Hopefully, we learned a couple tips this week about preparing our business for spring! As I type, I am looking out my window at the falling snow. Yesterday, it was almost seventy degrees! Mother nature is teasing! No matter, I will take advantage of this indoor day to list and spring clean my store! I love that about having my own Ebay business! I can decide what to do when I wake up in the morning!

As the weather gets better, we will decide to do other things more and more. That’s fine as long as we always keep our “revised” goals in mind. If your goal is to list fifty a week, then make sure to set aside some time to do that. Motivate yourself with whatever works for you. You could promise yourself a new bathing suit or new sunglasses or whatever it is you want when you reach your goal. You could also tell yourself that you must list ten items Friday or Saturday morning before going garage sale shopping. Whatever works for you!

So fill your gas tank and put your shopping shoes on! It’s spring time!!

Check out the HCTS forums where you can share your finds and get your questions answered!

Xochilt

Filed under: The Daily Stork by Xochilt
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Who’s ready for some spring cleaning? Are those crickets I hear? I’m about as enthusiastic as the next gal but I know certain things have to be done. The same goes for my Ebay business.

Before I start doing some serious garage or yard sale shopping for inventory, I like to go through my store and get rid of things I have had for way too long. I either send it to auction for a very low starting price or I end the listing and donate the item. I also make sure my categories are organized and my listings are still looking good. I take note of what category isn’t doing as well as I had hoped as well as the ones I do very well in. This way, I know what to look out for first at the sales.

While you are at it, this is also a good time to go through your inventory and make sure you actually have in stock what you have listed. This shouldn’t take too long if you don’t have too many items in your store. While I do this, I re-organize the totes I store my things in so my items are easy to find.

Taking a couple days to do some “spring cleaning” for your business can really pay off! You can avoid having to send the “oops, I don’t have that anymore” email to a buyer. You can save money getting rid of items that are not selling too.

Get more suggestions from other experienced Storks in the forums, as well as have your questions answered. See ya there!

Xochilt

Filed under: The Daily Stork by Xochilt
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So now that we have given ourselves “permission” to shop a little bit (or a lot a bit) more during the warmer months, we might find ourselves overwhelmed with so many choices in inventory. How many times have you bought something at a yard sale, completely convinced it was a hottie, only to get home and find that it is a major dud? How many times have you passed on something you were convinced would be a dud, only to find that it was actually a hottie? I think this happens to all of us, whether we are newbies or Ebay veterans. Here are some ideas for you to try that might keep these instances to a minimum.

Some of us have found it useful to invest in a cell phone that has access to the internet. I personally don’t have the patience to check every single thing I find. However, on some items that might be higher priced or would be a pain to store/ship, I find that it is worth the few minutes to check on my phone. Most phones have an Ebay app, but only a few have the ability to check completed instead of just active listings. There are plenty of phone suggestions and reviews in the forums so check it out for more info.

Another suggestion that might work better for some is to get a text buddy or group. I have a Stork friend that texts me some finds she has doubts about while she is shopping and if I’m home, I check Ebay completeds for her. She does the same for me. Works out great when your phone doesn’t have service or you need to search more specific items that would take too long on your phone. It’s great to have that support from our Stork sisters!

 Xochilt

Filed under: The Daily Stork by Xochilt
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Most people think of spring and summer and think outdoor sports, pools, gardening, etc. I personally am not an outdoor person. However, I do get the urge to go out to garage sales and play outside with my kiddos when the weather is nice. These “extra” activities have a price. For me, the price is usually slacking on my listing (more than usual). I end up with a big pile of unlisted items, sales might be low since I’m not adding inventory, and I feel like a loser! So what to do?

First of all, I think it is important for us to accept the fact that garage sale season is our second “holiday” season (as buyers). We will spend more on inventory than in the “off” months and we will spend lots of extra time shopping. The natural consequence is that we fall behind on other things….like listing.

I find that as long as I am aware and take action for the coming changes, I don’t feel as horrible. I also tell myself it is OK to slack a little. We work from home for the flexibility. If you don’t allow yourself to go outside during nice weather then you might as well be stuck in an office cubicle!

If your goal for listing is usually, 10 a day, 5 times a week, you might make a new goal of 200 a month with no daily requirement. So you could split it up as you’d like. Maybe 25 a day for 8 days? You are your own boss…work with yourself!

Look at your Ebay goals and make the necessary adjustments. For me, the goal is to not have piles of my finds all over the house. So I clear bins where I can throw my stuff in until I’m ready to list it. I also have a goal of dedicating at least one weekday to listing, listing, listing. This is different than my usual goal of listing a few five days a week (Hey! I said it’s a goal, not a reality all the time! J ) Look at what works for YOU.

Join us in the forums to share your exciting finds and to read what others have found and sold for great profit during garage sale season!

