Lesson 1

It's HammerTime!

Ready to take selling on eBay to a whole new level? Well, hold on tight! HammerTap is the most comprehensive eBay research tool available, with thousands of your competitors’ mistakes and successes at your fingertips, and this 10-lesson course will teach you how to power up your listings.  Get the most out of selling on eBay, by doing it smarter!

Hi, I’m Jen Cano, and as HammerTap’s Research Education Specialist and an eBay Certified Consultant, I’m really excited to teach you how you can use HammerTap to increase the success of your business selling on eBay. My goal is to help you succeed with HammerTap, so please let me know if there’s any way I can help you. Simply shoot me an email with any questions.

When you see this symbol throughout the course, it means I have a nifty research tip or important insight for you. So pay attention to the light bulbs—they’ll save you time and headaches!

Now, let's get started!

This Course

During this 10-lesson course, you’ll get up close and personal with HammerTap, so you’ll be an expert at using your competitors’ wins and losses to identify specific ways to make more money on every eBay listing. The best way to learn how to get the most out of HammerTap is to complete this course, and don’t worry, we’ll have a lot of fun along the way!

You’ll receive these lessons in your e-mail every three days or so. So, when you finish a lesson you can just relax and practice what you’ve learned for a few days, or you can jump straight to the next lesson by clicking the link at the end of the lesson. You can also get a great jumpstart to your HammerTap experience with free live training at our next Basics webinar. 

You’ll also find other great educational resources in our HammerTap Forum.

Has selling on eBay got you baffled?  HammerTap to the Rescue!

Remember those old movies where a beautiful woman would be in some dire situation, and at the very last minute, just when you thought she was doomed, a dashing hero would show up and save the day? Well, I’d like to introduce the new hero in town—HammerTap!

Now, I know you’re thinking this is a little far-fetched, but give me a minute to explain. Think about it—selling on eBay can get you in some pretty dire situations. For example, have you ever guessed wrong, and invested in a product that didn’t sell for enough to make you a profit? Imagine losing hundreds of dollars because you picked a product that eBay buyers weren’t looking for. And how do you decide which days and times are best to end your listings? Do you have to resort to guessing when buyers are online looking for your product? Selling on eBay requires dozens of decisions, and without the right information, those decisions can cut into your profits. But there’s no need to despair! HammerTap is here!

HammerTap lets you quickly and easily look at what others are selling on eBay, through a specific group closed eBay listings, to discover the answer to the questions you have going through your mind:

• Will a product sell on eBay and, if so, for how much?
• How can I increase an eBay listing's chances of selling?
• How can I boost my profits on each and every listing I place on eBay?
• What are the eBay market trends for sellingmy specific product on eBay?
• What is the size of the market and who is my competition?
• What is my competition doing well that I can replicate?
• What is my competition missing that I can take advantage of, when selling the same product on eBay?

Sound too good to be true? Well, this hero’s real. HammerTap uses data licensed directly from eBay to provide you with market information on your specific product, category or seller ID. It takes out all of the guesswork as you create your listings.

Let’s take a brief tour:

HammerTap at a Glance

When you first open HammerTap, you’ll see a welcome screen that offers you a host of education and support resources.

The top navigation bar allows you to select which type of search you wish to perform: Product, Category, or Seller, all of which we’ll cover.

Once you perform a search, five result windows open, which we’ll also discuss in greater detail.

Within each of these windows, you’ll find information that will take the guesswork out of your product listing decisions. The Findings Window in particular, has a few reports that make your job much quicker and easier. We’ll explore each of these reports in later lessons.

Within HammerTap’s windows and reports, you’ll discover everything you need to decide what to sell on eBay, to increase your selling success, and to maximize your profits. It’s just a matter of understanding which questions you need to ask and where to find the answers.

Over the next 30 days, you’ll learn how to answer these questions, and more, for your eBay listings:

• Which eBay listing type should I use?
• Which ending day will bring me the greatest success and profit?
• How long should my eBay listing duration be?
• What starting price will create a bidding frenzy?
• Which keywords should I use in my titles to hook high-paying buyers?
• Which listing features will work, and which ones can I live without?
• Which eBay category will give my listing the greatest amount of exposure?
• And much more!

I’ll see you soon for our next lesson when we’ll start answering some of these questions! Until then, please complete the following quick assignment.

Assignment #1: Check out your resources

For this assignment, I want you to become familiar with the resources available to help you harness the power to profit by selling on eBay. Check them out!

• HammerTap Basics  Webinar Training: This is a free one hour webinar with a instructor. During the webinar, your instructor will walk you through the basics of doing a search to determine what is selling on eBay, and interpreting your data.
  
• The HammerTap Customer Newsletter: This bi-weekly newsletter gives you the latest ways to use eBay research to the fullest potential. You’re automatically signed-up as a HammerTap customer, and you can check out some of our past articles in the forum.
• HammerTap Video Tutorials: These tutorials are designed to help you quickly learn and review how to perform different searches and answer various questions. Most videos are 5-8 minutes long. There is also a recorded version of the Basics webinar, if none of the live times offered fit with your schedule, and recorded videos from our Advanced Training Webinars. Access the video library here.
• The HammerTap Community Forum: The forum houses our newsletter articles, and includes links to all of our video and webinar resources. You will also find important HammerTap announcements, support contact information, and questions and answers from other HammerTap users. Check out the forum here.

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