How to mprove eBay store sales? Just before I get to the fun juicy part of how to quickly and radically improve your eBay store sales, let me first explain why and when eBay sellers need a store for the eBay newbies.
eBay will tell you the reason you need to open a store is so your customers can see all your products. However… I ask you, when did you EVER go to eBay and search somebodies eBay store? Most people answer this with “never!”
The store for eBay buyers is all of “eBay”. You search eBay for what you want to purchase; you don’t limit your options by searching a store within eBay.
So why get an eBay store? For 2 good reasons.
- You get to list items for free (you still pay the final value fee though).
- Sales history i.e. eBay remembers how many of your items have sold. eBay’s new search engine “Cassini” loves sales history.
Without a store, the maximum time you can list an item on “Buy it Now” (BIN) is 30 days then the listing expires and you lose all the sales history.
If you have an eBay store, eBay lets you list “Good Til Cancelled” (GTC) which means the listing automatically renews after 30 days and all sales history is kept.
In the screenshot below you can see 8 sold. This is the sales history.
Now the fun bit.
eBay loves sales history and wants us to list all our stock like in the example above which shows “More than 10 available” However…. Human beings need a reason to buy NOW! More than 10 available doesn’t cut the mustard!
Humans go on buying frenzies whenever they think stock is running out, picture a load of shoppers standing at the doors of the shopping mall waiting for the doors to fly open for the xyz sale!
Now, everything we sell on eBay is JUST about to run out of stock i.e. we only list the minimum amount i.e. 2 to 5 pieces at a time, then use software to automatically add another, 30 seconds after one sells.
eBay even helps by saying “Limited quantity remaining” in our ads as per the screenshot below. COOL!
You can do this strategy manually without using third party software however you run the big risk of losing your sales history if you do not update the inventory fast enough.
The software we use is Scarcity Manager http://www.scarcitymanager.com They currently have a free 30 trial.
Try it yourself, I guarantee your sales will increase.
To your success
Neil Waterhouse
This might also be interesting for you:
New DVD – ebay 101 Live – Getting Started and How to Find Your First Product to Sell on ebay.
New shipping carrier for Australia
How much does a poker / slot machine make?
Hi Neil, I tried Scarcity Manager on a number of my listings late last year. I watched as an item sold, and it took 2 hours for scarcity manager to restore the available quantity to 1. This meant my ebay listing was not visible for 2 hours. Is this normal?
I also thought the interface on Scarcity Manager was very cumbersome to use. It took ages to load my store listings every time, and it was not possible to show only a certain store category to work on the quantities of certain types of products at a time – everything was just lumped in together, or listings could be shown one at a time.
Let me know if you have any comments.
Jonathan
Hi Jonathan,
Scarcity Manager has had several upgrades since last year. Suggest you have another look now. They are always adding new features.
They have now added title search etc.
Neil
thanx for the continued helpful hints Neil..any ebay seller who is not subscribed to your emails are quite simply doing themselves an injustice …Tracie
Thanks Tracie
Hi Neil,
I agree with Jonathan that the interface for Scarcity Manager is cumbersome and hard to use.
More importantly the support is dreadful. I used the webform to ask questions and got no reply.
I also used normal email to ask the same questions and got no reply.
I also tried the live chat and got the reply that my question was too hard and I should send an email. Talk about a brush off!
I really wonder why you advertise such a poor product?
Cheers,
Neale
Hi Neale,
Apparently there was an issue with the web form which they are either working on now or it may have been resolved.
I agree with you that the interface is cumbersome and also sometimes the sorting feature does not work. Apparently there is a new interface been tested now which will hopefully overcome these issues.
The reason we use this product is it simply generates more sales than if we didn’t and fingers crossed these issues will be resolved soon.
Hi Neale,
Apparently there was an issue with the web form which they are either working on now or it may have been resolved.
I agree with you that the interface is cumbersome and also sometimes the sorting feature does not work. Apparently there is a new interface been tested now which will hopefully overcome these issues.
The reason we use this product is it simply generates more sales than if we didn’t and fingers crossed these issues will be resolved soon.
Cheers
Neil
Neil,
It’s very disappointing that you have censored my last comments and any reference to your financial interest in Scarcity Manager.
My experience to date is that Scarcity Manager is both poorly designed and poorly supported.
It has made no difference to sales at all.
It certainly has not “radically” improved sales as you claim.
It is hard not to conclude that the only reason you promote this site is that you make money out of it through your undisclosed financial interest in the site.
I believe that you have a conflict of interest here and that you have a duty of disclosure in the first interest when giving ‘advice’.
I now question your motivations with every piece of advice that you give.
Hi Neale,
Sorry about that. Your post was not censored, we had to go restore the whole blog back from a backup as the blog crashed on Tuesday.
Cheers
Neil
Neil,
Scarcity manager has a 30 day free trial and if you find it does not increase your sales then just unsubscribe.
If you find the program and or service to be not up to scratch but like the concept, check out quantity manager. I have no financial ties to quantity manager.
You can also configure Magento to do the same and Magento is free however you really need to pay a programmer to set it up for you.
Cheers
Neil
Hi Neil,
Whether you have a conflict of interest or not is immaterial to me. As a Coach and experienced seller you are providing heaps of valuable information to sellers like myself that would take years to research. With most software as you say you can stop the subscription within a month if you don’t like it or find something that works better for you. We are all individuals and make our own choices.