.com here, the link goes straight to the gallery page of over 100 eBay design examples.

When Was The Last Time You Bought From A Competitor?

Seeing what your competition are up to is always an enlightening experience. You’re able to reverse engineer what their processes are and what the product quality & service is like and to gauge how you compare.

 

Real Example

One of the businesses that I’m working with as part of ProjectE had an action last week, which was to investigate a potential competitor on a new marketplace. What was found is that they were lacking badly and there is potential in them exploring this marketplace further.

I have removed some details from the email so that it remains anonymous and replaced the sections with [comments] as applicable.

Hi Matt! Hope you’re having a good week.

My [product] has just arrived from [marketplace] in a crappy cardboard box (which I’m sure is supposed to have some reference to [marketplace] on the outside?). No invoice in the box. Just a badly cut slip of paper with more bad puntuation and grammar which is in keeping with the email they sent!

And the [product] .

The quality is appalling – none of the [key attributes] in places and poor [person’s] face is the weirdest colour I’ve ever seen!  We know that these issues are caused by either using [a tool incorrectly]. Very amateurish to say the least.

So we know we can wipe the floor with these guys – they say they are the cheapest on [marketplace] , well in this case you get what you pay for! As soon as I get our new [something] back we’re on there!

Just thought I’d share that with you. Just toying with the idea of leaving feedback now.

Sometimes you hit gold like this, where competitors have no sense of standards and quality processes in place. Do you think that they’ll now be investigating this marketplace further? I think so.

A quick note around the feedback either formal feedback on the marketplaces or personally to them is that I’d not suggest you do this and refrain from leaving any, especially if it’s going to be negative. Also, I frankly see no reason except for a high-ground-moral-reason to tell them if you can get over that. I’d keep quiet and let them fail in peace.

Stop - Take Action!When was the last time you bought from a competitor?
You can learn so much from buying items from not only competitors, but also companies in other areas. It only takes a few minutes, the cost can be exceptionally low, however, the insights can be enlightening.

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