EBAY BUSINESS ROADSHOW - WHAT I LEARNED!! 

Thanks for this, really interesting. I have used a video on a listing for an animatronic toy to show it fully working - it took ages to upload and kept timing out, I had to re-size the video to get it under 20MB for it to work, might have been the speed of our internet though! I recently used "sold similar" for some old listings and they do seem to have had more views so fingers crossed sales will follow soon!

When considering books. If your selling a hard to get book it's pointless renewing the listing. Regardless what ebay says if someone searches for a rare book your listing is going to show even if its 5 years old! But different if your selling a book that is saturated then yes some benefits in renewing the listing

Steve, thanks for explaining that. The eBay algorithm keeps changing constantly it is hard to keep up. Now that eBay is explaining what it needs, is a good start, because it can be frustrating.

I’m with you on the specifics Steve i used to try and fill every box out so the blue circle would be full . It made no difference at all . I do the main ones that’s needed for the buyer , and leave rest blank .

Very insightful Steve thanks for sharing mate . 👍🏻 Sometimes I’ve gone to my item specifics on the desktop 🖥️ site of eBay and gone through my listings and checked through them all to see if i had any incorrect or needed to add or change . ( then ticked the box don’t show again ) to try and give the algorithm a nudge . I never use emojis or RRP prices in Des or Title

Thanks for doing this - very interesting! John Lewis have a 30 day return policy and M&S is 35 days so no idea why eBay think 60 days is a benchmark of excellence. Also the listing quality report hasn't worked for ages now. I like eBay but it hugely over complicates everything.

Item specifics are one of the most important things I hired a VA to go over old 30 listings a day and do specifics and I’m selling allot more items eBay says that the item specifics make you findable you also get a boost when you do item specifics

First 4 words - rather than asking the seller to think about what these should be, it would be helpful to know what the buyer uses.

Nah, I don't agree with their view of offers. A good proportion of my sales through the month come from sending out offers - imagine if I only did it once a week or end of month! A big nope! I have been working on my branding today funnily enough, and working on a flyer to include with parcels. I'm predominantly a clothing seller though and there is a lot more competition and so it kind of makes sense to try and capture peoples attention more. I left it too late to go that roadshow, but it sounds like I'm doing a lot of it anyway. I do however need to work on the marketing / newsletter part of my store! Oh and my white background listings don't perform any differently to my non white background ones!

Thanks for sharing your notes! It definitely sounds like the tips they're giving are geared more towards clothing etc rather than books. My notes in response to their tips: I've personally found prioritising this format works best for me as I mostly list single books (as much as I can fit in the 80 characters) [Printed date and/or Edition] [Title] [Author] [Publisher] [Keywords such as 'vintage' (I've trialed not using this but some people have alerts set up for vintage, antique, etc - as do i), genre, and other relevant keywords] I'm essentially listing how I would search for a particular volume. I imagine the white background is more to aid their image search function rather than impacting visibility generally. It hasn't made much difference to me switching to just a white background other than it just ensuring the cover is clear and the picture looks clean/professional. I changed my shipping policies end of last year so that people can pay more if they want to switch to another service or from tracked 48 to 24. No-one, as yet, has used this. I also would not be inclined to add a lengthy returns policy for books. I currently don't have returns as an option for books at all but I'd obviously deal with any complaints, should they come through. I've accepted cancellations several times though. Most retail stores have 7-14 days. Max I've seen is 30 days for a full refund (unless it's faulty/has a warranty). I don't see why ebay should be any different there or why a buyer would need it for most items. You're just encouraging people who dump their parcels or whatever and not deal with them forever or have things sat around. You have no control over how they treat them or store them. Imagine stock being sat on the floor of a house with pets, damp, etc for months?? If you give them a shorter time limit, you encourage them to deal with it there and then. Like Vinted's 48 hour to log an issue. Terapeak has occasionally been helpful, especially when handling items that are rarer, but sometimes you do have to use your own judgement/check external stores and their prices in case the people listing just don't know what they're handling and how to value, which then brings down the average sold price. It really depends on what your product is. It's good for research though (Technsports talked about this in a vid a couple of weeks ago)! I don't currently have branding on my shop as I don't have branding. It is something I have in mind for the long term but it doesn't seem to have deterred people from returning so it's not worth the expense at this point in time. It's not like they can really give you data on who hasn't purchased because you don't have a logo or whatever. It certainly hasn't deterred me from buying from others. I do sales, send out coupons and offers, and have multibuys switched on. I did do a newsletter and it made no difference. It may be something I start to make a regular thing in the future, but I think just sending out coupons to past buyers/shop followers is more effective personally. I recently also added notes at the bottom of my listings about things like discounts, shipping policies, holding items, etc but no idea how much difference that makes. I've done it more just to try to deter time wasters.

You only sell on Ebay?

The day Ebay decides to give sellers actual protections from fraud, I might consider even offering a return. If something is wrong with an item I sell, Ebay has a 30 day return policy that I am more than happy to comply with.