Tag Archive for: eBay

Why Buy a Professionally Designed eBay Listing Template? Part 2

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This is the second part of a two-part series and if you’ve missed the first part you can read it here ‘Why buy a professionally designed eBay listing template?‘.

In this second part, I’ll be covering the following topics:

  1. Standardisation of common components
  2. The ability to try new layouts easily
  3. Professionally designed eBay template examples
  4. The conclusion

Standardisation of Common Components

Yes, you can achieve this without a paid-for design and I’m really looking forward to creating some basic layout templates that you can use as part of forthcoming articles (try searching for eBay template in the search box on this site as I may have added them by now).

However, with a professional designed eBay listing template, you’ll find that the elements are typically styled a lot better than what a novice can do with limited to no HTML & design skills.

To clarify what I mean by ‘Standardise data input’, these are the typical sections that you might have included in your listing template layout:

  1. Title
  2. Image(s)
  3. A short description of the product
  4. Any technical details
  5. Your standard postage option
  6. Your returns policy
  7. Your payment methods

So taking point 7, you can have your accepted payment methods prewritten and if they design company is a really good one, they’ll help you out formatting such sections, so each time you list, you don’t have to repetitively input this information or even in worst case scenario leave it out!

Note: With some software providers you can also provide logic testing alter what is and what is not shown in eBay listings. I’ll not be covering these in this article but is noted for a future one.

The Ability to Try New Layouts Easily

If you have a designed or even a basic template layout, then you’re able to then “play with” altering the placement of the sections in the template.

For example, you may include the images to the left in one layout and in another the images to the right. My point here is, that as soon as you have broken the product/service details & common elements away from the design itself, then you can alter the design and layout as you wish.

Note: Again noting that this is much easier when using most of the 3rd party software for eBay listings. The eBay listing template is normally broken away from the actual product data, then keywords are left behind in the template, as placeholders for the product data and that in itself allows the easy manipulation of the template layout. However even just altering the template for any new listings you may have is also applicable to this example.

Professionally Designed eBay Template Examples

Here are some examples I’ve picked at random from eBay, I’ve included a screenshot for each, a link so you can find the sellers items and view their eBay listing templates.

Note: I’ve linked directly to the eBay shops as listings is not a good idea as they may expire):

eBay-template-UniQ Clothing

UniQ Clothing

 eBay-template-WeShipDeals
eBay-template-Funky Clubwear eBay-template-EFX Digital
eBay-template-vinyl_zoso eBay-template-ocean tree trading

Example Breakdown

If you take a look through each of the eBay shops above and delve into the listings, you’ll find a variety of different designs and layouts. It’s important to note they’re all doing the same thing, presenting product information to you as a potential buyer. Some do it better than others and it’s for you to take what works well for your products and then make it better.

Picking on Uniq Clothing, the actual product data they have in their listings is actually very, very low. In fact it’s so light on data, I will be dissecting one of their eBay listings in a future article to show you how light they are on the data as I reverse engineer the listing data.

If you pick any one of their eBay listings, you’ll note that if you visually exclude the outer contents of the template, what’s documented for the product, is minimal. A listing title, barely any eBay item specifics, great images and a six line description consisting of no more than 20 words and guess what? It looks fab! A testament to what a decent template structure & design can do to make really, really poor data.

Conclusion

Any listing template is a good idea (I think I’ve said that 4 times now), as they allow you to include the common sections in each time, such as postage details and product attributes to gain uniformity across your eBay listings.

Then by ‘branding’ yourself, you are able to portray yourself as a more professional seller and also allow the porting of customers from one platform to another more easily.

If your eBay activities look like your website and the customer has previously converted, then moving them to another trading place is far easier as they “recognise your business” (the point I was making with Tesco in part 1).

Question:
Do you use an eBay listing template for your eBay listings? What improvements did you find?

Use the comment box below to let me know!

Why Buy a Professionally Designed eBay Listing Template? Part 1

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If you’re not aware, in the past few years professionally designed eBay listing templates have really taken off in almost all of the eBay categories by most business sellers.

This is part 1 of a 2 part series and the second part will be live tomorrow here.

Before, it was generally kept to technology-based categories, I suspect that this was probably due to the merchants in these categories having a better grasp of HTML and being able to create basic and advanced templates by themselves, although the artist and print categories have always pretty strong, due to the creative ability of such sellers.

There are several companies that offer such services and I’m not going to mention them here (I’m saving this for a later article), however pulling from a wide spectrum of examples across numerous providers, so you can see from example what is possible from such companies and discuss the benefits and possible drawbacks to buying and using a professionally designed eBay listing template.

So Why Buy a Designed eBay Template?

So to get to the core question, “Why buy a designed eBay template?“, as far as I see it,  there are several key reasons on why to buy a professionally designed template, these are below and I’ll expand on each further:

  1. Any listing template is a great idea
  2. Branding & building a presence
  3. Standardise data input
  4. Standardisation of common components
  5. The ability to try new layouts easily

So to cover these in more detail, I’ve broken them down below:

Any Listing Template is a Great Idea

I covered this in another article called “Do I need a professionally designed listing template to sell on eBay?”, here is an extract:

That’s quite a broad statement, but I’ll happily explain. By using a template to format your product details, will allow you to focus on what you need to add and not on what you think you should be including each time you list, then ending up with some listings well formatted and complete and some others half way (or less) complete.

Even if it’s a copy/paste from a text document, it means you can cover the basic questions in each listing without causing excessive buyer questions and putting buyers off by not including valuable information.

I am making the point that any eBay listing template is a great idea regardless of complexity it allows you to break the repetitive information that you include in every listing, the product details and any design layer that is included.

Branding & Building a Presence

This would have been set at the #1 spot, however I feel that even using a basic template is a such a brilliant business practice for eBay, not only for merchants to input their product or service data in a structured manner, but also for buyers, as they will thank you (buy buying) for allowing them to locate the information that they are specifically looking for.

