PowerSellersForum.com Blog

A few days ago, eBay.com announced that Digital Delivery products such as ebooks, web templates, and information products, will only be permitted to be listed in a Classified Ads format, meaning that transactions take place outside of eBay, and are not eligible for feedback.

Hello…This is Brian Burke, Director Global Feedback Policy. Digital goods are often reproduced at little to no cost to the seller. On eBay, this creates the potential for Feedback Manipulation (both real and perceived). To preserve the integrity of the Feedback system, effective March 31 all goods that can be digitally downloaded or transferred electronically must be listed using the Classified Ads format.

Using the Classified Ads format, sellers receive a 30-day ad at a fixed price. This solution enables sellers to continue to market their digital goods on eBay; however, because Classified Ad listings are a lead generation tool and do not result in transactions that go through eBay, Feedback cannot be exchanged between buyer and seller.

Sellers who wish to continue to offer digital goods can do so by selecting the Everything Else>Information Products category in the Sell Your Item form and choosing the Classified Ads format (not auction-style or fixed price)

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200803271717582.html

I’ve been following this on various blogs and forums today, and the general consensus is that this is a good move - eBook/Digital media sellers that have a genuine product can now list for 30 days at one price, sell off-ebay with their own delivery methods, and there are no Final value Fees.It also knocks out the feedback farmers who indirectly contribute to the majority of seller scams on eBay.

I’ve been looking into classifieds ads, as it is not a selling format I have previously used, and found a great free eBook from  Brian McGregor about using classifieds as a lead generation tool. http://www.powersellersforum.com/articles/generating_leads.pdf

John Thornhill - Planet SMS guru, has already suggested moving the format to CD/DVD through the post, which may work for some, other suggestions are as above, using classified ads to drive traffic to your own ebook webstore. http://planetsmsblog.com/digital-items-banned-on-ebay/

Skip McGrath has also written a good article on how to use Classifieds to generate sales, however he has noticed that the system is still not yet up yet to list eBooks… http://blog.skipmcgrath.com/public/item/200270

There is a bit more specific information directly from eBay themsleves on the eBay Chatter Blog pages- http://www.ebaychatter.com/the_chatter/2008/03/digital-downloa.html

Question: I’ve seen some product listings where the seller advertises “free shipping” where it means “email delivery”. Will this be allowed?
Answer: No. As of March 31st, any product listing for downloadable digital items that implies or suggests that the item can be received electronically will be a violation.
Question: Do Classified Ad format listings show up in default Search results?
Answer: Yes, Classified Ad format listings show up in Search results and are denoted as a “classified ad.”
Question: Should sellers end these listings themselves if they have listings that will run past March 31st? What about Stores sellers who have Good ‘Til Cancelled listings for these items?
Answer: We will end these listings and credit their fees to these sellers.
Question: For those people who have never used the Classified Ads format, can you offer tips? What is the cost?
Answer: Select the Everything Else; informational Products category, then select the Classified Ads tab in the “Choose how you would like to sell your item” section of the Sell Your Item page. The cost of a Classified Ad is $9.95 per month.
Sellers can take advantage of the special benefits of using this format. For instance, you can combine multiple similar items in the same Classified Ad. If you sell standard listing templates, for example, you can include all your listing templates in the same ad. If you also sell eBooks on how to list, you must use a separate ad (you would likely do this anyway in order to target your buyers).

The change in policy may initially seem to be a very bold move, and one which would appear to penalise legitimate sellers of digital products, but upon reading articles from the experts, it is a new opportunity for selling and more importantly building traffic.

eBook authors by their very nature are generally exceptional copy writers, and therefore should not have any concern about creating an effective Classified Ad to sell a complete range of digital products, legitimately using outside links and promoting their wares. 30 day listings also give more opportunity for Search Engine Optimisation, enabling visitors to find the products from outside of eBay, as well as from regular on-eBay searches. The increased cost of listing should be easily offset by the removal of Final Value Fees.

It may seem like the policy change has been perceived as “using a sledgehammer to crack a nut”, but in reality the move is a great benefit to the genuine sellers.

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vzaar today announced the launch of its free video service for eBay listings in the United States. Using vzaar, eBay sellers can quickly and easily add video to their eBay listings to showcase their products and gain a competitive edge. The core service is available to all users for no charge. Special features tailored to the needs of PowerSellers are available for a low monthly fee.
 
