Many eBay sellers spend years teetering on the edge of success but a few common problems keep them from pushing their business beyond break even. Luckily YOUR business does NOT have to stay this way.
If you want to push your business into the realm of success, first you need to identify the key problems that are holding you back, and then you need to work towards a solution. First lets talk about the five most salient problems that affect eBay sellers and then we'll talk about solutions.
1. You Don't Know What to Sell
A simple problem, but a chronically prevalent one. Many sellers find it impossible to think beyond the most obvious product choices (DVDs, designer clothes, etc.). And yet, there are so many untapped niche markets that they could be profiting off of. The problem is that it can take years to figure out which markets are going to work and which are not.
2. You Don't Have a Compelling Brand
Your company brand name sets you apart from the wash of indiscriminate eBay amateurs. If you don't have a compelling one, you are going to have no choice but to frantically compete for a seat at the bottom level of the price ladder in your market. This is absolutely NOT the way to go. A compelling brand takes insight, which makes it difficult to come up with. However, it is no less important as a result. You need hot graphics, bold style, and a successful USP (that is, Unique Selling Proposition).
3. Your Listings are Formated Poorly
Your listings MUST look professional and spotless in their design. The size of the headlines, the length of your paragraphs, the color scheme: all these things and more must be calculated for the effect they will have on the customer. If this is not done properly, the customer might not stay on your listing long enough to make a purchase.
4. You Haven't Written Down a Long Term Plan
Once again, this may not be your strong point, but it is essential. If you only focus on details but never look ahead to where your business is going, you won't get anywhere. You'll be stuck trying to compete for a couple quid when you should be making hundreds.
5. You Haven't Learn to Stick with a Single Market
If you move around too much, and follow every new idea that comes into your head, you may never work long enough on a single niche to make a profit. I've learned from personal experience that this just doesn't work. It may be difficult, but you have to learn to stick with a product or group of related products (at least at first) or else you will be too scattered to really stake out a claim.
Okay, now that we've identified some of the most common problems, let's talk solutions. Everyone experiences at least a few of the above issues, but not everyone conquers them. And there are really only two solutions. The first is that you can learn on your own how to fix the problems, and the second is that you can save a lot of time and money by consulting an expert.
The fact that I've had to go through the first solution (and gruelingly) has led me to help others implement the second. Now that I am at a point in my career where I have been able to work these problems out of my business with a level of relative success, I would like to share my expertise with you directly. This is where the “eBay Business in a Box” comes in. It's a program that I call 60DayBlueprint.com. Here's what it comes with: - Personal training from me, an eBay Powerseller
- Help setting up a successful logo and brand
- A professional looking listing template created by my designer
- Help with creating a long term plan
There is really very little reason to continue struggling and wasting time when you could be pushing your eBay business to new levels, profiting from the experiences of a seasoned veteran!
What You're Not Doing but Should Be!
If you've been making money on eBay for any length of time, you are probably already familiar with some of the more effective marketing tools that you can use to reach new customers. However, are you aware of the fact that you may be missing out by ignoring the customers that you already have?
Before we get into the details of this problem, and how to solve it, we need to define a couple of terms.
LTV or Life Time Value
The amount of profitability of any one of your customers. If you were to sell only a single product to a customer and then they never buy from you again, they would have a very low LTV.
On the other hand, if you have a customer that comes to your eBay store once or twice every month and buys a product each time, then that customer would have a very high LTV. The overall profit that you have gained from this customer is very high. Maintaining a high LTV for all of your customers is a great way to create a consistent profit stream. Once your customers become used to shopping with you, they will come back over and over, and you won't need to spend as much time on marketing.
Sticky Markets
These are product categories that result in high LTVs for your customers. Products that customers will buy frequently, such as pet food, makeup, batteries, etc. are all great examples of Sticky Markets. These products are much likelier to result in repeat sales than products such as plasma screen TVs or coffee makers. After all, how many coffee makers can a single person need? Probably only one. Hence: no repeat sales. (Learn more in the Easy Auction Business video course).
Now that you know which types of products result in a high incidence of repeat sales, I'll outline some advanced tactics that you can use to ensure that you can keep the LTV of your customers as high as possible.
Keeping Track of your Customers through Aweber.com
Creating a list of your customers that includes details about their shopping habits is an essential component to increasing repeat sales. To save time, you can have this done automatically through Aweber.com. This tool will automatically upload your customers to a compiled list every time they buy something from you. In addition you can program it to send out promotional emails to all of your past customers automatically!
Send Out INSTANT Follow up Emails!
Use “Selling Manager Pro” to send emails to your customers automatically during the final stages of the buying process (i.e. after auction completion, after payment, etc.). You can (and should) include a preset message in this email encouraging the customer to purchase additional items in the same order. If you offer a shipping discount, this will help the customer to save money, and will increase your profit at the same time.
Use Discount Cards
A lot of eBay sellers send special offers to their customers inside their packaged orders. This is a good idea, but if you only send a paper flier the customer might just throw it away. Instead, you should send out a discount card. This looks a lot more professional and creates an impression of real value.
For this reason, the customer is more likely to put the card in his or her wallet than throw it out. Print your logo on the card as well as the customer's full name (if possible) to give it a personal flair. This way they will remember your company, and if they don't use the card today, they are sure to use it eventually.
