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How To Make Your eBay Listing ATTRACTIVE To Your Target Market

By Martyn Boaden in Featured

Your eBay listing is your salesperson. Most sales people look smart and professional. Your eBay listing must also look smart and professional and give the appearance of a legitimate business. This will instil confidence in your buyers.

If you are selling the same item as someone else on eBay, but your listing is more professional and gives the impression of a legitimate business (whereas your competitor’s does not) then people will be more likely to buy from you. They may even be willing to pay more to buy the same item from you than from your competitor – because they have more confidence in you.

Make your eBay listing attractive and professional but avoid flashy gimmicks that distract. Just because you can add blinking images and flash video and music doesn’t mean you should. Whilst clever, they won’t increase your sales. They will just distract. If it doesn’t directly help you to sell your item, don’t use it.

A simple audio or video message in your eBay listing WILL increase sales.

Make your eBay listing EASY ON THE EYE. Some of your potential buyers may have poor eyesight. You don’t want to lose them because they can’t read your listing. But even if they have 20:20 vision, you are more likely to grab and hold their attention if reading your eBay listing is EFFORTLESS.

Dark text on a light background is the easiest to read. Black text on a white background is best and should be used in most cases. Different coloured text can be used sparingly to draw attention to a few key words and phrases.

Use a font that is appropriate to what you are selling. If you are selling children’s toys, “Comic Sans MS” might be an appropriate font to use. But this would create the wrong impression if you were selling something more “high-brow” such as a business course for which “Times New Roman” would be more appropriate. If in doubt, use an easy to read font such as “Verdana”, “Calibri” or “Arial”. Avoid difficult to read fancy fonts such as “Monotype Corsiva.”

SOME PEOPLE WRITE THEIR LISTINGS USING JUST CAPITALS. THIS IS A MISTAKE. IT IS ACTUALLY HARDER TO READ THAN LOWER CASE TEXT.

Capitals can be used SPARINGLY to draw attention to a few KEY WORDS and PHRASES.

Most people will skim through your listing to see if it’s of interest before they decide whether to read it fully or move on to the next listing. You want them to notice the most important words and phrases – the ones that describe your product’s major benefits – as they skim read.

So emphasise these important words and phrases by using a combination of CAPITALS, bold text, underlined text, high-lighted text or by using different font colours. But don’t over-use these as your listing will look messy and what you want to emphasise will no longer stand out.

These emphasised words and phrases must build sufficient interest in the skim-reader to encourage them to read your eBay listing properly.

A big block of un-broken text, many lines deep, is daunting. Break it up into several smaller paragraphs that are only a few rows deep. Don’t worry if this grammatically in-correct.

You are NOT writing a piece of prose for your English exam. You are writing a sales letter. Your style should be CONVERSATIONAL and EASY TO READ. Use SHORT sentences and SHORT paragraphs with SPACE between each paragraph. This breaks your text into small bite sized pieces which are easier to digest.

Whilst you don’t need perfect grammar (because you are using a conversational style), you DO need perfect spelling. Poor spelling is VERY unprofessional. Compose your listing in a word processing software program such as Microsoft Word with the spellchecker on and correct any errors. If spelling isn’t your strongpoint, get someone else to proof-read your eBay listing.

Write everything in a logical order such as headline, description, guarantee, shipping terms, payment terms. Break up the text with sub-headings such as Guarantee, Shipping Terms, Payment Terms, etc so that it is easy to follow.

You can use brand awareness to enhance your credibility on eBay. If all your eBay listings look the same, people who haven’t bought from you yet will soon become familiar with your listings. They may eventually buy from you instead of a competitor because this familiarity breeds confidence.

Consider having a logo made and used in all your listings to make you look more professional, differentiate you from your competitors and help build brand awareness.

Most salespeople dress conservatively, i.e. a business suit and sensible shoes. They don’t dress to “express themselves” and stand out. This would distract from their sales message. They just want to look professional so that customers will have confidence in them. Your logo and your listing design should do the same.

You can make your listings completely bespoke and unique by using HTML (which stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is the code used to design webpages) even if you don’t know how to use HTML! You can use “What You See Is What You Get” (“WYSIWYG”) software such as Frontpage or Dreamweaver.

The way this software works is you design your webpage in a similar way that you would write a Word document, without using any HTML code. The program automatically converts your design into HTML for you. You then copy and paste the HTML code into eBay’s Sell Your Item or Turbo Lister templates. You can download a FREE WYSIWYG software program called NVu.

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Martyn Boaden is the Founder of The Online Auction Resource Centre where you will find more information and all the resources you’ll ever need to set up and run your successful and profitable eBay business. And for a limited time only you can get instant access to his popular eBay Business Box (worth $164 + $17 pm) for FREE by clicking this link: http://www.TheOnlineAuctionResourceCentre.com

How to Sell Things on eBay – Writing Descriptions that will Pack a Punch

By Amanda OBrien in Featured

If you’ve spent any great length of time studying auctions on eBay you may have noticed discrepancies between identical items selling at wildly different prices. There are many potential reasons for this such as ending an auction at a bad time, a title that doesn’t really describe the item in question or an unrealistic starting bid dissuading people from getting into the auction spirit. All of these traits demonstrate a person that doesn’t know how to sell things on eBay. However, these traits can easily be mastered with practice and with research, making your auctions the ones that sell for more than your rivals.