Xochilt

Filed under: The Daily Stork by Xochilt
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Spring is approaching. Birds are chirping, the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming and green is starting to pop out everywhere. These are all signs of the upcoming season. For some, this means more outside time, the approach of the end of the school year, park days and Easter. For others, like me, it means, tax time, the dreaded 30^th birthday, allergies and the pesky woodpecker that I can’t seem to get rid of. Regardless of which scenario you relate to, spring means re-adjustments.

Suddenly, there are a million things you would rather do than list, right? The kids have sports, your garden needs tending, and you have to work on your bikini bod. Ebay sellers get spring fever too! This week we’ll talk about how to work through some obstacles that present themselves with the new season like motivation, over-shopping (can we say garage sales?), spring cleaning for your business and re-evaluating your goals. Let’s get ready for those spring and summer sales! So tune in this week…same time, same Stork channel!

Filed under: The Daily Stork by Xochilt
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This week I have shared some things we can do to increase sales in our eBay stores.

Today’s topic:  Cross Promote

The idea of cross promoting is to get someone who is already looking at one of your listing to go and look at more of your listings.

How can you do that?  Make them want to and make it easy for them.

Make them Want to…

Offer them an incentive. An easy way to do this is to offer a shipping discount. You can have a very specific discount like “Buy 3 & Shipping is Free” or simply state something like “Discounted Shipping Offered for Multiple Purchases”.
A word of caution:  If you offer a specific discount like “Buy 3 & Shipping is Free”, you may want to state right below it “Shipping discount applies to clothing only” if you sell other things as well. You don’t want to eat up all your profits on a shipping mistake. (Ahem…speaking from experience here.)

Let’s take this a step further. We don’t want your customer to miss this! Here’s what it looks like on one of my listings:

Purchase 3 or More Clothing Items From My Store
and
SHIPPING IS FREE!

Plus, this is a clickable link directly to my eBay store! Which brings me to my next point…

Make It Easy for Them…

It is “eBay legal” for you to include a link in your listings to other eBay listings.  So, make it easy for your customer to find your other listings.  Again, here’s what it looks like in one of my listings:

Please check out my other listings!

But how do you make a clickable link? You need to put the html code in your description area of your eBay listing. Here’s the code for you:

<a href="YourStoreURLHere"><font size="6"><font color="#f3a7b6">
Your Clickable Words Here</font></font></a>

There should be no space between the top and bottom lines, I just couldn’t get it all on the same line.
You can make the font any size and/or color you want!

So there you go!  Enjoy customizing and driving more traffic to your listings!

I hope you have learned something new this week that will help increase your eBay sales.

There is so much to learn!  Want to learn more?
Consider a membership to

We are a community thousands strong of online selling success. Our members share tips and information daily as we grow together and help each other along the way.
Join us! We can never have too many friends!

Filed under: Better Selling Techniques, Ebay Listings, Tips and Tricks by Melisha
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Welcome back!
This week we are discussing things we can do to help increase sales in our eBay stores.
Today’s tip:

Rework those Titles

The words you use in your titles are VERY important!  Those words are what determines how high your item comes up in the search results. (There are other factors as well.  Some of them are out of your control.  So let’s focus on what we can control.)

How do you know what words are the best to choose?
There are lots of ways but here is something easy anyone can do…pretend you are shopping for your item.

I recently sold some of my kids’ used video games.  That’s what I will use for an example today.
Let’s say I’m selling the game “Mario Party 8″ for the Wii. Go to eBay and do a search for that game.
I typed in “Mario Party 8 Wii”.
Make sure “Best Match” is selected at the top of your search results here:

Now scroll down the page paying attention to the “Time Left” column all the way to the right. You are looking for anything that is out of order.  The list starts with a game that has 31 minutes left. However, the very next one has 23 days left. Also notice this listing has a “Top Rated Seller” badge beside it.  Top Rated Sellers get placed higher in search results (one of those things I mentioned earlier that you may or may not be able to control). Let’s skip this one for now.

Keep scrolling down the page. Remember you are looking for anything out of order that does not have a Top Rated Seller badge. A little further down I see this:

One day, one day…10 days! This one does not have a Top Rated Seller badge. Let’s look at the title they used.
It says MARIO PARTY 8 Wii Manual Guide Book 111 Pgs 2007

These are good words to include in your title!
Remember, you can only include words that apply to YOUR item. If your item does not have the manual, you cannot include that.

Here’s another title that was out of order.
Mario Party 8 (Nintendo Wii) MINT Complete w manual

These are more good words to consider for your title.

Get it?
So, go check out your listings. If something is just not selling, do a search and see if it’s getting the exposure you need.
Changing just one word can sometimes make a big difference!

