Thursday, November 10, 2005
What You Can Learn From Competing Ebay Auctions
by Kirsten Hawkins
If you've a savvy businessperson, the chances are you've
already taken a look at your competitors' auctions. What you
might not have realised is just how much you can learn if you
know what you're looking for.
To begin with, don't bother looking at listings that haven't
ended yet - you don't know what's going to happen with them.
Instead, use the advanced search page to search for listings
that sold. Just go to the advanced search page, type in the
keywords that you know will find your competitors' items, tick
'Completed listings only' and set the minimum number of bids to
1. Set it to sort by 'Price: highest first'.
This will show you auctions competing with yours that have
recently finished, starting with the ones that sold for the
most (ignore any with prices in red - they didn't sell). Go
through and take a look, paying special attention to the
following points:
Titles. What information do the top sellers of your item put in
their titles, and what do they leave out? If your titles are
very different to theirs, it might be time for a rethink.
Descriptions. You'll probably notice that the highest sellers
haven't just copied text from the company's website or an
Amazon.com review - they've gone to the trouble of writing a
little about the item, and about themselves. Learn from their
example.
Pictures. I can almost guarantee you that the listing will have
very nice pictures - not catalogue quality, but good enough to
see what you're getting. With items of any significant cost,
you'll probably find more than one photo from different angles.
Style. Is it written conversationally, or in terse businesslike
language? The way you should write entirely depends on what the
market seems to like - and the market seems to like what the
top sellers wrote.
Time. It's pretty easy to ignore this as a factor without
meaning to, but pay attention to when the top selling items'
auctions began and ended. This might give you a few clues about
the best to catch buyers who will bid highly on your item, and
then you can schedule your items accordingly.
Price. If your competitors are selling using Buy it Now, you
can see what the maximum is that they've managed to sell for
recently, and set your own Buy it Now price slightly below
that.
Shipping. Look around to see the sweet spot for shipping. If
you can figure out a way to get your shipping costs lower than
the highest sellers, then this is a great opportunity to
differentiate yourself in the market.
Once you see what works, you can start to emulate your
competitors - of course you can't just copy them completely,
but you can structure your auction similarly and make sure it
includes the same information.
If you want your items to do even better, then start stocking
the items in your category that are the most in-demand. We'll
show you how to tell what's selling and what's not in our next
email.
About The Author: Kirsten Hawkins is an Ebay and internet
auction enthusiast from Nashville, TN. Visit
http://www.auctionseller411.com/ for more great tips on how to
make the most from Ebay and other online auctions.
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
You can sell over 2,000,000 products from 4,000 brands from your home!
If you've a savvy businessperson, the chances are you've
already taken a look at your competitors' auctions. What you
might not have realised is just how much you can learn if you
know what you're looking for.
To begin with, don't bother looking at listings that haven't
ended yet - you don't know what's going to happen with them.
Instead, use the advanced search page to search for listings
that sold. Just go to the advanced search page, type in the
keywords that you know will find your competitors' items, tick
'Completed listings only' and set the minimum number of bids to
1. Set it to sort by 'Price: highest first'.
This will show you auctions competing with yours that have
recently finished, starting with the ones that sold for the
most (ignore any with prices in red - they didn't sell). Go
through and take a look, paying special attention to the
following points:
Titles. What information do the top sellers of your item put in
their titles, and what do they leave out? If your titles are
very different to theirs, it might be time for a rethink.
Descriptions. You'll probably notice that the highest sellers
haven't just copied text from the company's website or an
Amazon.com review - they've gone to the trouble of writing a
little about the item, and about themselves. Learn from their
example.
Pictures. I can almost guarantee you that the listing will have
very nice pictures - not catalogue quality, but good enough to
see what you're getting. With items of any significant cost,
you'll probably find more than one photo from different angles.
Style. Is it written conversationally, or in terse businesslike
language? The way you should write entirely depends on what the
market seems to like - and the market seems to like what the
top sellers wrote.
Time. It's pretty easy to ignore this as a factor without
meaning to, but pay attention to when the top selling items'
auctions began and ended. This might give you a few clues about
the best to catch buyers who will bid highly on your item, and
then you can schedule your items accordingly.
Price. If your competitors are selling using Buy it Now, you
can see what the maximum is that they've managed to sell for
recently, and set your own Buy it Now price slightly below
that.
Shipping. Look around to see the sweet spot for shipping. If
you can figure out a way to get your shipping costs lower than
the highest sellers, then this is a great opportunity to
differentiate yourself in the market.
Once you see what works, you can start to emulate your
competitors - of course you can't just copy them completely,
but you can structure your auction similarly and make sure it
includes the same information.
If you want your items to do even better, then start stocking
the items in your category that are the most in-demand. We'll
show you how to tell what's selling and what's not in our next
email.
About The Author: Kirsten Hawkins is an Ebay and internet
auction enthusiast from Nashville, TN. Visit
http://www.auctionseller411.com/ for more great tips on how to
make the most from Ebay and other online auctions.
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
You can sell over 2,000,000 products from 4,000 brands from your home!