Building your presence on eBay by using branding is again an excellent idea, as I said in the opening paragraph to this article, a few years back, professional designs were limited to the few, now they’re commonplace and there is a very good reason for this, by branding your eBay listings (and probably your eBay shop), you are able to distinguish yourself from the rest of the crowd.

Lets flip to a real-word example, lets think of “Tesco’s”.

Are you thinking, blue, white and some red text if I was to include a picture right now, you’d immediately now it was them?

(I was going to include their logo, however, there is no need, you know who they are and what the look like.)

Now… this ports straight back to your business, if you’ve just got a bland, white background and just black text with a few bullet points, then to be honest, you look like the rest. However, if you have a brand, as in a logo and a themed listing, then suddenly you’re a ‘brand’. Take this website, for example, if you saw the LastDropofInk logo somewhere else, say on my YouTube channel, then you’d know it’s us right? (hopefully you say yes here, that’s the point I’m making).

Continuing with the Tesco branding, lets look at a few examples (yes I know they’re a monster to pick on, however I’m just trying to amplify the point, I’ll get to real-life eBay sellers shortly, honest!).

Tesco Main Website
This is a screenshot of the main Tesco website (click for larger image)
Tesco Direct Website
Even without the blue, you stil instantly recognise that its Tesco (click for larger image)

And lets take a look what they did when they launched onto eBay UK:

Tesco eBay Shop
This is the tesco eBay Shop. You can view it here
Tesco Outlet eBay Listing Template
Tesco Outlet eBay Listing Template

This works in reverse

This is a pivotal notion, especially for eBay sellers who have no brand presence as of yet outside of eBay, by having a strong design on your eBay listings & eBay shop, then porting this to your other channels (such as websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter & so on…), enables customers to feel more comfortable and again, just like the Tesco example, you can recognise them without thinking (also called brand recognition).

Standardise Data Input

If we make the assumption that each of your eBay listings has these common product/service sections:

  1. A Title
  2. Image(s)
  3. Bullet points
  4. A description

Then by leaving placeholders in your listing template, you can populate these core sections, quickly and easily. This not only helps data input, but also makes the core sections about the product easily readable by the buyer.

If you’re using 3rd party tools, then many of these support keywords and these placeholders can be left in the templates and are dynamically populated by the software when the listing is sent to eBay.

Summary

Before I wrap up this first part, it’s worth noting that you don’t normally just receive an eBay listing template from a 3rd party company, most bundle this in with an eBay shop design.

I hope I’ve put across the key point of this article that any template is a good idea, it doesn’t have to be professionally designed (although if it is then it’s likely to be far superior than you or I would be able to create).

The addition of a listing template brings many benefits, not only looking more professional, but to allow you to structure your data more evenly and then allow you to test different formats too.

In part 2 which I release tomorrow (see here when it’s live) I cover the standardisation of common components and what they are,  the ability to try new layouts easily, several professionally designed eBay template examples and reach the final conclusion on professionally designed eBay listing templates.

Solid Advice from 250,000 Feedback eBay Seller Bamford Trading

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Bamford TradingIt’s fantastic to see John & Gill from Bamford Trading being featured on eBay’s SellerSphere this month. Both John & Gill have covered several key elements that should be considered when running a successful eBay business.

The original article is eBay focused however we should take note of the breadth of Bamford trading sales channels, as eBay is only one part of the multi-channel approach:

  • eBay
    As focused in the article, their eBay shop is here Bamford Trading
  • Amazon
    Amazon is also part of their sales channels, here.
  • Website
    Their website is at BamfordTrading.com
  • Twitter
    While not “massive”, the Twitter account is up and running and branded towards the company here.
  • Facebook
    John & Gills dedicated Facebook page is here.

Below are the 3 video’s from the eBay article, there is some fantastic advice in them and I strongly suggest you take the 5 minutes each to watch them.

How to Sell Successfully on eBay

Tips for Successful eBay Selling

Bamford Trading eBay Case Study

Summary

Both Gill and John have included some solid advice in these video’s. What you’ll be seeing from me in the forthcoming weeks, is the expansion of this advice into focused articles that delve into these much, much deeper.

Also an interesting observation, out of the 5 featured sellers featured in eBay’s SellerSphere, I’ve either helped or worked with 4 out of the 5 so far.

Question: Do you believe that you’ll reach 250,000 feedback on eBay? Comment below!

How to Customise Your eBay Search Results (For Buyers & Power Users)

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Basic eBay search results are fine for normal users to a point, however even for normal users customising the search & browse results on eBay pages will allow you to make a more informed decisions on the item before clicking through.

If you are using the search & browse results to conduct Market Research, then you’re definitely going to need some extra information so that you have a truer picture of what the results mean and will save clicking into lots & lots of items, just to get at the core details.

How to Customise Your eBay Search Results Video

I have put a video together to show you how you can customise your eBay search results and the differences it makes to the way the eBay listings are shown to you.

In the latter part of this article, I go through each setting individually and also provide configuration suggestions for both power users and settings for users on low bandwidth/slow internet connections.

Customised eBay Search Options

eBay allow you to change most aspects of the search results on eBay, after making a search for a keyword, in the top right there will be a link called “Customise View” after clicking this option, you are given a pop-up layer/panel in which you can configure different options for the eBay search results.

Its also worth noting that these options also apply to when you’re browsing categories too, not just search results.

Tip: If at any time you wish to reset the search options you have made back to the defaults, then at the bottom of the “Customise You Search” panel, there is a “Restore Defaults” option, I’ve included a screenshot of this below just in case.

How to restore the eBay search options back to the defaults

Formatting

The formatting options allow you change several key data points that are returned in the search results, the biggest one to take note here of is the option to show the listing title on its own line. This is really handy when you’re including lots of extra data in the search/browse results.

Result Columns

While the eBay title must always be shown, you can configure other values to be shown, these include the items picture (if it has one), the number of bids (if an auction), the price, the time left and whether the seller accepts PayPal. You can also change the order in which these are shown using the up and down arrows.

