How to promote your items on eBay

eBay UK recently changed the layout of user pages, with new customisations available to users. Unfortunatly they also raised the cost of eBay Store rentals as well.

The new page layout includes the ability to change the order in which you view your items, allows you to leave items off the page altogether and also gives you the ability to change the colour of the page to suit you.

I wonder if these changes are really what people want on eBay? Personally I am satisfied with the page and don't feel that the colour and order of the items are that important for me. Having said that I do like the way the items are larger, easier to read and find and simplified in terms of finding the links you wish to use.

If this is being paid for by unfortunate store owners, for whom the cost of a basic store has risen from £6.00 per month to £14.99 per month, then it can't be worth it for anyone who sells very few items. eBay's changes to fees certainly favour those who sell large volumes over those who only sell a few items each month. The once affordable store has gone out of reach for many.

What do you think of these changes? Let me know by leaving a comment.

As an eBay user you will know that there are many bargains to be found over the Holiday season, but did you manage to spend more buying gifts than you made selling items?

It's very easy to end up with this being the case. You list loads of items in the hope of making a big killing, only to discover that your PayPal account just breaks even. This has happened to me in the past and last year was no exception!

I spend almost $1000 dollars on eBay in the month of December and made about $1200 in sales. Not really a great fortune, but enough to cover the cost of Christmas for my family.

This is one of the things I love about selling on eBay. You can make a big effort at particularly busy times of the year and in exchange for quite a small effort on your part, you can make a profit from which to fund your own family's holiday. I enjoy doing this to fund our family vacation each summer and this year I have decided to start early.

I have been listing lots of ladies and childrens' summer wear which has begun to sell like hot-cakes this past week. Hopefully by the end of spring I will have made enough to totally fund our annual trip to Europe. Even if I don't manage to cover the entire cost, I should have a large percentage of the final bill.

Why not try this yourself? There is always an increase in the market in the weeks and days approaching any major festival or holiday period. If you can list items appropriate to that market, you can really make a killing!

Last week, after deciding to try to breathe some more life into our eBay Interest Groups, I visited the forum to make a few changes. When I arrived at the forums home page I was surprised to find that we had over 96 registered users at the forum and over 120 posts. "Strange", I thought as I looked with disbelief at how busy the forum so suddenly seemed after many weeks of very slow growth. Then I noticed the titles of the newest posts!

I won't go into details about what "Lovely Lorna" was playing with, or how many boyfriends "Sensual Sienna" can handle at one time, nor even where "Anastasia" was taking it, but suffice to say that I was totally shocked by the thousands of images posted at our site.

I've removed all the offensive material and am hoping that the forum can become more active with genuine members so that this type of invasion gets spotted sooner. I also want to apologise to anyone who visited the forum during this time and were offended by what was there.

The moral of the story is, never assume that because something was inactive last week, it must be inactive now. Check it regularly!

As I discussed before, promoting your eBay Store is essential if you are to stand out from the crowd and draw in repeat customers. To this end, Auction Addicts Anonymous have just launched a range of eBay Store Logos. These logos cover a range of themes and will be customized to include your eBay store name.

At just $9.99, I think they're fantastic value for money and can, of course, be used on your own website as well, making branding easier for you.

You can integrate your listings and store color scheme with the new logo very easily with either a like-colored template or simply be selecting colors directly from the logo to customize your store.

A great value and really easy way to ensure that your business is noticed and remembered.

As an eBay seller you will always want to maximize the visibility of your listed items, and of course, the usual way to do this is to list them as auction items and perhaps pay some extra fees for listing enhancements such as highlighted title, bold title or the more expensive featured item. But have you ever considered opening an eBay store?

The benefits of having an eBay store are many. These are some of the top reasons you should open one today:

1. Reduced listing costs. For example, if you list an item for auction at a starting price of $24.99 it will cost you $0.60 listing fee and 5.25% final value fee. The same item listed in your store will cost $0.05 listing fees and 10% final value fee. If you list a lot of items this can be quite a large saving. You do the math.

2. You can take advantage of eBay's automation systems for stores. You can leave feedback, relist items, send email and keep track of your inventory automatically as a store owner, saving you lots of time and effort, and ensuring your operation runs in a professional manner.

3. Store inventory items have a more flexible selection of listing durations. You can list items for up to 30 days, set them to automatically relist, allowing you to submit your store's homepage for indexing by google and other search engines. You can also draw traffic by other methods which I will outline later.

4. Having a store gives you the opportunity to stay in touch with past buyers allowing you to sell to them again. You can produce your own newsletter and promote it in your listing and on your stores homepage. This is an underused and very valuable facility as it allows you to approach your customers with special offers and deals exclusive to them.

5. An eBay store gives you the opportunity to brand your business and tie it in with any website you may have. A store is a great starter for anyone wishing to develop their own business, allowing you to leverage eBay buyers and encourage them to visit your own site. You can place "bait" items in your store with advice of greater selection at you own site. You can customize your store with logos and templates to give it a unique look and feel and tie it in with the design of your website.

6. eBay have recently developed a new "My World" section with blogs, about me pages and communication opportunities, putting you in touch with other eBay buyers and sellers. Use these to your advantage by making regular conversational posts on your blog and take the time to design you about me page. These are both opportunities for you to place links to your website.

7. If you have a business in the "real world", an eBay store can lend some credibility to you as you try to break into the online world of selling. You can use the good reputation on your business to quickly gain the confidence of buyers on eBay.

These are just a few of the reasons why anyone who has a regular supply of items to sell should have an eBay store. There are many others but I will cover them at another time.

I will also show you how to promote your store outside eBay, using methods both online and off.