The offer is for both eBay Store subscribers and non-eBay Store subscribers. You can list up to 50,000 items (boy, would that clear out a warehouse!). This promotion is in addition to the 50 free listings normally provided. You can use those at another time.

For more details and exclusions.click here

Happy Selling!!

When the recent eBay announcements came out, the most exciting one in my estimation was the amazing addition of 25 additional characters to our titles! This was totally unexpected in my circles and such a blessing. Twenty-five additional spaces to fill with great keywords and draw more buyers to our items. Twenty-five more spaces to get information into the eBay search algorithm.

Now the question becomes, what do I DO with them?  Well, here are a few quick and easy tips to get you started. First, what NOT to do!

1. Please, please, please don’t fill them with Wow, L@@K, Rare or more !!!!
2. Do NOT keyword spam by including words that do not reflect what is in your listing.
3. Don’t use them for plurals (IE shoe and shoes – do a check but in many cases the eBay search engine will already return these – not always so do your research.)

So, what do you do with those extra spaces?

1. Keywords, baby, it’s all about the right keywords. What are buyers searching for? Find out by looking at eBay Pulse – and the Google AdWord Tool – both free.
2. Check out Terapeak, what words will give you a higher ASP (Average Sell Price) and a higher STR (Sell-Through Rate)
3. If you are completely maxed out on keywords – consider adding a special detail of your item or even of your customer service.

At this time, eBay has not announced any increase in fees for these new longer titles and they are available beginning September 1st so start thinking, start researching and be ready to embrace the change, baby!

This guest post is by Kat Simpson.  Kat is a respected as a trusted eCommerce speaker, educator, and entrepreneur, Kat Simpson has been a successful eCommerce merchant for over 10 years; is a Certified eBay Education Specialist and Gold Level PowerSeller, who also maintains stores on Addoway, Bonanza, Buy.com, and iOffer. Currently Kat is the co-host of popular weekly eCommerce Podcast eCom Connections with Karen Locker of Luna Jardin and Mommysbazaar.

This update carries less impact than previous updates, and the main focus is around the eBay return policy, where they will shift the days allowed for a return further out and offer drop down selections for the policy. Sellers can globally update their return policy, so it won’t require a lot of reworking to adhere to the policy.

In addition, they will also be allowing sellers 80 characters, which may prove to be the hardest challenge as to using those additional 25 characters will require sellers to edit their existing ads to create a more descriptive title. And while seller may rejoice over the extra title characters, the reality may be that it can be a bit difficult to learn how to write longer descriptive titles, but a great opportunity to get in some additional keywords.

Links outside eBay have been vastly tightened, so there has to be a very, very good reason for a link off-eBay to be inside a listing. This includes “chat links”, which may hinder communication if you rely on live chat to engage your potential customers.

There is a bit of good news on the open case area. If your buyer doesn’t contact you before opening a Buyer Protection case and you act quickly to resolve it, the case will not be included in your performance rating. There is a checklist which you can download to help you navigate the changes.

Overall, it’s not an overly intrusive; “it will take me months to edit my listings” type release and is much less onerous than releases in the past.

For More Information: Click Here

Happy Selling!!

Happy Selling!

Mission Fish powers eBay’s Giving Works, which has helped eBay sellers raise over $250 million in donations to charitable causes.

Click here to read the Press Release

Happy Selling!!

For more info: click here

Happy Selling!

Like most of the large eBay updates, there is good and bad and some misconceptions.

The Good and the Bad

For eBay Store subscribers, the Final Value Fee for both Fixed Price and Auctions has been reduced to compensate for the fact that shipping is now included in the Final Value Fee that eBay charges. This is good for those selling feathers, bad for those selling bricks.

For eBay Store subscribers who are top rated sellers, they will still get the 20% discount; however, this is only on the item price, not the shipping. This is again good for those selling feathers, bad for those selling bricks.