Results Layout

You can change the way the items are displayed back to you, from the traditional list view where every item is in a single column, to a picture gallery view (which is really nice when searching as a buyer for fashion items) to a two column layout where you can see items side by side.

Reset eBay Customised eBay SearchTip: If you do choose to use the “Side-by-side view” or “Picture Gallery” the “customise view” link at the top right disappears. Don’t panic, if you press the button highlighted in the image to the right, it’ll take you back to the original layout and the customise view re-appears.

I’ve included screen shots of what the each these options outputs once set below:

Standard List View eBay Search Results

Standard List View of eBay Search Results

Picture Gallery eBay Search Results

Picture Gallery eBay Search Results

Side By Side eBay Search Results

side by side eBay search results

Time/Date Format

You’re able to change the time/date format of the time left on the listings from either 1d 6h 10m or to Nov-10 14:02

Item Title on its Own Row

This is a really helpful option to customise the search. By default, the listing title is “squashed up” and by setting the option allows the item title to have its own row. To best explain it I have taken a screen shot of the same item, but one has its own row and the other is the default.

Item Title on its Own Row

Show Postage Cost

Showing the postage cost is enabled by default. To make an informed decision on which items are valid results or not, I’d suggest you leave this option set.

Items Per Page

This is a very useful option, if you’re using the eBay search results to conduct Market Research, then just seeing 50 listings at a time means you have to scroll through lots of pages, however, set this to 200 and it cuts the page views by a quarter.

If you are on a very low bandwidth and you know your searches are always going to return a low number of results or don’t mind scrolling through lots of pages, you can set this to 25 per page and this will make the eBay results return a lot faster for you (as there 75% less listings to return for each page).

Tip: At the bottom of the search results, you are able to quickly change the number of search results being shown. A screen shot of these options are highlighted below:

Number of Results Per Page

Picture Size

Normal users of eBay (buyers) will be quite happy with the large option and also most power users will be too. You can change the image size of the gallery image of the listings in the customise search options, I only see this helpful if you are on a slow internet connection.

Item Information

The item information settings allow both power users and normal users include four extra handy data points to show with each eBay listing, these are:

Item Number

For normal users, this won’t be of much use, however for power users conducting Market Research on eBay, being able to quickly note the item number will be very helpful.

Watch This Item Link

This option adds a “Watch This Item” link to each listing, this can be handy for all users, as you’ll be able to quickly add the listing to your watch list for observation.

Location: Distance

If you’re logged in, then eBay knows your postcode and for listings that have either a postcode entered or a city that eBay recognises set by the seller, then a distance to you is shown.

This is really handy when looking for products (or services) that are local to you, for example if you are looking for a car and would like to view it before buying, not only sorting by distance, but also showing how far away the item is can be very useful.

Location: Distance

Location: Country/Region

Again for both power users and normal buyers alike, knowing of the listing is in the UK or not can be very helpful. If the item is coming from the other side of the world, you can either allow for extra time for the item to arrive or choose a different item which is closer to you or from a local based seller.

Seller Information

The seller information is again very useful to both power users and normal buyers. If trust is an issue for you, then in these options you can show the sellers feedback count, which may influence your buying decision or whether you click into the listing for further information or not.

Shop Name & Seller User ID

I’ve combined these together as its only really power users that would want to know whom the seller is. Having these options set can allow you to quickly identify the same seller over multiple search results.

Seller Feedback

For buyers, this option can help you influence which items you look into further. For power users this can help you identify larger sellers that have large amounts of feedback and may be worth further investigation.

Advanced Options

I’m going to combine the options in this section into one section to cover them all in one go. You’re able to change the way the sorting options work for both searches and when browsing categories in this panel.

You can also set to automatically convert the prices to GBP (UK “£” pound sterling), as this option is set by default and also because the original price (for example in dollars (USD or $) is shown, leaving this set is normally advised.

Configuration for Power Users

For power users, I have included screen shots of the settings that I suggest you work from for each panel in the “customise your search” options. I have highlighted the set options, so that you can identify them quickly.

Formatting

power-users-formatting-2

Item Information

power-users-item-information

Seller Information

power-users-seller-information

Advanced Options

power-users-advanced-options

 

Configuration Low Bandwidth/Slow Connection Speed Users

If you are on a slow internet connection, then removing the details you don’t need and limiting what is show can really speed up your browsing activities. While these are suggestions, as I mentioned earlier in this article, you may find different result layouts better for different categories of products.

These settings are focused on showing you the extra information you need to limit the requirement to click through to the listing to find out more information, while limiting what we can in the results themselves.

Also if you always shop for items on eBay from local sellers, then you can set the defaults in the advanced options to save you filtering the sorting options manually each time.

Formatting

buyers-Formatting-1

buyers-Formatting-2

Item Information

buyers-item-information

Seller Information

Customise Your Search Summary

eBay has allowed users to configure their search and browse results to their own requirements. As a buyer this can help save time by allowing them to scan through lots of listings very quickly and show the extra information they need to know to make informed decisions on which ones to look into further (and hopefully buy!).

For power users that are using the search & browse results to conduct Market Research, the extra options give you a wealth of extra information, cutting down research time and allowing you an more informed overview of what is happening for the search or browse results you’re being shown.

Did you know that this option existed? Even if you did, has the article & video above allowed you to browse eBay much faster? Let me know in the comments box below.

How To: Change a Private eBay Account to a Business eBay Account

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I previously covered the difference Between a Private & a Business eBay Account in an earlier article here, however if you’ve already got an eBay account with decent (ie 100%) feedback already on the account then changing the account type and using this resource to help “bump” you up in reputation can be a shrewd move and only takes a few moments.

Also similarly, if you wish to turn account back to a private account, you can do so too on this page.

 

Steps to Change your eBay Account Type

  1. Go to http://cgi4.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ChangeRegistrationAccountType
  2. Sign-in if  required to do so
  3. Select ‘Private Account’ or “Business Account” as applicable
  4. Press confirm

There may be other steps you may need to take, such as entering your business details, including a telephone number, linking your PayPal account and/or setting up direct debit information for paying fees.

