eBay meets the 21st century!! MOBILE LISTING!!1

Ok that's some hyperbole up there but really - so many things are now on your cell phone, I've had ebay search for years on a OLD OLD Verizon phone. However, Now I hear that:

A) Apple's gonna migrate the I-Phone to Verizon (HURRAH!!)

B) Ebay has an I-Phone selling App. (and one for the classifieds too!) so now I can sell from any where.. Gives a whole new meaning to "I've got a bridge to sell you!". Cause you can take a picture of the bridge and listed it WAY SIMPLE!! This is sooooooooooooooo NEW SCHOOL...not old school... check this out

What I think of eBay's Town Hall yesterday

From the Wizard of Id site - courtesy of John Hart

Marketing your ebay store

So - what do YOU do to market your eBay store?



Nothing? I think that's what most people do. They set it up because they can't be bothered running auctions, don't want to wait for the auctions to end to sell something. And then? THEN there is a deafening silence.

It's only in Kevin Costner's brain or the movie Field of Dreams that you "build it and they will come". It' s not true in the brick and mortar world and it' s not true on eBay.

So how do you go out into the streets of eBay and drag folks in to your store to look at your stuff?

1. On the Manage my store page there's the RSS feed. Enable that.

2. Use lots of key words and custom pages to bring people in to read. If you use your custom pages to discuss ONE category that you list in your story...(one per custom page I mean), you have, with a basic store 4 custom page...so 1 for a home page and 3 for custom pages.

3. Buy PPC advertising? I haven't done that so if you have, post your ideas and results in the comments. I'd be interested to hear them.

4. Have a Squidoo lens and feed your store to that. I do that. It's got limited effectiveness until you start to drive traffic to the lens too. So now you've doubled your work. But at least making the lens and editing them is kind of fun.

So what else do you do?? I'll list some more ideas I have next time. Meantime in the comments post your ideas. Or email me. depressionglass@comcast.net

Have you see these...?? They are soooo cute

Ok, I don't make a lot of money on these and I got started picking them up by accident at an auction.


Annalee White Dragon with Hearts 1990 doll figure toy
Annalee Mobilitee 1988 Green Elf doll toy figurine
Annalee Mobilitee Fluffy Sheep Lamp Flowers 1992
Annalee Mobilitee 91 Hunter Camoflauge figurine doll
Annalee Mobilitee Sitting Santa with Sack Doll 1971
Annalee Doll Santa Claus w/ Christmas gift packages '89
Annalee Doll Santa Claus Painting Toys '90 Christmas
Annalee Doll Mrs Santa Claus with packages 1989
Annalee Christmas Choirboy Doll '93 Holiday decoration

These are all in my store on ebay - they are the sweetest little dolls and figures and decorations.

And I mention them cause I think they are soo cute!!

Another eBay Faux Pas...do they ever end?

Have you all seen this at the bottom of the eBay search page? I have no clue how long it’s been since I looked al the way down the search page...maybe 4 months – like when I last went to an auction and was looking for comps...but tonight I’m looking for completed prices on some of the less common books we bought yesterday...and found this:

We found other stuff close to what you're looking for

Now, maybe it’s me but...I can call my “stuff” STUFF but I think ebay should be referring to it as “we found more items” or “we found more selections simliar to what you searched for”

And I know I’m being picky when there are soooo many things wrong on ebay right now...but this one, this just annoys me.

I’m not selling STUFF. Maybe John Donahoe sells "stuff" from his closet or his basement. But I go to estate auctions and buy consignments directly from people liquidating estates and my "stuff" is MERCHANDISE and most of it is too expensive to be STUFF. STUFF comes from the dollar store. I’d like to think my “stuff” could go – a lot of it – on Antique Row on Pine St in Philadelphia.

What about the rest of you? Am I just being petty about this? (Don’t answer that, I know the answer...)

Why do I have to revise 900 items?

Last post I said, I had to revise 900 listings. Why, you ask? (I know you meant to) --

1. Because somewhere back in the summer, ebay called me on one of those random outreach calls. They asked if I wanted to participate in seller outreach and I said, "ok, if it's free". It is. So I've been participating.

I've had 2 calls so far and have another one scheduled. The first call, the person on it from Seller Outreach actually sells on ebay. He suggested changes to my category structure, category names and the Store description and Store header. Did them.

The 2nd caller was just this week. Her call came about 10 minutes after the fee increase announcement. She negated some of the first person's recommendations but made some of her own. And the one that made the most sense to me was the layout of my listings. I had a table format and used different cells for differnt headings. Such as: SHIPPING, RETURNS.

She recommended consolidating my terms and getting rid of the table since the cell margins created a visual barrier. She also said to use Auctiva more since it lets me put the picture at the top for free. Which is fine except I'm exceptionally slow on Auctiva.

She made some other "visual" recommendations. Which I'll share with you as soon as I start making changings. Cause I think it will be easier to visualize if you can see the "picture" instead of just the words.

Now, I did ask, for all my friends out there, HOW do you join seller outreach if eBay doesn't call you? You CALL THEM!! Call store support or call Powerseller support and ask to be included in the program. Eventually they will get around to you. And when they do, I'd love to hear what they tell you.

Now, after Call #1 - I did make the changes to the category structure in my store and I changed a lot of the category names to be more like keywords. And I have seen an increase in store activity. So, that worked well. On Sunday, when in theory, I'll actually have a couple of minutes to think, I can write out more accurately, the recommendations the advisor had and I can tell you what I did. And I'll give you some numbers on what is happening saleswise.


Meanwhile, the weather has turned cold and nasty most places for at least today and tomorrow. So bundle up, drive safely and don't take any chances getting stuck in snow or on ice. Come back soon.