Research: Your eBay Crystal Ball to Increased Profits
By Sean Eyring, eBay Certified Consultant
Have
you ever been frustrated with your eBay performance for some items you
have sold in the past? I know I have.
When I first started selling on eBay, it
was really quite embarrassing for me. Trying to sell some odds-and-ends
around the house, I ended up loosing money rather than making some
extra cash. Why? I sold everything in the exact same way: same starting price, same duration, same listing type.
Generally speaking, I knew how to sell on eBay, but was stuck in a rut of listing my items the same way each time, without any variations.
But I didn’t know how to sell those items specifically. I was listing maternity clothes the same way I was listing childrens books, scrapbooking supplies and sports equipment.
No offense, but the same is probably true for many eBay sellers who are selling a wide variety of items like I was.
Often
it takes several sales of the same item before you learn how to sell it
most profitably. Selling just the one item is just a shot in the dark
unless you can get some quick insights on how to sell the
item.
By Quick I mean Quick!
The
clock is always ticking. I know you are pressed for time. You have
large amounts of items to sell, which means taking pictures, listing,
packaging and shipping. Your profits are really determined by sales
price and the number of sales you make.
This
means that the more you sell the product for and the less time you
spend on an item, the more money you make for each item and for your
time.
But what if spending one more minute on
each item could increase your profit substantially; would you spend
that extra minute? But how could just one minutes make that big of a
difference?
Using what I like to call “quick-shot
research,” you can get the information you need to sell an item
successfully in less than a minute.
Remember my
experience at the first? Although I knew how to sell on eBay, I didn’t
know how to sell a specific item. But what do I mean?
I
didn't know the ending day when more buyers were ready to make a
purchase. I didn't know which keywords to use in my listing title. I
knew how to list, but I didn't know how to sell.
With
quick-shot research you can know more about selling a specific item.
Think of it as your own crystal ball that you look inside to find out
how to make the most money selling a particular item.
Crystal Ball Research in One Minute or Less
Enough talking about how quick it is, let me show you.
Let’s
say you picked up a Coleman camp stove from a yard sale. You know a
little bit about camping equipment, so you pick it cheap with the intent of turning around and
selling it on eBay.
The problem. You've never sold a Coleman camp stove before. How do you do it?
Using HammerTap, I do a Category Search for the eBay Category I would be listing in: Sporting Goods
> Outdoor Sports > Camping & Hiking
> Cooking Supplies > Stoves (Category #62117). See the figure below.
But how is this a crystal ball? What do these figures mean? I'll show you.
With
a quick glance, you know that you have a 64.3% chance of selling a stove (Listing Success Rate, LSR) if listed in this category, for an average sales price of $48.04
(Average Sales Price, ASP).
But now what? How does this help me sell this item for a higher price? Let's move on to the next figure.
What am I Looking for Here?
Remember,
we are using research to find out what the buyers want when looking for
this product. For example, which listing type brings more attention to
your listing? What end day and time are the most shoppers ready to make
a purchase? Or what listing features do grab buyers attention and their
pocketbooks?
The answers to these questions lie
in the results above. This means that I need to know which listing
options (listing type, end day, etc.) will increase my chances of
selling, anything higher than 64%, and
increase my selling price, anything higher than
$48.04.
In the results above, I’ve
circled just a few examples of what we have been talking about. For
example, ending your auction on Thursday already increases your sales
price by $7.30. For you, that’s $7.30 in extra profit! Choosing a
10-day auction increases your sales price by $38.16, nearly DOUBLE the
average sales price!
Are you getting my point?
The extra minute spent looking into your crystal ball is really
starting to pay off.
Information like this is
vitally important to your success. Not only are you making more money
for yourself, but it isn't eating into your most precious asset,
TIME.
Now you can
SEE into your future sales through market
research—your personal crystal ball—to increase your profits on every
sale in less than a minute!
Make the most of your auctions with research!
Try HammerTap FREE for 10 Days and remove the guesswork!
Determining what works and what doesn't when it comes to your listings requires research.
Anything less puts you at risk of not making the sale or not making as much as you could be on each sale. A research tool like
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helps you bypass the costly trial and error process by quickly giving
you the key information you need for profitable online
auctions.
Why not take HammerTap for a
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- Successful Keywords
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- Best Listing Duration
- Which Listing Features Improve Your Chance to Sell and Which Increase the Closing Price
- Optimal Start Price to Use
- Best Day of the Week to Start and End Your Auctions
- Seasonal Trends
- And much more!
As
a bonus, you'll receive 10-lesson Power to Profit course to help you
immediately see the effects research can have on your auctions.
We'll also throw in selling tips from Industry Experts in our members-only Auctionography newsletter.
You owe it to yourself to take the guesswork and risk out of your auctions. Try HammerTap free for 10 days. If you are
not absolutely sure you'll increase your eBay profits by the $19.95 subscription price, you're free to cancel. It costs you
nothing to prove to yourself there's a more profitable way to eBay.
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HERE to See How HammerTap Gives You the Power to Profit
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