The swimsuits, towels and beach blankets aren’t yet stored for the summer, but there’s no way around it, it’s time to start prepping for holiday sales!
In last month’s workshop, we got track with holiday product sourcing in “Successful Product Sourcing for the Holidays.”
For most eBay sellers, the holiday season is the busiest time of year! And a good holiday season will fuel your income and business growth in the year to come.
The problem is that many online retailers go into the holiday season unprepared.
And this causes three things to happen:
1. Lost income. The #1 reason for lost income during the holiday season is unlisted inventory. This applies whether you are a PowerSeller or just getting started.
Today we’re going to talk about how to get your inventory listed quickly and efficiently, so you can be prepared to profit!
2. Stress. Lack of holiday planning can cause tremendous amounts of stress for those who sell online.
Just when you want to sit down and enjoy the holiday with friends and family, stress and a never ending list of to-do’s rears its ugly head!
And as a result, your sales take a nosedive too!
Today we’ll talk about the marketing and selling steps you can take today that will allow you to stay on top of your business and ease your holiday stress!
3. Customer service issues. With new shoppers coming online this year in droves, the holidays are the best time to build a new customer base that will become repeat customers in 2009.
But in order to retain those customers, you must provide great customer service. And in order to do that, you need to be prepared.
S.M.A.R.T.S. Action Step #1: Optimize Your Listing Title and Listing Description Keywords for the Search Engines
People are going to find your products one of two ways this holiday season.
1. Through eBay’s search engine. 2. Through the Google, Yahoo, or MSN search engines.
The keywords you use in your listing titles, descriptions and store categories are what will cause the search engines to give you a higher ranking in search engine results.
But you have to start search engine optimizing your eBay listings, store, and custom pages NOW because it takes a while for the search engine spiders to crawl all those pages and re-index them.
Your keywords are the maps that will point buyers to your listings.
Using the right keywords in your titles and descriptions will increase your buyer traffic and your sales.
Using the wrong keywords will cause your listings to languish unnoticed.
Having highly searchable keywords in your listing title and description will assist with your search engine indexing.
To make sure that you have selected the best keywords for your title and description you must do your keyword research and THEN optimize your listings.
S.M.A.R.T.S. Action Step #2: Set Up Your Holiday Categories
When the holiday customers come to shop in your eBay store, one of the most important factors in making the sale is to guide them quickly and effortlessly to your products.
Creating additional holiday related categories in your eBay store will draw buyers to the merchandise they are most interested in this season.
These categories need to be positioned front and center in your store!
Don’t list your holiday product categories so they are buried in the middle of 50 other categories.
Showcase them at the top of your other categories! It’s their time to shine!
Your eBay store categories are your virtual store shelves. Customers coming to your store want to be able to quickly and easily find your holiday gift items.
They also want to see the merchandise you are showcasing this holiday season!
Categories are the equivalent of aisles, shelves and “end-caps” (the displays you see at the end of each aisle in a physical store.)
Creating fresh new categories to display your merchandise during the holiday season is a must!
For example, let’s say you sell Brand Y dishes in your eBay store. You carry several lines of Brand Y every day dishes, some fine china dishes for formal occasions and assorted styles of Christmas serving platters, plates and bowls.
Rather than groups all those products in a category called Brand Y, you would create new categories that would highlight your holiday related merchandise.
For example you might create some categories called:
Brand Y Formal Dishes
Brand Y Santa Platters
Brand Y Starter Sets
People who come to your eBay store will very likely be thinking about buying formal dishes on which to service their holiday dinner, Santa platters on which to serve cookies and starter dish sets which are the perfect holiday gift.
The key to setting up new holiday categories is to think like your buyers. How would they want to see the merchandise displayed in your eBay store?
Your can organize your listings according to brand, type of item, highly searched keywords, price levels, etc.
Categories can be displayed in the order you specify. Feature your holiday related categories at the top of your category list, so that your customers can find them easily.
