Question
I like these 10 cent listing promotions.
I've done well in the past, got a reasonable number of listings posted yesterday and expect benefits over the next month.
I always try to look back, see what went well and where I could plan to do better in the future.
I sell mostly new, restockable items (about 70/30) and plan to add additional new lines in the future.
I have a Store and use SAB for listings.
My goals were to list items from each Store category, list the higher priced items first, list most items for 3, 5, 7 and 10 days, put listings into primary and secondary eBay categories, user gallery in most listings and plan to use unsold listings for relists over the next month.
I plan to explore Turbo Listers or some other such program in the future to build a "ready to launch" set of listings but right now I do them one at a time.
I open my Store, pick an item, click on "sell similar", make adjustments for category, quantity, duration and features, then repeat for the 3/5/7/10 day listings.
I don't worry about launch times with fixed priced listings.
Since we never have much advanced warning I just start about 8:00 AM here in the East, pace listings throughout the day and evening and takes breaks and do some of the planned activities like packing and a PO run.
It wears me down, I find I start to make mistakes in the evening and during the last three promotions I hit a wall at about 140 listings.
I make a scratch pad list of each item, the different categories and 3/5/7/10. I circle the numbers as that listing is completed.
That allows me to move between Store categories during the day so that launch times get varied.
I start to get numb as the day goes on and without the visual record of the scratch pad I would not know what I have done and, later in the evening, what I'm even working on.
This approach worked well during the early part of yesterday but as the day went on eBay slowed to a crawl and opening my Store or changing pages became a real time consuming problem.
I finished the evening searching the SAB data base for original listings, duplicating them and using that for listings. Maybe that program has features that I don't know exist or know how to use, so more learning may be needed there.
Generally I'm pleased but would like to expand the quantity of listings I can post to accommodate my planned expansion into new lines.
I have also used parallel promotions when they were offered in the UK. It causes some confusion among potential customers but was still productive.
I have not used promotions in Canada but hope to in the future.
With every listings automatically including four other Store items and a Store promotion with a clickable link I make part of every listing, I see these promotions not just offering an opportunity for some additional sales but, more importantly I believe, as a major advertising opportunity to promote the Store.
With higher fees, lower sell through and price pressure I view these promotions as not just an occasional bonus but rather a major component of my survival plan.
This is one area where the independent sellers has a real advantage over large businesses as we are better able to quickly adjust to take advantage of opportunities.
It also gives me a chance to have a more major presence in the marketplace that I could not justify at full fees.
How did it go for you?
What works and what problems did you encounters?
What ideas might we discuss that would be helpful.
PS I couldn't find my notes from last time. One thing I will do is see they are someplace findable for next time.
Answer
Ray - Turbo Lister is the only way I'm able to participate in these kinds of promotions because of my day job, I only get a few hours in the evening to list & work on things. I keep folders with duplicates of my handmade items at the ready, with a different folder for each kind of promo.
I have one section for UK and CA listings as well when they're ones I want to go after.
Those folders do not include my full collection of designs, though, I need to add them, and convert all the items to my new template - which will hopefully give my listings a new look and do a better job of store promotion as well.
My eBay store has really exploded this year : running 63% of my transactions and 50% of my $ in sales...
Answer
Auctionsagesoftware.com
I had 1218 store items that were scheduled to end Monday the 19th. With a click of the mouse all came to an end on Thursday morning at 12:01AM. Then, another click of the mouse and all were converted to FP format.
One final click of the mouse and I was off to bed while Auctionsage posted all the items. By 2 AM all were listed in the proper format and I was done
I love these promotions! Now, when this ends, just a click of the mouse and all my FP are back ready for store or, for some, back to auction format.
I couldn't do it without AS. And, I had over 1300 items to change and list.
John offers a free 30 day trial. It does take a day or two to get used to the program but it does it all. From auction management to posting and is the very best I have found!
I don't space my listings out as I like to handle all my emails within a 30 minute period but if you do want to schedule or put a space between the listing times, an Auction Sage user has built a nice little software package to work with it and allow for those as well.
Answer
lindajean,
I have a nice little built in "spacer outerer" called being on dial up ! it takes over a minute to list an item with auction sage but that suits me fine.
I also use AS and did the same thing, ended all of my store items and relisted them as fp. I wanted to get much more done with new listings but had a slight family crisis that took up most of my day but am pleased with sales so far (had two even before AS was done posting them all !).
Lindajean,
one thing I've wanted to ask other AS users. When a listing doesn't sell, I move it into a status folder named Unsold (duh). This is my problem. If an item doesn't sell I then list it in my store until I am ready to relist it as an auction. If I end a store listing, I now have two listings in my unsold folder for one item. How do you manage this? If it sells as a store item, I have to remember to go to the unsold folder and find the auction listing and delete it. I know inventory shows that the quantity is zero but still I have to match those up. All of my items are unique so it's relatively easy to go through the unsold every once in a while and delete ones I know have sold but how does someone like you with your volume keep it straight?
Ray,
back to your question. I have really made an effort this year to lower my ebay fees as percentage of sales. The biggest change I have made is list an auction once and then sit it in my store for awhile and try to promote it with oscars tool. By using auctionsage, that means I can at short notice end them all and list them as FP when something like today happens or if there comes an FLD. before I used auctionsage, I never got more than a few items listed because of manually relisting and listing. Any kind of program that can do that for those of us with unique items really really helps. I don't know how that applies to those who sell brand new items though.
Mel-
Answer
Mel: I don't list in store until I am through with the relisting. And, just for the reasons you mentioned. I don't want two items in my folder and then get mixed up and list it when it has sold. That's the one drawback to the whole process. I would love to have everything in the store or auction all the time. All of my listings are one of a kind so I do have to be careful with that.
I list it once, put a date in the category field for relisting and when that has been done then I delete it from current and recent and just repost as a store item.
I also export all my sold listings so I don't accidentally repost something I don't have.