Once you’ve gone through step 4 in this list, you’ll be taken through the steps you’ll need to complete the extra information in.

It’s really that easy.

Congratulations eBay Feedback Stars!

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eBay feedback StarsWhen you reach the eBay feedback milestones, you’ll get an automated email with a congratulations award. But why wait? You can have them all now!

I still remember getting my first 10 eBay feedbacks, I also remember getting 100 feedback and then the 10,000 mark too.  I stopped at around 14,000, but numerous businesses I work with have cleared the 100,000 mark and you don’t just get PDF’s when you hit this level ;-)

10 to 5,000 Feedback

If these numbers are soo far away, why wait you can have them right now:

10,000+ Feedback

I couldn’t find the UK versions of the larger star awards, however here are the USA versions:

So do you ever think you’ll reach a shooting star? Maybe you already have, with the next star so far away, have you even considered the next one?

Do I need an eBay shop to list items on eBay?

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Surprisingly a common question for new businesses starting out on eBay and the short answer is no, you don’t need to have an eBay shop to list items on eBay.

However there are a few scenarios that we should consider to answer this question fully and in this article I cover them.

The Private eBay Seller

If you are only selling the odd couple of personal items per month, then an eBay shop for you would be almost pointless and an expense you can easily avoid. While you are now allowed to open an eBay shop as a ‘private seller’, insertion fees for the 30 day listing format is 20p would probably mean you are verging on the ‘Semi-Professional seller’ covered in a few moments.

So for a few items per month, opening an eBay shop is not really required, unless you wish to upgrade your account and use the additional features of the eBay shop and the 30 days listing format.

The Semi-Professional Seller

If you are selling items continuously on eBay, then it may be prudent to open an eBay shop. There are many reasons for doing so and these reasons are covered in articles on this site, however a brief outline is below of the key features

  • Its your own, brand-able slice of eBay
  • Potentially cheaper to list on eBay
  • You can categorise your listings in a matter that makes sense to you and your customers
  • You can add a minimum of 5 custom pages to your eBay shop
  • Increase exposure on eBay
  • Put your listings on hold, if you are away
  • A “listing frame” for your listings
  • A single point of reference for all your live items
  • You can add & control cross-promotions
  • Newsletter list & email marketing tool

These are just a short list of the benefits of opening an eBay shop, the main benefit other than having your own slice of eBay is that you are able to use the Good Till Cancelled (known as GTC) listing format, which allows you to list items for much less than it would in 10 day listings.

3 Questions To Ask Yourself

The best questions to ask yourself if you are considering opening an eBay shop are these:

  1. Do I have lots and lots of items to list on to eBay (eg more than say 40 per month)?
  2. Do I have lots of stock of one or more items?
  3. Do I want the extra features included with the eBay shop?

The Professional Seller

If you are listing multiple items onto eBay every day, or every few days and possibly have multiples of stock, then opening an eBay shop would be a great choice and probably quite a cost effective one also.

The listing fees would be much less than listing items through auctions / fixed price listings for 10 days. For example the current ‘Basic’ eBay shop fee is £14.99 per month and owning your shop would allow you to list items for 30 days for 10p.

There are a three subscription levels to the eBay shop, briefly we’ve covered the basic eBay shop level above, however there is also a feature eBay shop for £49.99 per month, with listing fees for GTC listings at 5p each and the level above that called ‘Anchor’ is £349.99, however the listing fees are free for GTC listings.

Quick Note on eBay Fees

While in May 2011 eBay made steps towards simplifying the eBay fees structure, they can still be a little confusing and that’s why I’m covering the basics here.

We’ve mentioned some fees for the eBay shop and the fees for the GTC eBay listing format, however we have no covered the final value fees and there are incentives to upgrade your account to a business seller on eBay IF it meets your business requirements.

For one the “Final Value Fee” or known as FVF for business sellers are almost always less than it would be as private seller, along with some discounts for reaching certain criteria as a seller. These are too complex to cover here in this article, however you should be aware these are to be noted and investigated thoroughly.

Summary

There are advantages to both account types, personal and business. However to sell on eBay doesn’t require that you create an eBay shop, although there are advantages such as lower fees and owning your own slice of eBay to market customers too. It really depends if you are a professional seller or a part-time seller.

A question is, which eBay shop description level do you have? Comment below!

What is an eBay Listing Template?

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In this article I’ll be covering what an eBay listing template is, examples of such listing templates in action and finally why you need one, even if its a really simple one.

What is an eBay Listing Template?

So what really is a eBay listing template then? In its shortest form, all it is is a template (think of a set of of guides or like drawing some pencil lines on a page) to help you layout your product or service information out in a consistent, informative manner for both yourself and your customers.

eBay listing templates can be exceptionally complex especially when you mix in logic testing keywords and multiple sets of  data. Some of the templates I’ve helped design have far surpassed anything that you’ll ever come across, (going on a slight tangent here, bear with me) I remember one template that I worked on that involved nested keywords in eSellerPro (an auction management tool) that had about 300 lines deep of logic tests and  that excluded the sub paragraphs that were being pulled in with even more keywords in them.

Quick & Simple Example

However on the flip side, they can be exceptionally basic, just a few place holders for the description, images and maybe a few common lines of text for shipping and postage.

I’ve made a really simple one below, even this would assist in easy listing creation:

Item Title Here
  • Major point 1 – Maybe condition?
  • Major point 2
  • Major point 3
  • Major point 4
  • Major point 5 – If you’re stuck for a 5th, why not mention you’re fast delivery or fantastic feedback?

