As a successful online seller, one of the things I get asked regularly about is how do I increase my eBay sales. The goal for any online seller is to keep sales consistent and steadily increasing. This is something I have spent a lot of time experimenting with and after many years in the business, I have a few sure-fire tricks. Here are my top seven tricks to help you maintain and increase your sales on eBay.
- List new items daily.
The more regularly you list items, the more eBay’s algorithm will deem you an important seller and the more often you will end up near the top of a search. Sounds simple but as sellers we do not always have new items to list daily. Here is what I do to make it seem like I am listing daily even if I am not. I end old items and relist them as a “sell similar” listing.
To do this you need to change something in the wording of the add as eBay will pick up if nothing is changed and not consider it a new item. This also keeps your eBay store fresh and in use.
I prefer listing items for a shorter duration as those are the sales that work best for 90% of my items. I always cancel items just before the 30-day mark so there is no new insertion fee. Then once they are down, I relist as ‘sell similar item’.
The longer a listing sits on the eBay platform without being sold, the less chance there is for it to sell. eBay views these listings as stale listings and as a result they show up way down in the search results. If you then list it as a ‘sell similar’, it has a new item number. Make a change to the title, list price or even the description and it basically tricks the eBay algorithm into thinking this is a whole new listing.
The only downside to this is that if you are selling something that has a lot of watchers, you will lose them as well as the selling history.
2. Try selling in different categories.
I am not a fan of selling in a lot of categories all at once. I believe that the best way to sell is to have a niche and to focus on that category. However, sometimes you will see sales drop off and at that point it may be time to branch out a bit into new categories.
If you do branch out into other categories, keep the categories similar. For example, if you sell women’s purses, you will want to branch into something that is compatible in some way with that such as shoes or jewelry.
Ideally you want customers to be able to shop all your categories. If they come looking for a purse, they may just decide they need that chain or pair of shoes as an impulse add on or vice versa. The new categories should make sense to the old categories.
3. Refresh your listings in bulk.
Refreshing your listings is basically the process of going into the eBay platform and making bulk edits to them all. Now you don’t have to make any changes to the listings but act of bulk editing tricks the algorithm into pushing your items up in the search. What is does is tell the platform that you are a seller that is active and making changes to listings to try and promote more sales. eBay wants the sellers to be active and engaged in selling and any changes that could ensure an item sells quicker make you seem like just that type of seller. Obviously, eBay’s end result is much the same as your own, sell as many items as possible and eBay will reward someone who seems to be doing that with better listing placement in a search.
This action does not erase any of the viewers or history and it doesn’t delete anything or cost any fees.
4. Start marketing your eBay store on social media.
Start a business account on Instagram and Facebook for your eBay store. Highlight items through pictures and stories. Create ads and boost posts to generate more traffic to eBay. Remember someone shopping on eBay must be on eBay to see your item unless you advertise it elsewhere.
You can even have a blog, YouTube channel or a Twitter account to showcase your items and your eBay store. Some sellers even have a website with the same name as the store and when people go there it links directly to eBay.
The whole point is to get more eyes on your product. The more exposure an item has, the more chance it will sell. It is pretty much that simple.
5. Use more of eBay’s seller tools.
If you are not using the eBay markdown manager or doing in store promotions, you really are missing out. There are a ton of eBay tools for eBay stores and the more of those tools you use, the more active you seem on eBay’s algorithm. The more active you are the greater the chance that eBay will push your listings up in the search results.
The markdown manager tool is a tool that allows you to run a markdown sale in your store. You can run it for as long and as much of a markdown as you want. I personally recommend shorter durations and more frequent sales.
There is also the promotions tools. A promotion is something like ‘spend $50, get free shipping’ or ‘buy one and get one at half off’. You can choose the promotion and the duration.
You can also do things like free shipping or best offer options. eBay wants buyers to have as many options as possible to buy the item and the more of these you do, the more favorably the algorithm will view you because eBay wants their cut.
6. Create a daily routine.
eBay will notice that you are a serious seller trying to make them (and you) money if you have a daily and weekly routine. I personally suggest that you list an item or two every day and that you do a bulk refresh every day on some of your items. I leave buyer feedback every day. I also print shipping labels every single day. Buyers want their items fast and eBay knows that the faster they get their items, the more likely they are to return. If you are a seller that accomplishes that goal for them, then they will view you favorably.
Having weekly markdowns or promotions starting and ending every week creates a weekly routine that shows eBay you are active and serious about your store and the quality of your service.
Create a routine for yourself on a daily and weekly schedule and stick to it. Consistency is the key to consistent sales.
7. Try new strategies.
Sometimes when sales dip, you just need to try a new strategy to boost them back up. For example, if you usually have paid shipping, try free shipping instead. Or offer flat rate shipping. If you always do ‘buy it now’ listings, try auction style listings instead. If you usually do promotions, try a markdown sale instead.
Markets fluctuate all of the time and buyers are always looking for different experiences. Changes allows you to try new things to see what works best for you in any given season. One word of caution though, don’t change your entire store all at once as the eBay platform is sometimes slow to react to big changes. So if you are going from paid shipping to free for example, don’t change every item at once. Change a few at a time and do the entire store slowly over a period of time.