3rd party marketplaces, like eBay, are the perfect option for all kinds of businesses to sell their products online. Although primarily an auction site, more and more small and start-up companies are relying on eBay to sell to their customers until they get their own dedicated eCommerce site.There are advantages to keeping your focus on your eBay presence; however, as it enables you to easily use SEO to make your products appear before millions of interested customers.
Understanding how to sell your products on eBay is extremely important if you hope to turn your online retail business into a success. That is just one of the reasons why it is so important to have a custom eBay store design representing the online part of your business. Not only is it an essential part of your branding, it is also important when it comes to building trust in the eyes of your customers.
eBay Is One Of The Most Competitive Marketplaces In The World
Before you begin to sell on the auction website, you should be aware of how large the online platform is. For example, not only are you competing with more than 25 million sellers with more than 800 million products for the attention of 162 million users, but you're trying to take part of an $82 billion fortune. There are more than 250 million searches conducted every day on the auction site, with approximately 11 million every hour.
eBay is an extremely competitive online marketplace, and you need to make sure that you are making the most of every possible advantage that you can if you hope to make a real impact on this massive audience. If you're relying on a blank, forgettable eBay storefront to accurately represent your business, then you aren't giving yourself the opportunity to build a real following amongst your customers.
How To Sell Your Products On eBay
Actually selling on eBay is an extremely simple process, which is one of the major reasons that so many businesses have flocked to the online presence to sell their products. Thanks to the sheer variety of products available on the marketplace, the website has been able to build a huge following on a global scale.
The eBay website itself lists three steps to selling your products on the platform, which are:
1. List It – All you need to do is write a product description, take a few pictures and set a price.
2. Ship It – When a customer has decided to purchase your products, you only need to ship it straight to your buyer.
3. Get Paid – Once your product has arrived, you will receive payment through PayPal for a fast, secure and easy transaction.
Thanks to the simplicity of the system, anyone can set up a business in an extremely short period of time. In fact, there are thousands of people who choose to sell personal items on eBay, including used items and unwanted gifts.
You Need A Custom eBay Store Design To Appeal To Your Customers
The most important part of your 3rd party presence needs to be a high-quality, branded and memorable custom eBay store design. This storefront will not only help your customers to find the perfect product amongst your many offerings, but it will help them to understand the character of your brand as well.
Whether you are online only, supporting a brick-and-mortar business or this eBay storefront is part of a larger omni-channel marketing strategy; you need to make sure that your brand identity shines through your eBay design.
9 Tips To Selling Your Products On eBay
1. Take Lots Of Photos – People will definitely be able to tell the difference between a stock image and a real picture. It is important that you not only take actual pictures of the product, but that you take lots of them. There have been many examples in the past of people using eBay images and descriptions to mislead people regarding what they are ordering.
Make sure you are honest about the product and taking a lot of pictures is the best way to do this. Your customers will be able to understand what their order includes just by looking at the pictures, even if they don't read the product description.
2. Don't Be Afraid To Go Into Detail – Give as many details about your products as possible. It can seem overwhelming to provide them all immediately, so split the detail up. As well as a small description and bullet-point details at the top of the page, make sure you offer an expanded level of detail further down the page.
What's more, giving eBay all the information regarding your products that you possibly can will mean that your products are more likely to appeal to its search algorithms. That means that, by using the same principles which guide much of Google's SEO, you can ensure that your products show up in your customers' searches.
3. Optimise Your Product's Title – Focusing on your listings' titles can really help to drive interest towards your business and attract more customers. A great title is one of the key components when it comes to obtaining clicks through to your storefront. By using popular keywords and specific details, rather than fairly generic descriptions, you can get your listings ranking as high as possible.
For example, if you're selling a blue 16gb Apple iPod Nano, don't waste your time by calling it a 'High-Quality Aquamarine iPod MP3 Player Nano, Made ByApple'; just call it what it is. If you are unsure what keywords to include in your titles, then Goofbid's eBay Pulse tool can be essential. Although it's still in beta, this free tool will let you see the top 100 most common keywords in specific categories.