Main description here

Postage Information
Enter text here about postage. You could include the odd paragraph here as well and just leave place holders for postage prices for example:
UK Shipping is £UKShippingHere and Europe is £EUShippingHere

Payment Information
Enter text here about payment, I’ve also included the paypal logo below as well to give you a hand.
We Accept PayPal

Returns Information
Include standard information here, but please don’t scare people away with 10 pages of T&C’s. Write it in plain english

My point is that eBay listing templates can with third party tools go to extremes, but they all do the same job no matter how simple or how complex, which is:

  1. Format information clearly buyers
  2. Format information easily for merchants/sellers to populate
  3. To speed up the listing process
  4. To (hopefully) allow making changes at a later date much easier

Note: We’ll be including complex examples soon and also we have it noted to include some more basic examples and maybe even a short HTML to help you with the basics.

Examples of eBay Listing Templates in Use

For these examples, I’m going to include examples of professionally designed eBay templates, mainly because these show the use of such templates to their best effect, but as noted above, eBay listing templates don’t need to be ultra complex or professionally designed to be a great benefit to you and your customers, its all about displaying information in a clean, well structured format.

Example 1

uniq-clothing-ebay-template

uniq-clothing Template (click the image for super sized image)

In this example, we’ve got a whole host of template things going on. I’ll break these down for you.Firstly the entire outer shell is one big template, for example the logo, the top navigation, the sides and the content areas. If we focus on the sections that change, such as the images, the seller has loaded these images into a back end tool and then the gallery is auto created by the template, placing the first image as a large one and the extra images as smaller images down the side.The listing title “UNIQ P2-J Long Womens MAXI/ Boho/Hippie Summer DRESS” is also included as a keyword (see our other articles for what this means) to bring it through automatically when the item is listed.

Moving down to the item description, this is probably included from one of two places in the backend system, but the output is the same, they’ve entered the description in a description box (of some form) and its being spilled out into the listing where its being told to in the template. A similar process is happening for the lower tabs for sizing, brands, payment, delivery and returns, but instead of them being entered manually each time, they’re most likely hard coded (sorry this is a term I use, it means “written by hand”) into the template, so that they don’t need to keep writing it over and over. Just like the basic example I included above.

They’ve also got a related items box in this listing too, I know how you can do this and I’ll be including the steps to do this in a later article (try searching for “related items” in the search box on the right.

While I’ve picked a pretty complex template to begin with, this only amplifies that the seller would never have been able to achieve such a quality of presentation without the use of an eBay template.

Example 2

funkydivaltd-ebay-template

funkydivaltd eBay Template (Click for super-sized version)

While I personally dislike white text on a black background and excessive use of CAPSLOCK (and flash for that matter), they’ve done themselves a huge favour by using a template.They’re able to include the product information in very easily and are saving themselves a huge amount of time and even with my personal gripes with the template, it gives a uniform layout across all their listings and have a few bonuses to boot, such as the lack of requirement to include the repetitive information for shipping, about us, size guides and returns information, plus including some useful links to their other aspects and a basic cross selling module to the right for categories or products they also stock.

Example 3

cliphair-ltd-ebay-template

cliphair.ltd eBay Template (Click for super-sized version)

While not as visually appealing as the previous two examples, if you look closely at the contents, they’re using a layout to format their information much more clearly than just a few lines of text.For example the opening two paragraphs are common across their listings and adds brand awareness to the listing. I actually quite like the “We Promise” section and reassures the buyer viewing the listing. If you look further down the listing you’ll see a couple of tables included, these are fantastic for showing product specifics and even further down the shipping table, while not ‘visually pretty’, does a good job at formatting the shipping information.

Conclusion

eBay listing templates don’t need to be ultra complex, even though I’ve hinted that some (if not all) of the largest sellers on eBay use complex versions, even if you’re selling just a few items, a simple template like the one I’ve included, will enable you to list faster, not miss out on key information for your listings, provide the information in a clear format for your buyers and crucially make your life a lot simpler, if you need to update the listings at a later date.

How to: Add a YouTube Video to Listings Using eSellerPro

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youtube-and-esellerpro
Adding video content, especially video content that you’ve made for your business on a product or service to eBay listings easily done and I covered this in an earlier article “Add a Youtube Video to your eBay Listings in 5 Steps“, however when using 3rd party tools, the actual listing template is normally separated from the description.

In this How-to guide I’ll be showing you how to automatically add a YouTube video to your eBay listings in a scalable, structured manner, which once completed is as simple as pasting in the YouTube video ID and the rest takes care of itself using eSellerPro.

Note: For this article I’m using the example product video I made for an earlier article, this is definitely not a good example of a great product/service video but it’ll suit the needs of this article. If you’ve not seen it, it’s quite funny and you can watch it here.

Before We Start

eSellerProI’m making the assumption that you are using eSellerPro as your back office tool, that you have a YouTube account and that you understand a little HTML. The rest I’ll take you through step by step.

Also in the example video being used, the dimensions are 960 wide by 576, this probably will not suit most and you’ll need to alter these both. However for completeness, at the very end instructions on how to complete a fully customisable version is included. If you cannot see any of the sections mentioned in this article in your eSellerPro account, contact their support and ask for them to be enabled.

A “YouTubeID” is referenced several times in this article, this is the string of text you see in the URL when viewing YouTube video’s. For example, the example product video used is “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDSwAuApbwc” and the YouTubeID is part after the = sign, namely “zDSwAuApbwc“.

Using eSellerPro Custom Fields

To make this as scalable as possible, we need to leverage customfields in eSellerPro, I’m not going to cover what these are here, just that we’re going to create a custom fields group and a custom field to place the YouTube video ID.

To do this we need to follow these steps:

  1. Open eSellerPro
  2. Go to the Maintenance section on the left bar
  3. Locate the “Custom fields” section and double click on it
  4. Press the new record icon at the top and name the customfields group “Video” (the first box labelled “Group Name”)
  5. We now need to add an edit box called “YouTubeID”, enter “YouTubeID” into both “Field Name” and “Display Name” and press the “Add Field” button

Create the Holding Paragraph

If we were to put the logic code we create in the next step in every template we use, this would cause unnecessary overheads and possible headaches later on when if want to update the layout operation of the video player & associated code. So to make this as easy as possible, we’re going to now use another part of eSellerPro called paragraphs to create a container for the video code & associated logic.