Introducing Video for Commerce
Unlike other video services, vzaar’s video player has been designed specifically to aid commerce. For the first time vital information, such as seller feedback and bidding time left on the auction is automatically displayed at the end of every video. 
 
vzaar enables buyers to get a clear look at what they are purchasing and watch it in action. vzaar makes it easy for sellers to add video into their listings, drive bids and move more inventory. And unlike still images or slideshows, videos have audio, enabling sellers to communicate more effectively, describe their services and inspire trust.
 
vzaar has helped sellers in the beta program sell items ranging from a backhoe to jet skis, diamonds to art, and guitars to comics. vzaar was the first company to enable video listings on eBay UK.
  
vzaar is the brainchild of Ken Moss, a serial entrepreneur with 20 years of IT experience, and Adrian Sevitz, formerly of eBay and Accenture. Also on the team are eBay veterans Dan Wilson and Jamie Parkins. Wilson was part of the team that founded eBay.co.uk in 1999 and is the bestselling author of Make Serious Money on eBay UK. Parkins managed eBay.co.uk’s PowerSeller program and led the Top Seller team. vzaar is an accredited eBay Developer, approved video service provider and makes use of eBay’s API.

“Video is the perfect medium to demonstrate the condition of our products. It allows us to show potential buyers a 360 degree view of the product, to hear the machines or motors we sell, and the opportunity to get a feel for who we are as a seller,” said eBay seller Jack Fitzgerald from Industry Recycles. “When we post with a vzaar video, our item gets more visits, more bids and a higher sales price. Viewing the videos, our buyers see and hear exactly what they are getting for their money, and that means a lower return rate.”
 
Pricing and Availability
The vzaar service is the easiest and quickest way for sellers to add video to their eBay listings. Their offerings are as follows:
 
Free Service
- Up to 30 videos/month
- Up to 1GB of total video. Each video can be up to two minutes long
- Video storage: 90 days
 
Plus Service—$10/month
- Up to 300 videos/month
- Up to 1GB of total video. Each video can be up to two minutes long
- Enhanced functionality: 
Users can search listings by seller name or item ID
Sellers can embed one video in multiple listings in one click
- Video storage: 180 days
 
Pro Service—$20/month
- Up to 3,000 videos/month
- Up to 2GB of total video. Each video can be up to three minutes long
- Enhanced functionality:
Users can search listings by seller name or item ID
Sellers can embed one video in multiple listings in one click
- Video storage: One year
 
About vzaar
vzaar is the leading provider of free video services for eBay sellers. Founded by IT and eBay veterans, the company created the first video service designed specifically for commerce. vzaar enables sellers to quickly and easily embed their videos in their eBay listings to show their products in action and help drive sales. For more information, visit www.vzaar.com.

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eBay have now launched the revised feedback display page across the whole UK site, and it has had a bit of a mixed reception. Although eBay is now crediting members with repeat feedback for transactions more than a week apart, the overall feedback number has been been reduced in size and page placement.

For anyone who’s not familiar with the repeat Feedback change…

Members are now able to affect each other’s Feedback Score by one point each week. To make sure that repeat Feedback is calculated in the Feedback Score, the transaction for which the members are leaving Feedback must have ended in a separate week. For Feedback, eBay defines a week as Monday to Sunday, Pacific Time. Also, in May/June, we will retroactively recalculate your Feedback score to include repeat activity prior to now.

What is annoying to many sellers is that although the total postive feedback is being buried, the lifetime negatives are still clearly indicated, even though, in the example below, not one neg has been received in the past 12 months.
 

The  other issue that has been discussed, although not visible on the above example, is that the shop logo’s that are normally displayed on a rectangular banner, are been squeezed into the small square and therefore distorting.

Given that there is a large empty space above the DSR stars, it would have made more sense for eBay to put the full sized logo there, instead of a half-hearted avatar on the left. Sellers spend a lot of time and effort on branding their eBay identity, it’s not fair to have that work distorted by poor application of web design.

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What is an eBay Shop?

An eBay shop is simply adding a few extra features to your existing ID - your details remain exactly as they are, but you have the shop name and logo next to your user name, and you have a lot more flexibility in creating your listings and “branding” yourself. The Listing Fees are much less than a normal auction and items can be listed on a rolling 30 day listing - although only BIN, but the exposure that Shop listings receive is significantly reduced. Keyword Searches will only show listings if there are less than 50 matching items in Auction or BIN, and even then they appear at the very bottom of any results.