S.M.A.R.T.S. Action Step #3: Don’t Make Your Customers Work to Buy
The fastest way to loose a sale is to make your customers work for it.
The #1 customer service tip I can give you is “Don’t make your customers work to buy!”
If a customer has to dig too deep to find your merchandise, wade through hundreds of listings, or search through vague and confusing categories, they will leave your eBay store faster than you can you can say happy holidays.
When reviewing eBay stores, this is one of the biggest mistakes that we see people make. Store layouts that require time and patience on the part of the buyer to navigate the listings and find the item they are looking for.
Set up your categories so buyers can quickly and easily see what you have to offer.
Offer them easy access to you so they can ask questions, get clarification, further information.
This applies all throughout the year as well, but during the holidays buyers need ease of use and to know that help is available if they need it!
You will be rewarded for your efforts with higher sales.
S.M.A.R.T.S. Action Step #4: “Pre-shop” for Your Customers with Custom Pages
In 2007, all the top selling retail websites had something in common. They each did “pre-shopping” for their customers.
Pre-shopping is providing customers with a list of products that is based on a particular criteria.
Examples of pre-shopping lists would be:
- Our 10 Most Popular Golf Accessories - Top 10 Gifts for Kids Aged 4 and Under - Customers Favorite Picks! - Unique Gifts - Favorite Gifts - Gifts for the Hostess
The possibilities are endless and can be tailored to fit your product line.
Each eBay store comes with custom pages that you can use to create your pre-shopping lists.
Pre-shopping lists can be created by simply doing some pre-shopping for your customers. Group products together and again, think like your buyers.
When they come to your custom pages to look at your lists, who would they be buying for?
What information would be helpful to them?
Create a list of 10 or so items, add some photos of your product or include the store listing itself and then write a short but powerful blurb to SELL your products.
Tell your customers what is unique, special, or fabulous about the products on your list.
Tell them why this would be the perfect gift to buy this holiday season and who on their gift list would love it!
If you find yourself getting writers block, pull out a couple holiday catalogs that have recently arrived in your mail. You’ll find that many of them do pre-shopping lists.
Looking at catalogs to get ideas on how to write good sales copy on your custom pages can make this a fun and creative process!
S.M.A.R.T.S. Action Step #5: Put Together Special, Time Limited Promotions
If you want to get your customers excited about your products and give them an urgency to buy, there is no better way to do this than by offering a time sensitive special promotion.
Now is the time to plan out your promotion schedule for the remainder of the year.
Special promotions such as free shipping, combined shipping, free gift wrap and gift card, rebate programs, or creating a product bundle by including something extra (for example “This Thomas the Tank Engine Train comes with 2 pieces of train track!” gets your buyers excited about your offerings and can persuade them to make their purchase from instead of your competitors.
One of the most popular promotions during the holiday season is free shipping. But don’t just offer plain old “free shipping” - really sell it to your customers.
Make it an event! “Free shipping on all Thanksgiving themed plates during our “Let’s Talk Turkey” event! Offer ends November 10th”
Make it time limited. $1 Shipping on all Batman toys through November 20th.” Make if personal. At the top of your listing description, put a stellar customer service statement that says something like “As a way of saying thank you to all our valued customers this holiday season, we are offering FREE SHIPPING on all items purchased through November 4th.”
Promoting your free shipping this way accomplishes two things. First, it makes your customers feel connected to you. You are telling them that because you value their business, you are now offering something to them during the holidays.
Secondly, by putting an ending date on your promotion, you have given your customer motivation to buy NOW rather than wait a few weeks and look around some more.
Once that promotion ends, you can run another one for a different duration.
S.M.A.R.T.S. Action Step #6: Create a Customer Confidence Statement
“Yes, I’d like to order that plush robot toy, with a side of confidence please.”
While your customer may not be telling you that directly, that's what they are thinking!
When surveyed, the #1 thing shoppers are concerned with during the holidays is “Will my item arrive on time?.”
While it’s true you’re selling products during the holiday season, you’re ALSO selling buyer confidence.
