How can we market successfully on eBay?
What have been your experiences marketing on eBay? Share your success tips and horror stories here — and be sure to check out what our expert has to say about this publicity method.
From Joy I have bought million dollar bills on eBay and then put a label on the back of the dollar with my web site. You could put your eBay store name on a bill like that. When you leave it with an actual tip somewhere people take notice. Also, as Seth Godin suggests, give a free prize/gift with an order–give a pen, pencil, greeting card, coffee gift card.
From Susan, Dallas, Tx EBay is a very hard place to sell unbranded clothing items. The things that do well on eBay are name brand – clothing name people will know. You will have to get your name known before you can sell your t-shirts on eBay. I suggest you check out the book – "Buy It Sell It, Make Money" – to guide you on what will sell on eBay.
From Kimberly at Squidoo Check out one of Seth Godin's other brainchilds: SquidBids.com, an extension of Squidoo that's just for eBay users.
~Kimberly
Squidoo.com's Community Organizer
From Ziggy, Sunrise, Florida Hi Tyler,
I wish you the best of luck with your site! You might consider checking out CafePress.com (not sure if you already have your t-shirts made) but you can run a store from there where folks are looking specifically for t-shirts.
Also, place free ads on sites like Listasaurus.com (they actually pay you to list some ads, though not business ads I think, and they have video classifieds), craigslist.org, backpage.com, kijiji.com, etc.
Also be sure to do free press releases (I think you can do it through webwire.com) and you can pay a small fee also to do one on http://www.prweb.com.
I have a lot more ideas and info on low cost advertising, I could go on for days…check in a few weeks for a site I'll be launching called MyBizLoop.com that will be a business networking community with a lot of info on how to help small businesses with their startups and ongoing help from others in the community.
I wish you great success! Remember, everything takes time (I've been at the ecommerce thing for almost two years now, and it's a toughie).
From beachgal, Gulfport, FL Do yourself a favor and forget about selling on ebay. Customers will never be able to find your products. A few months ago ebay replaced keyword searches with "best match" (Finding 2.0) searchs that show buyers what ebay wants them to see and NOT what they ask for. See ebay's Search Discussion Board for more details.
The site is overwhelmed with outside advertising in direct competition with sellers. One click on any ad takes a potential buyer off of ebay's site & has a direct negative impact on sales.
Shipping calculator, Markdown Manager, and new Sell Your Item form doesn't work either. Rolling server blackouts are also occuring at alarming rates along with guinea pig tests.
Perhaps you should consider having a standalone site or selling on amazon. That's what many sellers are doing now.
From Scott, Largo, Florida Tyler,
Your first concern before entering the eBay marketplace with your T-Shirt business plan is to to your RESEARCH. There are many good reasons to sell on eBay and all of them are not related to simple profit per item sold. But if your primary reason for entering the eBay marketplace is simple profit (Not advertising, brand building, or pull marketing), you should look at the numbers of competitors in your niche and look at the ASP of similar items in your category. If you can compete in the area of price and service then you may have good reason to enter the eBay marketplace. The T-Shirt category on eBay is flooded with competition so without a well thought out business plan and solid ideas about how you will make your product stand out from the crowd… I would suggest you think very carefully about your goals regarding eBay sales.
From Steve Grossberg, Wellington Florida Tyler and any other small business start up may want to checkout IMA. It isa non profit trade association for small buniesses selling on the internet
The Internet Merchants Association (IMA) is a nonprofit (501c6) trade association for companies involved in internet commerce. IMA was founded to provide internet commerce companies with proper knowledge and education as well as best business practices in the ever-changing world of e-commerce. Through discussion and the exchange of ideas, IMA provides a base where companies benefit from the collective knowledge and experience of our membership as a whole
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Looking for someone who will put my stanley dinning room set on ebay. If you live in largo, fl, please call me727-290=7274