This post is more of a checklist to get your listings in the top 5% of eBay listings. As you probably know, the difference of traffic between your listing being on page 1 and page 2 is huge.
All of the following are taken into account for eBay’s best match and search algorithm.
- 60 Day return policy – eBay’s
- 1 Day Handling
- Free shipping (whenever possible)
- Best keywords in the title. Use Google Trends to find top keywords
- Make sure item is in the correct category. In the wrong category can cause many impressions (when eBay shows your listing) but few clicks. This hurts your search ranking in eBay
- Use item specifics when available in your category i.e for a red dress, select red in the colour check box. If you leave out anything in item specifics, and a person searching clicks the checkbox for the specific you left out, your listing will not be shown!
- Most importantly, if you have a multitude of one item, list them all. This keeps the sales history. The search algorithm prefers items with previous sales as it knows people like the item. If you don’t, every time your items sell out, all the history is lost forever.
- Use Best Offer to kick start a listing. When you list a new item, eBay has no sales history for your item. One trick we do is to accept a low best offer, this kick starts the algorithm as it can now see a sale. We have found this raises the listing, often to page 1.
The items above are for eBay’s search algorithm and do not take into account photos, ad copy, branding, terms and conditions etc. These items are covered in other posts.
For more eBay tips on how to sell on eBay, see https://www.neilwaterhouse.com
For what to sell on eBay, please visit http://www.waterhouseresearch.com
Best regards,
Neil Waterhouse
Author – Million Dollar eBay Business from Home – A Step by Step guide – https://www.neilwaterhouse.com
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This is one of the best advices I’ve ever had re: selling on eBay
I guess lot of eBayers don’t want to share this type of tricks
One question I have is, once you add best offer as an option to kick start sales, can you remove the option later on? If so, how do you do it?
Cheers
Chaminda
Hi Chaminda,
Thank you for kind words.
No you cannot remove best offer however this does not matter.
Below is a quote from a blog post I just answered.
“Yes we do get some crazy offers however after the “kick start” we have rules set to automatically accept offers which are over 75% profit and decline the rest. Sometimes we may drop the margin to move an item faster.
We prefer this strategy as it keeps the markets price perception high.”
Cheers,
Neil
Your last point, use “best offer” to kick start a sale is an interesting one. The problem is that once you make a sale you cannot change this setting therefore you have to be prepared to consider offers as long as that listing is live. So if don’t want to have “best offer” on your listing for the future, you have to delete this listing and start again which then defeats the purpose of your second last point and also the reason for the last point, which is to record a sale. In my experience best offers are a painful thing, buyers send you ridiculous offers which are a waste of time, so make sure you put in your automatic rules to reject offers automatically.
Hi Annika,
Thanks very much for your input.
Yes you are quite right, you cannot turn off best offer however we prefer to leave the best offer on all our listings.
Yes we do get some crazy offers however after the “kick start” we have rules set to automatically accept offers which are over 75% profit and decline the rest. Sometimes we may drop the margin to move an item faster.
We prefer this strategy as it keeps the markets price perception high.
Dear Neil,
This is completely unrelated, but I think it will be very useful to many newbies.
Can you post a draft letter that can be used when we contact a potential supplier for the first time?
Cheers
Chaminda
Dear Neil,
Are you able to give us newbies a draft letter which we could use to make initial contact with a supplier?
Cheers
Chaminda
Hi Chaminda,
No problem.
We like to negotiate with Chinese suppliers over a period of 1 week. We find this 1 week negotiating period on average gives us the best price and best MOQ (minimum order quantity). 99% of negotiating is via email. We do our best to not ring suppliers.
Many times in the past I got the impression many of the suppliers spoke really good English however when you get on the phone it can be very difficult to understand the person you are speaking to. Don’t be fooled like I was by someone’s great email writing skills in China, apparently just because someone can write emails well in English does not mean they can speak it.
Firstly, before sending the first email, make sure the supplier is an Alibaba gold supplier. This does not eliminate all risk, however it eliminates a lot of risk. “Touch wood”, I have never been burnt by a supplier taking my money and not supplying goods.
The first email request is to ask a supplier their best price, MOQ (minimum order quantity), lead time (how long until they can supply), and lastly payment terms.
Once the reply has been received back from the supplier, the rest of the 1 week negotiating period is normally taken up with negotiating lower prices and lower MOQ.
MOQ and price go hand in hand and we have to be fair, we cannot expect the best price from a supplier if we only order 6 pieces. In return, if we order 100 pieces, we should expect a better price than if we order only 6.
This negotiating normally takes 3-8 emails back and forth.
If after 1 week a supplier is not coming to the party or is just plain hard to deal with, either drop the product or go to either Alibaba, Global Sources or which ever source you prefer and see if you can find another supplier.
Always remember, the Chinese Looooovvvveee to negotiate and email makes it easy.
Cheers
Neil
Thanks Neil
I am already doing rather well when it comes to negotiating with Chinese suppliers and thanks to the advice in your book I only stick to gold suppliers preferably someone who has been a Gold Supplier for at least two years.
So far I have had bad experience with only one supplier whose item was not exactly as it was described by them on Alibaba; luckily I ordered just a sample of 10 ( they sent only 8).
What I want is a draft letter to be sent to potential suppliers – a letter that looks professional
Thanks
Chaminda
What exactly truly influenced u to compose “Tips
on how to get ranked in the top 5% with eBay’s
new best match | How to Sell Make Money on eBay”?
I actuallyabsolutely enjoyed reading the blog post!
Regards -Rayford
Yes, I agree Heather.
Niel is a rare gem in today’s greed driven world and the advice he gives is always so spot on. That in itself is so valuable, but what is even more profound is that he gives us these great tips.
A gentleman and a true leader.
Hi offer 60 day return vs 30 day returns for top rated sellers?
Hi Neil,
Does the information from Google Trends differ from that which people are searching on eBay. What I am saying is are the search terms for Google representative of those on eBay?
Cheers,
John