To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Select “Inventory/Listing” from the left menu
  2. Select “Paragraph Builder” from the left menu (you may need to scroll down to locate this)
  3. Press the new record icon at the top
  4. Give the paragraph the name “YouTube”
  5. At the bottom, tick the box called “HTML Only” so that the editor is disabled

The Logic to Sshow/Hide the Video

Now that we’ve prepared the customfields and the paragraph, we need the code to show the video player in the listing. In a previous article called “How To: Add a Youtube Video to your eBay Listings in 5 Steps” it was noted that IFRAMES are not allowed on eBay listings and we need to use the older method that is allowed to show YouTube video content on your eBay listings.

The code for this, looks like:

This is fine for a single listing, however we’re building a more flexible version so you don’t need to post this each time.

Firstly we replace the YouTube ID with the custom field, so it reads as:

However, we don’t want to show the video player when there is no video to be shown, so to do this we use the IFNOT keyword, to show/hide the entire video player if there is or is not a YouTubeID present in the customfield.

This now becomes:

{{IFNOT/[[CustomFields:Video:YouTubeID]]//

	
	
	 }}

And it’s this code that we now enter into the paragraph we created earlier.

Adding the Paragraph to your eBay Template(s)

Instead of pasting this code into each template, we’re going to leverage the paragraph feature in eSellerPro to make this as simple as copy/paste.

If you now follow these steps:

  1. Select “Inventory/Listing” from the left menu
  2. Click on eBay templates
  3. Select the template you wish to add the video content to
  4. go to the “description” tab
  5. Ensure that the “HTML Only” box is checked
  6. Place this code “{{Insert:YouTube}}” where you would like the video appear if it’s been set
  7. Repeat as necessary for other templates you may have.

Note: Its actual placement will vary from template to template, if you’re unsure either experimentalist or ask someone that is comfortable with HTML to help you.

Enter an ID to an Inventory Record

To be able to test that this works, we need to add a YouTube ID of a video to the custom fields of an inventory record.

  1. Pick any inventory record (inventory/Listing > Inventory Details)
  2. Go to the custom fields tab.
  3. Select “Video”  from the drop down box
  4. Enter your YouTubeID (or enter “zDSwAuApbwc” for the sake of example) into the edit box called “YouTubeID”
  5. Now go back to the “eBay Auction” or “eBay Inventory” tabs and press the preview button on the right
  6. You should now have a video in your listing template

Advanced eSellerPro Video Template

If you had not changed the size (width and height) as used in the example snippets above, then you will have seen a massive video in your listing. If you are using just one template setting the width/height once in the HTML will be fine, however if you have multiple templates and some need to be bigger than others, you can evolve this a little further by adding two more custom fields called “Height” & “Width” to your customfields “Video” group we created earlier.

Then using the following code, you are able to specify the width/height as you desire AND have a catch width of 960 and a height of 576 if they’re not set (you probably need to alter these to fit in your template)

{{IFNOT/[[CustomFields:Video:YouTubeID]]//

	
	
	 }}

Summary

Adding video can be easy with a few simple logic tests and the right set-up, also because the YouTubeID’s are in a custom field, they can be imported against using excel or CSV sheets and of course if the inventory record has no YouTubeID set, its not going to show with the advanced versions.

Now go and try this in your eSellerPro account and let me know how you got on by posting a comment below (or if you get stuck, leave a comment and I’ll point you in the right direction).

How To: Add a Youtube Video to your eBay Listings in 5 Steps

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Video is an exceptionally powerful tool that can be used to allow a buyer to interact with the product before they’ve purchased it. Also making video can be great fun as you’ll see in the example video I used for this guide.

Using video also allows the seller to show that they are an expert in the product area and reassure customers that they know a lot about the product, so that when they buy the item, they know they’re dealing with the expert and reassured that if something goes wrong, that the seller is likely to be there for them.

In this article I’ll be covering the 5 steps simple you need to follow, to add video to your eBay listings and a few tips along the way.

Example Video

Grabbing the nearest item on my desk, which was some insulation tape. I put a quick video together to make a product review. Its only 36 seconds long and I still laugh at it now.

Before we continue, as far as inventory creation goes, using video should be one of the last tools you use to increase sales & conversion. Unless you are already making video for other sales channels or have access to good quality video’s that are provided by the manufacturer, video creation can be slow and as I’m sure you’ve seen from the video’s here, take a while to master.

eBay Policies

There are some explicit rules from eBay on what you cannot do in video content, I’ll summarise them below:

  1. No promotion of websites outside of eBay
  2. No adult content
  3. No naughty software that could harm a clients machine
  4. Video can only be from a small number of providers. The only really two worth noting, YouTube and Vzaar
  5. You must be the owner of the underlying rights, including intellectual property rights, or be authorised to distribute it by the owners of such rights
  6. No violation of any of the other rules (eg, asking for Western Union)

I do suggest that you read the eBay links policy (see lower section on “Using Videos”) and also the Adding Video to Your Listing from eBay, however its lacking, hence this step by step guide. The short version is to use YouTube and a little common sense.

Considerations When Making Video

While I’m not going to cover the how to make video content here (as you can tell from my example, I need to do work on certain aspects, lol), there are some pointers and questions that you might find useful when making video for both eBay and your other channels.

  1. How exactly is the video going to make the interaction with the product better for the customer
  2. Plan the video before hand, even if its three bullet points and discuss these
  3. You don’t have to be in the video, there is nothing wrong with recording your hands while you interact with the product
  4. Keep it short
  5. Explain what the video is about within 5 seconds
  6. Show the product, not you
  7. Show benefits, not features
  8. If possible, include product close ups. If you have a camera that does not have zoom, most video editing software allows you to add pictures and you can voice over them

Hmmmm…. this needs a video & an article on this topic alone….