4. Make Sure You Understand The Language Of eBay – Just like any other online community, experienced eBay sellers have abbreviated common phrases to save time and space on the webpage. For example, instead of writing Brand New in Box, say BNIB. Instead of Very Good Condition, use VGC. Knowing these little pieces of information can not only help you to rank higher in eBay's search box results, but can really save you time if you're writing hundreds of unique product descriptions and listings.
5. Don't Be Afraid To Ask For Reviews – eBay thrives on reviews. For all that a bespoke online storefront can really help to increase trust in your business, there are few things that are worth more than customer reviews. You should focus on getting as many positive reviews as possible, because that is one of the best ways to truly improve new customers' confidence in your product and your company.
Don't be afraid to ask for a review from your customers, whether in the form of a personal message on the marketplace or via a leaflet in the parcel.
6. Do Everything You Can To Improve Your Customer's Experience – One of the major advantages of a custom eBay store design is that you can create a truly unique experience for your customer. By creating a custom layout that shows all the necessary information in a clean and engaging way, you can ensure that your customers know exactly where to look for their information on the page. Similarly, a clean and easily usable navigation system can really help to cut down on the time that your customers spend looking for the right product.
By creating an easy conversion process for your customers, you can encourage them to complete the conversion action without having to suffer a long, drawn out process. This also eliminates the likelihood of the customer changing their mind once they have decided to purchase a product.
7. Make Your Service Stand Out – The chances are high that you are selling products which can be found elsewhere on the internet, or even on eBay. One of the only ways you are going to be able to make your business stand out is to offer an unbeatable service.
One of the most common complaints that eBay buyers have is how difficult it can be to get in touch with sellers. You need to make sure that you are constantly accessible to your customers, and that your company offers a bespoke service which feels personal. This can be brought out in personal messaging, as well as the development of a unique voice for your brand and listings pages.
8. Use Video, Social Media And Marketing – Another great way to make your business stand out from the crowd is to include video marketing. By creating videos around your products and uploading them to YouTube, you can not only show that you are experts in your field, but practically create guides and How-To's, which can be essential when convincing people to buy the products you are selling. Proving yourself and your company as experts in your field is a great way to encourage all kinds of engagement, from actual transactions to reviews and even links to your products from alternate sites.
Social media can also be a powerful tool. Whereas your customer reviews on the eBay platform are limited to those on the auction website, a strong following on Twitter, Pinterest or Facebook can really show off your products in a new light. A strong presence on social media can not only support your custom eBay store design, but can drive traffic, clicks and sales across your entire business.
9. Follow eBay's Advice – eBay has created a range of great advice which every eBay business owner should be reading. Everything from great standards on product listings to commercial Growth Strategies is available from eBay themselves. Make sure that you are up to date, and that you keep up to date, on the latest practices and strategies to make the most out of your online retail company.
Even if you are working with a team of eBay specialists, such as the eStore Design team, it pays to keep current with the online auction site's best practices.
Custom eBay Store Design Offers Complete Advantages To Your Business
As we've already said, your bespoke eBay storefront is an essential part of your selling strategy. Not only is it important when building trust to encourage that initial sale, you need a bespoke storefront to encourage customers to return to your business again and again. No business is built on one-time transactions; you need to do everything you can to ensure that your company stands out as a reliable, cost-effective and expert provider of unique products.
Thanks to custom eBay store design, you can enhance your customer's experience when interacting with your business. Not only can we create a unique online presence from start to finish, we can provide easy and responsive product listing templates to make uploading new products easier than ever before.
Without a stand-out custom eBay shop design, you'll be unable to build a loyal audience that keeps returning to you. Your company will fail to make the impact it needs to in the extremely competitive eBay world.
Choose Custom eBay Store Design From The Team At eStore Design
At eStore Design, we have been providing high-quality eBay design for many years. Our professional team has worked with a full range of businesses, of all shapes and sizes. Along with local and family-owned businesses, we have helped much larger companies take full advantage of the massive audience that eBay can provide.
All businesses need to have a presence on the online auction site; otherwise, that is an audience of 162 million active users that you are simply ignoring. With custom eBay store design, you can easily offer your products to that audience and drastically improve your sales, engagement and online visibility.
To take advantage of bespoke store design services for eBay, don't hesitate to get in touch with the professional team at eStore Design today. You can reach our friendly team today on 0845 050 3500. Alternatively, send us an email and we'll get back to you as soon as we can!