You can go a long way towards promoting this confidence in your buyer IF you spend some time in each listing description describing your commitment to fast shipping and platinum level customer service.
Don’t expect that your buyers will automatically know that you will ship in a timely manner and that you are dedicated to their satisfaction.
They don’t.
Unless you tell them.
This is NOT the time to be shy! This is the time to describe in detail and “shout from the rooftops” about your stellar customer service policies.
The confidence that you instill in your buyers will reward you with the sale.
S.M.A.R.T.S. Action Step #7: Write Subtitles to Distinguish and Advertise
Although subtitles are not the default search field for eBay buyers (unless they click the “Search by title and description” box), they are a VERY important advertising mechanism for your eBay business.
The information that you put in your subtitle can distinguish your listings from the rest and inspire people to make that all important decision to click on your listing for further information.
But don’t wait for the last minute to come up with an eye catching sub-title that jumps off the page! Start writing your holiday sub-titles now!
It’s hard to be a marketing creative when you’re shipping 100 packages a day and answering customer service emails.
Take a pad and paper to the beach. Put on some soothing music and make a list of your top holiday products. Then, write the sub-titles you plan to use for each.
Sub-titles should be used to advertise any important information that will immediately set your listing apart.
For example, Do you ship worldwide? Put that information in your subtitle.
Do you provide 2 hour customer response time? Let your buyers know via your subtitle.
Maybe you are selling an exclusive version of your product. Your subtitle can relay this to the buyers.
Need to include more specific version/description/quality information? Use your sub-title!
Note: Because the sub-title is not searchable (unless your buyers click the “Search by title and description” box), you'll want to put the most relevant, searchable, keywords in your listing title itself.
S.M.A.R.T.S. Action Step #9: Send Out Weekly Newsletters
People get busy. Even if they love your store, they’re likely to forget about your great products unless you remind them.
It’s time to dust off your eBay Email Marketing mailing list and start sending newsletters to those customers who have opted in to hear from you.
If you’ve been lax in sending a newsletter up until now, you’ll want to re-introduce yourself to your buyers and let them know what great things you have in store for them in the coming months!
The more you interact with your customers and build a relationship with them, the more motivated that they will be to buy from you.
An email newsletter does just this. It helps you build a relationship with your customers and gives you an opportunity to market directly to them.
Email newsletters that contain holiday tips, recipes, and special promotions/new products, can be very effective in keeping your eBay store in the forefront of your customer’s mind.
Again, your customers are busy during the holidays. If you reach out to them via an email newsletter and tell them what wonderful products you have for them, let them know about this week’s special promotions and provide them with useful tips about the products you sell, you will find your eBay store in the forefront of their minds!
And you can grab their attention before they go online searching for holiday gifts.
eBay’s email marketing program makes this easy for you to do. For more information, on eBay’s email marketing go to
S.M.A.R.T.S. Action Step #10: Include an Advertising Flyer with Every Package
Included with every package that you ship, should be a marketing insert that does the job of advertising your other products.
The fact is - once a customer has purchased from you, they are likely to purchase from you again.
When your package arrives and your customer is feeling pleased with your merchandise and their shopping experience, they are very receptive to the other products that you have to offer.
A marketing insert does your advertising for you at the right place and the right time.
Fortunately, eBay has made it easy for you to create your own customized marketing inserts.
S.M.A.R.T.S. Action Step #10: Systematize Your Back Office
A disorganized work process flow and messy office will only serve to slow you waaaaay down during the holidays (or any other time of year for that matter).
While it’s still nice out, pull everything out of your office. Sweep. Vacuum. Dust. Clear off your shelves. Donate unsold, discontinued inventory to charity. (Be sure and check with your tax advisor about the tax deduction.)
Set up a photography station.
Set up a shipping station.
Organize your inventory.
Once your office is clean and workable, it’s time to systematize your processes.
When you list items on eBay, you MUST think of yourself as an assembly line.