How To Embed Video in eBay Listings

This video shows you how to embed video in your listings. After you’ve watched this video, continue with the rest of the article as we have the process of adding video to your eBay listings broken down into 5 easy to follow stages.

 

How to Add a Youtube Video to your eBay Listings in 5 Steps

The following 5 steps will guide you through the stages to adding video to your eBay listings.

Step 1 – Upload the Video

In this example, I’ve made a review of some insulation tape (Yes its REALLY bad, but its a video and serves its purpose for this example.)

  1. Go to http://upload.youtube.com/my_videos_upload
  2. Either drag and drop your video or press the “Upload Video” button
  3. While the video is uploading, complete the extra information like the title and tags

Step 2 – Get the Code

Once the video has been uploaded, view the video on Youtube. Then follow these steps:

  1. Press the “Share” button
  2. Press the “Embed” button
  3. Un-check “Show suggested videos when the video finishes” the option
  4. If available, check the “Play in HD” option
  5. Ensure that “Use old embed code” is checked as this will not work on eBay otherwise.
  6. Specify a size, as mentioned in the video, larger than 1000 is not recommended.
  7. Now in the box above, highlight and copy the HTML

Step 3 – Enter into eBay Listing

In the video, I’m using the eBay “Sell Your Item” (SYI) form and using the code from the previous step, in the description tab, press the HTML tab and enter the code where you would like the video to be shown in the listing. Once located, right click and paste the copied code into the listing.

Tip: When you are writing the description and know where you would like the video to be placed, write VIDEO in the place where you’d like it and then searching for it in the HTML tab is easy. if you flick back to the normal view and don’t see the video, this is normal. You’ll see it in step 4.

Step 4 – Check the Preview

Always before confirming the listing, use the preview to ensure that the video is where you expect the video to be and that its actually working.

Step 5 – Confirm

Once you’ve previewed the listing, save the changes and the listing is now live.

Summary

You should now be able to add a YouTube video to your eBay listings, there are a few areas you could trip-up on, however adding video content to an eBay listing is really quick and very easily done as shown in the video or by following the steps above.

Soo… Have you used Video in your eBay listings before? Was it as easy as the above and what were the results like? Comments in the box below!

The Top 10 (or so) LastDropofInk Articles of 2011

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In this article I recall my top 10 favourite and most notable articles of 2011 and provide a reflection on each of them.

2011 saw myself and the LastDropofInk site go through some major changes, the site got a complete redesign in August and that dead mosquito was finally laid to rest and a new shiny design was put into place. This also saw me step into the world of video too and my thanks to AndyLuckyShot for helping me with the introduction section to the video content, the comments that you all made around the quality of them and I also took the opportunity to explore some of the topics that had been on my to-do list for quite some time.

A quick count shows that I created over 100 articles for the year, for which I’m pleasantly surprised, as some weeks I’d add nothing and some weeks 5 or more articles in one hit. I openly admit that some of them were weak, however there are several that helped me (and hopefully you too) understand some of the complexities that impact the way we work and the way that the marketplaces also work too.

Top 10 Articles of 2011

These are my top 10 articles of 2011. There are a lot more than just 10 though, as many of them are interlinked or were created in parts that lead on from each other. This is why its easy for me to reflect on what was documented over the year as I can see the full picture now of where each article was going and how they were linked together.

#1 – Tesco Marketplace

Tesco LogoIn November 2010 we heard concrete rumours that Tesco were going to launch into the marketplace arena, the launch date kept slipping throughout 2011 and now its set for sometime 2012.

However that didn’t stop me pondering what positives could be taken from the existing two key players in the marketplace arena, eBay & Amazon and from niche sites like Etsy and to ponder what would happen if you could rewrite the marketplace platform from scratch.

The article was titled “Part 1: Battle of The Giants – Tesco V’s Amazon – Who Will Win?” and it quickly exceeded 25,000 words so I published the first part in January.

If you look through the comments you’ll see that I didn’t actually publish the latter parts of articles detailing the steps and USP’s that I felt that were needed to create a killer marketplace. After all, Tesco in my mind is the only company that I know of that could actually take on Amazon in the UK and make a serious dent.

I did get my chance to pass a few of these ideas over earlier this year, but frankly screwed the chance up as the person I spoke to, didn’t really comprehend what I was discussing and it was entirely my fault for not putting it into a language that they understood.

When Tesco finally launch the marketplace, it has the potential to make a minor dent to Amazon’s trade, but sadly I suspect it will not be the marketplace that so many businesses are looking for to provide viable alternatives to the major players eBay & Amazon.

#2 – SEO for eBay – 10 Minutes Per Day

elephant-car

See even elephants need spoonful sized mouthfulls too. Yummy

While this article only scratched the surface, the important note was made.

That being that even with 10 minutes per day, the cumulative effect of lots of minor changes over time would become a huge positive.

The article titled “How to: SEO for eBay – 10 Minutes Per Day” first tackled the perception that it’s a large job, but a spoonful at time was perfectly manageable and then moved into the 5 key areas to focus upon.

#3 – Making Sense of the Pending eBay UK Updates in May 2011

girl-cryingAfter deciding to take a different stance towards the updates that eBay released in May 2001 (frankly, I had been too negative in some cases), I included my favourite image and quotation to date.

As far as I see it there are two options
#1 You cry like a little girl
#2 You fully embrace the changes in advance

There are two types of sellers on eBay, serious merchants and ones that chuck their toys out of the pram and cry at every turn. This was a prime opportunity for me to poke fun at the latter and help push the former seller types forwards with information that they could actually use to embrace the changes.

In these updates we saw the fee structure change for eBay, mainly for the better, multi-variations go live in many more categories and also the reincarnation of the failed eBay express checkout, adapted to a shopping cart and what we see now on eBay UK today.

#4 – eSellerPro (x2)

eSellerProI can tell you neither of these won me any browny-points, but as far as I am concerned they needed to be written and I’ll explain why now. This is actually a combination of two articles, the first is “The Unofficial History of eSellerPro” and the second being “Are There Alternatives to eSellerPro?“.

