eBay, Thanksgiving, and Black Friday Shoppers

eBay was quick to publish Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday sales data.  What they published was tied exclusively to mobile sales.

I think what is not said with these numbers is also very telling.

Remember, there are now two kinds of sales: mobile and desktop.  A small portion of mobile shoppers are brand new eBay customers, new to the marketplace because of the app on their smartphone (it was pre-installed on my Windows phone).  But the rest of these sales were diverted from desktops.

What would be helpful to me, a seller, is to know if gross sales (across formats) were up or down.  Since they aren't singing the praises of total sales, my guess is the news is not favorable.

But they have given us this crumb, so let's take from it what we can.

First, mobile sales are increasing.  Yay, mobile is up!  People are shopping anytime, anywhere from their phones and tablets.  That is great.  Glad to hear it.  Spend more money everywhere you are, shoppers!

As sellers, we need to be sure our templates are mobile-friendly.  Dump any scrolling, flowery, flash-laden code from your template.  Dump extra text, such as "If you have a question you better ask it now because if you ask after committing to buy then you are a poo-poo head."  You can now also drop the international sales disclaimer since eBay has your back on this, whether or not you state in your listings customs fees are extra.

Second, mobile shoppers are shopping most frequently between noon and 1 p.m. (pacific time).  For optimum visibility, schedule auctions to end between 12 and 1 p.m. (PT) on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday next year.

One final thought... if you are using auctions during the holiday shopping season, ALWAYS have a reasonable buy-it-now price.  This allows holiday shoppers who want to buy it and be done to do so.

How to Tweak Your eBay Listings for Best Match Optimization

My eBay sales have started to pick up a wee bit, and I wanted to share insight into how to move-up in best match (and yes, they've been messing with it).

If you see eBay "suggest" something (like 3 minimum photos per listing), do it.  The "suggestion" will have positive best match results.

Absolutely have a minimum of 3 photos (more is better) in the gallery section of your listings.  If you list with a 3rd party service, you might need to upload them manually after the item is listed.  If you don't load those great pictures in the gallery area, you are committing best match suicide.

Your photos MUST be minimum 1600 pixels wide (I recommend 1650).  I found that the software I was using told me my photos were 1600, but when I checked with gimp.org (free photo editing software) I found they were 1599.  Yikes!   That 1 pixel makes all the difference!  You can use software like gimp.org or Photoshop to increase image size after the fact, but it is a time consuming and complicated PIA.

Stop using busy, html-loaded templates immediately.  It has not been explicitly stated by eBay, but some testing has shown html-heavy listings are downgraded in best match.

Put as little text as possible in your descriptions, utilize item specifics more.  Both have shown to improve best match results.  The theory is that really long descriptions make the computer think you are keyword spamming (from a search engine perspective, not a violate eBay policies perspective).

Use item specifics, add your own.

Offer 1-day handling.

Offer free shipping.

Top Rated Seller (TRS) gets a small bump.

Run a Markdown Manager (MM) sale every day on your fixed price items.  There is a definite bump when using MM.  It doesn't have to be much, you can program a 10% off sale Mon-Tues, 15% off Wed-Thur, 10% off Fri-Sat, etc. Short (2-day) MM sales which are constantly running have the best effect.  Note: You can mark everything up 10% before running 10% off all the time.

Lower priced items rank higher than the same item at a higher price.

Auction items rank MUCH higher than fixed price.

With fixed price, you get a visibility bump when the item is newly listed but I have NOT seen a corresponding visibility bump for fixed price items about to end.

Auction items get a best match visibility bump when the item is ending, but I have not seen a corresponding visibility bump when they are newly listed.

EXCEPTION: When ANY item is newly listed (FP or auction) it will appear in people's Feed (new: www.ebay.com/feed).  If you haven't opted-in to the feed yet do it now so you understand it.  It will be rolled-out to all eBayers soon, the sooner the better!

Older listings with a lot of impressions (an impression is when something appears on a potential buyers list of results) will be downgraded in best match.

As for Good-till-cancelled (GTC), I still think it is a good tool.  I am ending all my GTC listings this month, and relisting GTC after refreshing the listings and editing the pictures.  In August, I will go through the same process again.  I think a GTC purge once/year is helpful, but I do not think it is in our best interest to stop using GTC.

Do you have other suggestions on how to post higher in Best Match results?  Enter them with a comment below, and thanks!

Pinterest for Your eBay Business Hint!

That was fun!  I just finished presenting "Pinterest for eBay Sellers", part of the Top Rated Seller Webinar Series.

Here's a tip I shared in the webinar.  

Make sure the Pinterest account you use to promote your eBay business is linked to your Twitter account (under the Pinterest account settings).

This way when someone who is following you on Twitter joins Pinterest, you will get an e-mail if they join Twitter!

IMMEDIATELY, go to Pinterest and follow one of their boards.  You will be their first follower, and they will notice you.  They will probably follow you back, too.  

This is an easy way to engage with your followers!

Do you have any Pinterest business tips or tricks?  Share them in comments below!