There is so much more information on this subject!  Way too much to include in a blog entry.
If you would like to know more about this subject, one of our very own Storks, Cindy, has written an eBook about it.

Writing Listing Titles for eBay’s Best Match Sort eBook

is a great comprehensive guide to help you get your listings near the top of the Best Sort match.  Enter code HCTS and receive a $5.00 discount on the eBook. Thanks, Cindy!

Filed under: Ebay Listings, Tips and Tricks by Melisha
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Who doesn’t love a sale?
Did you know with your eBay store subscription you can create your own sale?
Your sale can happen at any time and can last for up to 45 days!
I’ll walk you through the steps to create your sale and get those customers shopping…

Go to your “My eBay” page and look for the section called “Manage My Store”. Mine is in the bottom right hand side.
Under “Manage My Store”, click on “Markdown Manager”. You should see this:

Click on the “Create Sale” button.
On the next page you can choose a title for your sale, a start/end date, the type of discount you want to offer, the listings to include in your sale and send out a newsletter to your subscribers…all on the same page!
Here’s what I like to do.
Title: $5 off
Dates: Varies, but I like to do at least 2 weeks. I also like to make sure 2 weekends are included in my sale because traffic on eBay is greater on the weekends (generally speaking).
Type of Discount: I prefer a dollar amount as opposed to a percentage off.  The prices in my store vary a lot. 10% off might be too much on some items.  I run a lot of $5.00 off sales.  I simply pick the listings I can afford to sell for $5 off and still make a nice little profit for myself.
Choose Your Listings: Under this option, I like to choose “Select Listings Individually”. It’s a blue link as seen below:

The next page allows you to see your store items complete with gallery photos, titles and quantity listed information displayed.
Simply check the box next to the items you wish to include in your sale. If you have more than one page of items, click the next page number to continue selecting items for your sale. Do NOT click continue until you are done selecting sale items.
(This part was a little confusing to me the first time I did it.)

When you are done selecting items for your sale, click “Continue”.
You now have the option to change any information you need to before officially starting your sale.
Once you are satisfied with your choices, simply click “Create Your Sale.”

That’s it! You will get an e-mail confirming your sale has begun.

Sales almost never fail to stimulate some selling. So give it a try!
Create your sale today!

Come back tomorrow for some more great selling tips.

There is so much to learn about selling on eBay!  Want to learn more?
Consider a membership to

We are a community thousands strong of online selling success. Our members share tips and information daily as we grow together and help each other along the way.  Your membership will start out as a business investment, but if you’re like me, it will quickly become a community of friends.
Come on in! We can never have too many friends!

Filed under: Ebay Listings, Tips and Tricks by Melisha
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When creating a stand alone web site, it is best to specialize in one thing. It’s easier to drive traffic to a web site and attract a specific kind of buyer. This is not exactly the case on eBay.

eBay is…different.  There is already lots of traffic. You have to get that traffic to your store.

How do you do that?

Diversify!

Let’s say you have a store selling Children’s clothing.  You keep adding more clothing, more brands, more sizes, etc.
Who is shopping in your store? Who is your customer? You have to think about this.

Your customer is a Mom.

So, think about what else a Mom might shop for and add those items to your store.

Let’s make it easy for this shopping Mom. She’s already shopping for her kids.
Think, think, think…
Kids have birthdays…they might need presents. Toys!
Kids also have brothers and sisters…sometimes baby ones.  This shopping Mom that is already in your store might have a baby as well.  Let’s add more things she might consider buying and get her to look around a little longer.

This strategy will also help attract NEW shoppers.  Someone searching for a toy or baby item will now be drawn into your store!  You would have missed this potential customer by offering only Children’s clothing.

Another bonus: Clothing sales are seasonal. Birthdays and babies happen all the time. Having these items in your store can also help keep sales steady during off-season selling time for clothes.

You can apply this strategy to anything you sell:

Selling jewelry?  Add jewelry cleaning items and storage containers or displays.
Selling dinnerware?  Add napkin rings, napkins, table decor, silverware.
Selling hair bows?  Add other hair accessories like headbands and some storage items for all those hair accessories.

So start really thinking about who your customer is and what they might be looking for.
It might be time to diversify!

Join me again tomorrow for another tip for improving your sales!

Filed under: Better Selling Techniques, Tips and Tricks by Melisha
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Have you ever noticed the little pictures or logos that appear next to people’s names when they comment on a blog?

Aren’t they super cute?

Wouldn’t you like to have your own? 

The HCTS Blog is now avatar friendly!  Make your own Gravatar here.  These are internet-wide avatars, so you will have them every time you comment on a blog, anywhere! 

They are great for promoting brand identity, and they’re also just a lot more friendly than the little gray mystery man, don’t you think?

Happy creating!

Filed under: The Daily Stork, Tips and Tricks by BellaBuggy
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