In the unofficial history of eSellerPro article, I pointed out the incubation factors that led to the creation of eSellerPro. There were a couple of factors, but the two main ones were the failing of both MartketWorks and ChannelAdvisor to adapt to the UK market fast enough.

The incubation period didn’t just spawn one new product/service provider (that being eSellerPro), it actually spawned at least one more within a 2-3 month window. Sadly [for eSellerPro, which was a product that I personally worked on to solve, not hinder merchants], with hindsight at my side, I now understand that there are specific conditions right now, that will spawn a 3rd generation take (they’re different, but they’re there), for which we’ll probably see arrive publicly by late 2012.

To add to this statement, I’m not part of this, but I am open to offers as CEO or evangelist. You can contact me directly here to discuss further.

This feeds nicely into the second part of this section, as when I wrote the “Are There Alternatives to eSellerPro?” the whole point was that you[as a merchant] should not change providers at all, instead try and look at the provider differently and solve the issues  that were hindering your business differently.

#5 – Affiliate Networks

Again this is a combination of articles, all focused around affiliate networks as an additional sales channel . It’s a topic that I am looking forward to expanding in 2012 and I will be posting more on in 2012.

  1. Part 1: What Are Affiliate Networks & Should I be using Them?
  2. Part 2: What Are Affiliate Networks & Should I be using Them?
  3. The Top UK Affiliate Networks

Affiliate networks can offer a new sales channel for medium (and larger) sized businesses and not just larger corporates. As the entire channel is pretty much working on “commission  on confirmed sale”, this is very similar to the eBay & Amazon marketplaces, just that it takes longer and the overheads are different.

To keep this as easy as possible for you:

If you’re paying over £300 a month to eBay or Amazon and have a website that is half decent, then affiliate networks should be seriously considered.

#6 – Using eBay Shop Keywords to Leverage the Extra eBay Shop Pages

eBay Shop keywordsThis was a fab article for myself (and you hopefully), as I had been meaning to complete this for months.

After finally sitting down and taking the time to document the eBay Shop  keywords that can be used in the custom pages of eBay shops and included plenty of examples, it turned out to be a thorough article and also lead to the article I was aiming to do which was another titled “How to Make Your Own eBay Daily Deals & Weekly Deals”

#7 – The Book Responsible for Where I am Now

“I owe everything to this book and if I can learn its contents in a week, in a caravan with no computer, you can too.”

I can actually tie the reason why I am where I am today down to a single book. There’s no need to explain this further as I made a video especially for this which is below:


Video not showing? Click here

#8 – The E, A, S & Y Model

In 2011 I was able to hammer out an approach that was simple to follow and would allow me to take a structured approach that both myself and clients could easily work to, helping them with their businesses.

I wanted this to be as easy as possible so I named it as “EASY”. The crux of this model is outlined in three articles, these are:

  1. E is for Efficiency
  2. A is for Add more Sales Channels
  3. S is for Stock
  4. Y is for why or who is doing it

You’ll notice that there is no dedicated article for the Y part, this is simply because its not a speciality of mine and as such I have drawn the line at this point. The first 3 stages will impact the fourth stage, however this stage requires skills and experience that I just don’t have and if you have the first 3 stages licked then your game is huge!

#9 – The Limits of Marketplaces

Why do eBay Sales Stay ConsistentI had first wrapped this up as a ‘conspiracy theory’ in late 2010, but actually that was bollocks.

Marketplaces such as eBay & Amazon have limits, they were once thought of as having unlimited growth and merchants shouldn’t have any reason at all to stray from just one or both of them, because all the customers they could possible reach were there.

As 3rd party software as developed and evolved over time, its allowed businesses to sell over multiple channels and even on the same channels but under different persona’s. Reaching a wider and wider audience. We’ve seen this in reverse with larger corporates (see this article) now leveraging eBay & Amazon in a trend which is likely to peak in 2012, as they realise that these marketplaces are viable, complementary channels for their existing operations.

Such limitations were first covered in the article “Why do eBay Sales Stay Consistent?” in September 2011 and I am now 100% sure such a modifier that I discussed in second the article “The eBay “Best Match” Position Bias Modifier Hypothesis” is actually true. Its true because with the unique view that I have had over the past few years as proven it to be the case and ironically its exactly what I would do!

#10 – UnderstandingE, code-named “ProjectE”

understandingeAfter flirting with this idea for years, it wasn’t until someone approached me with a similar idea is when the wheels started to turn on the original idea earlier this year.

I had the huge pleasure of working with 6 people (not businesses) after making a rather public and free commitment to 5 businesses in August for eight weeks. The first video of me making the commitment is here and the second video with a more formal invitation is here.

It was only meant to be 5 businesses that were included, there were +50 applications that I received and a sixth snuck-in. Ironically, it was the 6th that had the largest increase to their business post the eight weeks with growths of hundreds of percent and are now posed with operational issues that the other 5 had hit and overcome some time before. What a “good problem”.

This allowed me the opportunity to play with a few ideas I had and test them out, outside of my normal client base. The outcome wasn’t exactly what I expected, I discovered a new factor that I must include in the UnderstandingE business when its launched in January.

I’d like to take the opportunity to thank Jason, Gill, John, Paul, Sue & Danny for allowing me an insight into your businesses. What you allowed me to do was absolutely fundamental to the pending launch of UnderstandingE.

Summary

I know I’m supposed to summarise here, but one last article that is worth of a mention is an article I wrote about the Podcasts I listen to and one of my idols posted a comment back here on the site, the article and comments are here. This had everything to do with Dave and thank you, it made my year!

I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read the articles I’ve written, I’m hopeful that you have found them exceptionally useful.

What I have been able to do is create content that is timeless and while flirting with the UnderstandingE project and procrastinating on it heavily for months, I’m ending this article on the note that UnderstandingE is a go! And as such you’ll be hearing &amp seeing me a lot more in 2012.