For those without an eBay store, instead of the 100 auctions starting at $0.99 or lower, eBay will provide 50 free auctions starting at any price. This is good for those with higher-priced items, bad for those selling $0.99 items.

For those without an eBay store, the Final Value Fee percentage charged will remain the same, however, shipping is now included in the Final Value Fee that eBay charges. Again, good for those selling feathers, bad for those selling bricks.

For those without an eBay store, the 50 free auctions starting at any price listings can have a buy it now price added at no charge. Good for those who are selling items that they know the value, bad for those selling items with unknown value.

eBay will be moving to a unified shopping cart for buyers. This should make it easier for buyers to purchase items. The shopping cart will work when the only payment option offered is PayPal. In the near future, this will include the other supported eBay payment methods. This should also be good for the overall bottom line, but may be bad for sellers who offer combined shipping as part of their marketing.
(Vendio has been prepared for the unified shopping cart for a long time. Most Vendio merchants will not notice a difference, but may have to make a few settings changes. Please watch the Vendio Announcements board for details)

Powersellers will no longer get a 5% discount; however, top rated sellers will continue to get the 20% discount on item final value. This is good for top rated sellers, bad for Powersellers who are not top rated sellers.

Catalog coming to more categories. eBay will require the use of their catalog in more electronic categories. This is good for standard items, but may be cumbersome for items not in the catalog.

Item specifics will be required for Clothing Shoes & Accessories. This is bad for sellers who have already created listings with the wrong or old item specifics, but good for buyers to have a unified set of selections.

Recommendation:

If you have an eBay store, consider getting an additional account to take advantage of the 50 free auction style listings. Vendio supports multiple eBay user IDs from one account.

Take a look at your overall strategy and see how you can best adapt. Look for lower cost shipping options, such as media or parcel post. Balance the lower shipping options with your DSRs. Media mail and Parcel post are less expensive, but take longer.

Specify the least expensive shipping rate first – In Vendio, you can set the order in the “adjust these settings for eBay” section of your shipping profiles.

The Misconception
eBay will not be charging the highest Final Value Fees on international shipping. This will work as follows:

“When an international or 1-day shipping service is offered and selected by your buyer, your Final Value Fee is calculated on the least expensive of your options—your international/1-day option OR the first domestic service offered other than 1-day. If your buyer chooses international shipping and you specified free shipping as your first domestic option, you pay zero Final Value Fees on shipping.”

Additional Info

The Announcement

The Details

The Discussion Board

What is eBay Giving Works?
eBay Giving Works is a program managed by Mission Fish, which allows sellers to donate a portion of their item selling price. Sellers can choose to donate between 10% and 100% of their items selling price to their favorite non-profit.

What you might not know
• Insertion Fees and Final Value fees are pro-rated. Thus, if you pledge 50% of an item sale price, you are credited 50% off your insertion fees and your final value fees.
• There are over 600,000 items listed on eBay today
• There are over 18,000 different non-profits to choose from
• You can download a PDF of all your donations for tax purposes
• You can search listings by a specific non-profit
• eBay Giving Works has raised over $190 Million since 2003
• You can use Vendio for your eBay Giving Works items in your eBay Market Profile
• Vendio will save your non-profit profile so that when you list your items, you can select your non-profit from a drop down menu.

The holiday season is a great time for giving and the eBay Giving Works program is a great method for online sellers to use their expertise to help their favorite non-profits.

Happy Selling!!!

Auction-Style insertion fees are $.25 cents regardless of start price from November 30th to December 2nd. These promotions are a real benefit both to eBay (who can attract higher priced items), and sellers (who are able to list higher end merchandise for less).

Now is a great time to add additional inventory to eBay – not only do you have the ongoing 100-free listings per month (non-store sellers), you have the added incentive to list higher priced items at a fraction of previous listing fees..and it’s the holiday selling season!!

For more details about this promotion, you can view the eBay $.25 Auction-style Insertion fees page.