There are currently 3 levels of shop available –
- Basic Shop: an ideal solution for sellers who are just starting out and want an affordable and easy-to-use platform to sell online.
- Featured Shop: a more comprehensive solution for small-to-medium sized sellers who want to aggressively grow their online business.
- Anchor Shop: an advanced solution for higher-volume sellers who want maximum exposure on eBay

For the purpose of this article, the focus will be on a Basic Shop.

How do Shop listings differ from normal listings?

Shop listings are pretty much the same as a Buy It Now listing, except they run continually until sold or ended by the user. The Insertion Fees are considerably less than Auction or Buy It Now listings, although exposure is reduced, and Final Value Fees are also slightly higher

As Shop listings are on 30 day recurring cycles, it is also a useful place to “park” any unsold auctions or Buy It Now items. For a relatively small charge, these previously unsold items are still available for buyers to purchase – if they find them of course, but more on that further down.

What do you get for your money?

A Basic Shop on ebay.co.uk will cost £6 GBP per month, although the first 30 days are free. Looking at the pure economics of listing, a 10 day Buy It Now listing with Gallery will cost around 30p, depending on the starting price and quantity available, so 30 days will cost at least 90p. The same listing in a Shop Format would cost a mere 6p. From this principle, it would only take 24 listings to break even on insertion fees on the pessimistic assumption that nothing sells to incur Final Value Fees!

However the benefits go much further than just cheap insertion fees and long term availability to purchase. A shop subscription on eBay.co.uk also offers –

- An entry-level online e-commerce web presence, with a unique URL and brand identity for your shop
- Up to 300 customisable categories for your own range of product lines.
- Bulk editing options for converting auctions and Buy It Now listings into Shop Format, and back again.
- Traffic Reports to analyse where your visitors are coming from and what they are looking for, as well as growth trends and early warning signs.
- Basic Sales Reports to analyse your most effective category and selling format, your average selling prices, sell through rates and much more.
- Email Marketing facilities to create and send flyers and newsletters to your buyers.
- HTML link building tools to easily create cross-promotion tools for your listings.
- Use customisable pages to boost your brand, communicate store policies, and connect with customers
- Promotional boxes to highlight featured merchandise in your Shop to trigger sales.
- Options to run promotional sales with Markdown Manager.
- Custom listing frames to add your Shop header, search box, and category navigation to all of your listings.
- Listing Feeds to automatically publish and send product data to customers or comparison shopping sites via RSS Feeds.
- Customisable Search Engine Optimisation tags to guide traffic from outside of eBay to your store

Who has a shop?

Shops are not just for the high volume sellers or even entry level PowerSellers, but many hobby sellers are also eBay shop owners.
To open a Shop, you must be a registered eBay user with a seller’s account. You’ll also need to meet one of the following requirements:
- Feedback score of 10 or higher, or
- Have direct debit on file for payment of eBay fees, or
- Have a Paypal account linked to your eBay account and a Feedback rating of at least 5.

As mentioned above, it is a cheap way to have listings available on a continual and automated basis, rather than having to spend time and money re-listing unsold auctions.

For sellers of one specific type of product line, it is also a useful way to list multiple variations of similar products without falling foul of the Choice Listing Policy. Simply promote the most popular selling line in a regular auction or Buy It Now listing, but make prominent links to the various colours or sizes available in your store.

How do I get people to my shop?

It’s widely publicised that the exposure that Shop Format listings receive is significantly reduced, but when balanced with the insertion fee, you are getting what you pay for. The key is finding ways to let people know you have an eBay shop.