One particular way in which to improve your auctions to make your items sell for a higher price is to spend a considerable amount of time on perfecting your item descriptions. The description of an item up for auction on eBay tells a potential buyer everything that they need to know about said item.

They expect to find all of the details including the condition of the item, any faults or failings with it and an accurate and comprehensively detailed description of it.

You aren’t alone when you are selling items on eBay. Even with a niche market there are likely to be other sellers competing for your customers, therefore you need to create item descriptions that are going to stand out from the crowd. Let’s consider a few handy tips that could help to promote your descriptions to the top of the class to aid you in mastering how to sell things on eBay.

• Avoid overly garish colours. Although you want your description to be eye-catching, too many overly bright colours could actually put a buyer off your auction instead of the opposite effect. Instead concentrate on using bold, italics and underline to help to bring attention to relevant sections of your description.
• Be detailed in your description. Include as much information as you can get your hands on with regard to the produce that you are selling. Not only will this provide your consumers with all that they need to know but it will also label you as an authority on the type of item that you are selling. Once your buyers have established that you know what you are talking about they are far more likely to come back to you.
• Check for spelling and grammatical errors. Don’t ever submit a listing to eBay without having proofread it. Ideally write your description in a word processor first to catch any spelling errors.
• Be persuasive but not over-salesy. In your description you don’t need to convince viewers that their life will end if they don’t purchase your product. Instead you need to appeal to the need that the item will fill, subtley persuading them that this purchase will make their life easier, better or more entertaining depending on the item.

Mastering item descriptions is one of the key elements to learninhow to sell things ebay,ebay selling,sell on ebay,sell stuff on ebay,powersellers secrets,make money on ebayg how to sell things on eBay. Remember that practice makes perfect, in no time at all you will be able to increase your sales through excellent descriptions.

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Amanda O’Brien is a successful eBay Powerseller and author of ‘The 2,500 Per Week eBay Powersellers Secrets’ home study course. Want to learn more about starting an eBay business or simply want to improve your eBay sales? Claim your free eBay Selling Secrets Report at http://www.powersellerpod.co.uk

Sell on eBay – How To Write Profitable Listings

By Amanda OBrien in Featured

It is a simple fact that if you sell on eBay and receive only minimal views on your listings then the lower the bidding or amount of sales will be. It does not matter how detailed and professional your listings look, viewings are the key. And the key to increasing the number of viewings is research!

In order to research, you must first take a look at what other sellers, especially Powersellers of the same items, are doing. What keywords do they use? Which categories are they listing in? Do their listings trigger an emotional need so that the reader simply has to buy now? How many photographs do they have and what quality are these? Take a good hard look at how they sell on eBay to get ideas for your own listings.

When a potential buyer reads your listings, they are looking for good value. So, you must add value to your products. Adding value does not always mean giving something extra free or doing something to the actual product! You just need to achieve a perceived added value which will catch the reader’s attention when they look at your description. So added value could be something as simple as offering a no quibble 30 day money back guarantee. If your competitors who sell on eBay are not offering this then you have added value to your product. The same goes for your listing description – photographs add value, as do the benefits of the product.

Make sure that you write your description well and always include photographs – people like to see exactly what they are buying! It is important to remember when you to write your description in a friendly, informative manner, as though you are talking personally to the reader as this will encourage them to continue reading and arouse their interest.

If your product has lots of features and especially benefits, then make sure you include them in your listing. Do not drone on and on, but be clear and concise and tell the potential buyer exactly why they must buy your item right now.

To sell on eBay effectively, you need to invest some time into creating that added value as ultimately your listings will attract more views and sales. Bearing this in mind, there is nothing more off putting to a potential buyer than seeing a confusing listing before them! Not everyone is a technical whiz so where possible use simple layman’s terms in your description. Show all your Payment, Shipping and Dispatch Times so that they can be easily seen and understood so that buyers can work out total costs and approximate delivery dates at a glance.

If people feel at ease with your auction listing, then they are much more likely to bid or buy. So it is important when you sell on eBay that you are completely honest. If there happens to be a fault with a product, tell buyers what it is as this will show that you are not trying to mislead anyone. Really, the simple rule is to think about what you would like to know about the item if you were buying it, and then add all these thoughts to your description. Don’t miss bits out because if all the information is there in front of the potential bidder or buyer then they are more likely to bid or buy right now.

As your views and sales grow, you must encourage your bidders and buyers to look at your other listings because a big part of your eBay sales strategy is to get bidders to purchase more items from you. So, if you are selling a supplementary or complimentary item let your buyers know and highlight the fact that you offer combined postage if they purchase both items!

When you sell on eBay, your listings should be regarded as an opportunity to establish relationships with buyers. You then need to look after these buyers so that they come back to you time and again. Never think in one-off transactions, even if they do end up as a one-off, because your ebay income depends on customers to guarantee you success!

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Amanda O’Brien is a successful eBay Powerseller and author of The 2,500 Per Week eBay Powerseller Secrets. Want to learn more about starting an eBay business or simply want to improve your eBay sales? Claim your free report and free sample chapter from The 2,500 Per Week eBay Powersellers Secrets at Profit With eBay Check out Amanda’s Blog at any time for tips, techniques and eBay updates.

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