Rather than photographing a few items, writing a few descriptions and the loading them into your auction management tool, automate your listing process by tasks together.
Photograph batches of like items at once -dedicate a morning to photography. A morning to writing listings and a morning to loading your items.
This will also lend itself to the next and maybe most important S.M.A.R.T.S. action step!
S.M.A.R.T.S. Action Step BONUS: Bring in Seasonal Help
Seasonal help is the backbone behind all online retail sales. Few brick and mortar or online businesses get by without using some type of seasonal help to pick up the extra work generated by increased sales.
Yet most eBay sellers I work with are reluctant at first to bring in seasonal help.
A great way to do this (and to preserve your budget) is to contact your local high school or college and see if they have a work study program for students.
Many schools do and this is a great way to get temporary help, often at minimal or in many cases, no cost to you!
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Hello! This information has been very helpful. I have a few questions to start:
1. I'm a "small-time" ebay seller; I don't have a store. Do you have any specific suggestions for sellers who want to target the holidays but who don't have a store?
2. When is the best time to start putting up listings that target holiday shoppers?
Hi Everyone, Happy pre-holiday season! Welcome to today's workshop!
When you are finished reading the workshop content, simply post your questions at the bottom of the discussion board and I will answer them one at a time!
Hi fummergirl, Welcome to the workshop and to your first holiday selling season on eBay.
You'll learn a lot from selling in your first season.
Without a store,you'll need to be sure that you have a variety of listings endings on different days and times.
A store gives you a 7x24 presence online, so your customers can always know where to find you on eBay.
With listings only, it's more hit and miss as items start and end.
Depending on what you are selling, you will see patterns in when your buyers are shopping on eBay.
The best approach (if you do not want to open a store) is to vary your listing days and times and then track the results.
Although I would recommending opening a store IF you have enough merchandise volume to support it.
Also, holiday buyers shop at all crazy hours of the day so the patterns you see during the holidays are not necessarily what you will see year round.
Just be sure not to end your listings in the middle of the night or early in the am, unless your target marketing is non-US buyers in a different time zone.
Thanks, Lisa! The information about time of day is helpful, but what I was looking for was information about a larger time scale. Should I start listing holiday items in September? November?
Hi fummergirl, Got it! The ideal situation (if you have depth of inventory) is to have a represenation of your holiday inventory listed in early Septmember.
Depending on what you are selling will also determine when to list -
The earlier, the better.
That's why a store is so helpful, because you can list it all in your store and move it into core.
If you are selling toys, start listing them in Sept. for the early bird shoppers.
If you have THE hot toy of the season, reserve some for later in the season when the prices go up.
Many people wait until after Thanksgiving to list and by then it is too late.
Last year, the biggest sales day on eBay for the holiday season was Cyber Monday - the Monday after Thanksgiving.
I mostly sell toys, as you mentioned. I'm not sure if the toys I sell, however, are ideal for the holidays, as they are mostly vintage toys, not new in the package. I also have a lot of decorative collectibles and entertainment merchandise: Gone With the Wind music boxes, for example.
This is my first time with a discussion. It is great. Now I am going to go over each item that explains how to do things. I do have a question-Where do I get the christmas items to sell? Thanks Betsy betsy5672
Hi bubbadah, Thanks! Just took a look at your store, be sure and update your listing titles, store category and store keywords will all the brands that are HOT this season.
Hello there! I have really enjoyed this workshop and have picked up some really important tip for my store! Do you have any ideas for me as most of my items are clothing items that are in gently used condition. I have a few items that are NWT or NWOT but most are used. Because of this...my sales plummet during the holidays as customers prefer new items as gifts. Do you have any ideas that might boost my sales during that time? Thanks so much!
Thanks for all the information and links to get even more... My brain is in overload right now. We spent our summer shopping and have been writing descriptions so we can start a store by September. Hopefully to capture those early bird shoppers. I will certainly put all this information to good use. Thanks again!
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so the patterns you see during the holidays are not necessarily what you will see year round.
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