The fundamental method of gaining Shop exposure is to ensure you have enough signposts to your shops. These sign posts come in many forms such as the following –
Link store items through from existing Auctions or Buy It Now. Using the HTML link builder can provide simple text links such as “Buy It Now in my Shop for £9.99” to place in an auction, to impressive scrolling galleries of your shop listings that can showcase whole product ranges.
- Create cross promotions .When buyers view, bid on, or win an item, your other items (including Shop Inventory items) are promoted in a special display. As a Shop seller, you have complete control over which items are shown.
- Create an effective Shop listing header. Include your own banner, called a Shop listing header, on your Shop and all other listings to create your own unique and identifiable brand
- Optimise your Shop for Internet search engines.  By carefully wording your text in the shop header, and specifying appropriate meta-tags, you can increase the chance of your shop listings being found by Search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Include these keywords in your Shop name and Shop category names where possible, and also in the content on your pages.
- Utilise Customisable pages, Reviews & Guides, Blogs and About Me Pages. All of these pages are content based with static URL’s, and therefore highly favoured by search engines. Reviews & Guides in particular can be used as sales tools for our own products, by demonstrating to your buyers that you know your products well.
- Promote your store “off-eBay”. There are many ways of getting your Shop URL out to the buying public, using modern techniques and more traditional methods
o If you post on eBay forums, or discussion groups focused on products that you sell, consider having a clickable link in your posting signature.
o MySpace & Facebook are proving to be effective marketing and networking venues where you can showcase your products and brand to a vast audience.
o There are also many sites that will advertise your eBay store in online directories.
o Google Base Store Connector is a free download that puts info about your store into their index, so that when people search Google for the products you have to sell, you’ll show up in their search results, along with a link directly to your site on eBay – it can be downloaded from http://base.google.com/base/storeconnector/index.html and is simple to operate – enter your store name, copy products from your shop, then publish them to Google Products.
o Include your Shop URL in an email signature block, on return address labels, any paperwork sent with your sales, and any invoice or payment acknowledgement templates sent after purchases.

In summary, an eBay shop is arguably the easiest path to establishing an online commercial presence that is available to one of the largest buying markets in one of the world’s largest shopping venues. The work involved is not significantly more than existing eBay sellers are already used to, and the costs involved are easily worth the many benefits that owning an eBay shop provides.

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KEYWORDS SELL - that is an undisputed fact of eBay. The vast majority of all purchases made on eBay are used by item searches, not category searches. A keyword is simply a popular word or phrase used to search for any particular item. This is also why so many sites and products specialising mis-spelt title searches are around.

When writing your listing title, first look to see what other people are selling, but also think how are you going to search for it. By name, brand, size, colour etc. That’s your first idea for your title.

When you have found the item, look at how they are being described - New, Mint, BNIB (Brand New In Box) or BNWT (Brand New With Tags). From the search results you will also see which items have the most bids. This should also help you on your way to a perfect title! It is important to point out at this stage - Do Not Copy Another Listing Word For Word! You are only asking for a slap from eBay and your listing will be removed - then nobody will be able to find it!

Whilst looking at the search results, look at the left Navi-bar to see what categories your item falls into. There may be one clear obvious choice, but likewise, you may have 250 matches on two separate categories. In this case, it is definitely worth listing your item in both to maximise viewers.

If you already have a shop, you can look at your Omniture Traffic Reports to gain an idea of what people are searching for to come to you - use your existing customer information and build on it.
So now you know how the other sellers are listing similar items, but what are the buyers searching for ? You have already previously identified possible categories from the left navi-bar, but now you need to know what buyers are looking for in those categories…

Helpfully, eBay has a section that lists the most popular keywords - the link is hidden away at the bottom of the homepage, but to save you looking - HERE IT IS! This will show you the weeks most searched for terms overall, but THIS LINK breaks it down by specific category, and even sub-categories!

Now you have everything you need to write a good title for your listing - your own perspective as a buyer, other sellers’ successful titles, shop traffic reports and even other buyers’ choice of search words!

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If you have an online store with eBay, Yahoo, or osCommerce, why not make sure that Google users can find it, too? Google Base Store Connector is a free download that puts info about your store into our index, so that when people search Google for the products you have to sell, you’ll show up in their search results, along with a link directly to your site on eBay , Yahoo, or osCommerce.

You’ll never have to manually enter the same items on different websites; we’ll automatically format your items for you in the proper Google Base format.

http://base.google.com/base/storeconnector/index.htmlThe install takes about 1 minute, when it opens, simply enter your chosen language, eBay site (UK, USA etc) & eBay shop URL.The programme will then connect to your eBay store to extract the data from your listings, before publishing them to Google Base. It will only index BIN or Shop Inventory items, and if you have the same item in two shop listings, only one will be indexed. It also needs to be updated regularly, as listings expire.

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