Using eBay to Grow Your
online Business
eBay
Did you know that
most people who make money from eBay don't actually make all of their
money on eBay? There are all sorts of ways you can use eBay to give
your existing online businesses a helping hand.
The
Supply Side.
If you have any leftover stock or used
items from another business you run, then why not sell them on eBay?
You can make this a regular thing, using it to get rid of things that
won't sell for the premium price that you asked for it online, or items
that are no longer in demand in the niche where your business is based.
You
can really make a lot of money this way, if you know what you're doing.
You will, of course, already be an expert on the niche items you're
selling, as you use them in your online business, and you'll know that
the items are of high enough digital quality to be sellable. This
becomes a whole new market for you to tap into for your old inventory!
Not
only that, of course, but remember that your good eBay reputation will
make you a great buyer! If there's ever anything you want to get for
your business, the chances are you'll be able to get it on eBay for a
discount.
The Sales Side.
Here,
though, is where the true power of eBay lies. eBay give you an 'About
Me' page, where you can write anything you like and link anywhere you
like. This means that you can get traffic to your business' website by
linking to your website from your About Me page and linking to your
About Me page from each of your auctions.
To create
an About Me page, just click on 'Community' on the toolbar, scroll to
the bottom of the page, and click 'Create an About Me page'. You then
get the option to either enter your own HTML or let eBay guide you
through the process. All you need to do is write a little about your
website, link to it, and you're done - you'll notice that more traffic
will start to come to your site straight away.
There
are thousands of people who use this technique everyday to drive
traffic from eBay to their website - with a little persuasive sales
copy on your site, they say, you can sell directly to buyers, cutting
out the eBay middleman. What's more, all the traffic you'll get will be
targeted - because the people who click through were interested in your
product to begin with.
This can be a really powerful
technique, especially if you've already got an e-commerce site. Even if
you haven't, you might find it worth your time to set up a website that
does nothing but list your eBay inventory with a few dollars off each
item, with a PayPal 'Buy Now' button for each item. Then simply make
the link to your About Me page read 'Visit my website for even more
bargains!', and you're done.
Now that you've seen
how to drive visitors to your website, maybe you'd like a little help
getting your auction in front of buyers.
Taming
the eBay Search Engine.
If you know what you're
doing, you can quickly find what you're looking for on eBay - and the
more you know about how buyers find you, the easier you'll find it to
be found. Here are a few golden searching rules.
Be
specific: When you are researching what people are looking for on eBay,
search for as many relevant keywords as possilbe. You'll get fewer
results, but the ones you do get will be far more relevant.
Spell
wrongly: It's a sad fact that many of the sellers on eBay just can't
spell. Whatever you're looking for, try thinking of a few common
misspellings - you might find a few items here that have slipped
through the cracks. If you check around you can even find software
available that will do this for you.
Get a
thesaurus: You should try to search for all the different possible
combonations of words that someone might use to describe an item, for
example searching for both 'TV' and 'television', or for 'phone',
'mobile' and 'cellphone'. Where you can, though, leave off the type of
item altogether and search by things like brand and model.
Don't
be afraid to browse: Once you've found the category that items you like
seem to be in, why not click 'Browse' and take a look through the whole
category? You might be surprised by what you find.
Few
people realize just how powerful eBay's search engine is - a few
symbols here and there and it'll work wonders for you.
Use
wildcard searches: You can put an asterisk (*) into a search phrase
when you want to say 'anything can go here'. For example, if you wanted
to search for a 1950s car, you could search for 'car 195*'. 195* will
show results from any year in the 1950s.
Exclude
words: Put a minus, and then put any words in brackets that you don't
want to appear in your search results. For example: "Pulp Fiction"
-(poster,photo) will find items related to Pulp Fiction but not posters
or photos.
Don't get too tied up learning the ways
of the search engine, though: a surprising number of eBay users don't
search at all, preferring to look through eBay's category system and
save their favorites in their browser.
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