Turn Your eBay Listings into Sales Magnets (No Duct Tape Required)

To reach eBay seller success, getting your listings right is the key to customer engagement and sales conversion. 

A compelling title, stunning images and an optimised product description could mean the difference between overwhelming success and the occasional sale. These elements, if done right, are there to guarantee higher eBay search rankings, putting your products in front of more people. You’ll also be able to use keywords to tailor your items to the right target audience to gain a better long-term following.

Let’s take a look at how to make eBay listings stand out to your consumers.

How to make eBay listings stand out

There are a few things to consider when you first venture out into the world of engaging eBay listings. You’ll notice that there are a number of different types of listings from short, snappy eBay product descriptions, to longer, more in-depth paragraphs that describe every feature and benefit of the product.

What works for you will be dependent on your product area and your target demographic, so it’s always best to take a look at the raw data before you begin to see what other successful sellers in your niche are doing.

But to give you a head start, below are the main things you need to focus on.

Use keywords in your title

Try to give a short, but accurate description of your product in your title and place a keyword at the beginning. This will rank you further up the search results based on that keyword if someone searches for it.

Use high-quality images

Your item won’t even get a look-in if the image quality is bad. You’ll lose the faith of your customers as they can’t see what they’re buying. Use a good camera and take photos in the daylight.

Add detail to your description

The product description is a delicate balance between providing enough information for the customer to understand what they’re buying and overloading them with text so that they lose interest.

Try a few short paragraphs with factual information embellished with some exciting keywords. If in doubt, collect some data on your competitor’s listings so you can see what works and what doesn’t.

Set fair prices

At the end of the day, your eBay pricing strategy is the major thing that sets you apart from your competition. If you offer similar products, then your customers are most likely to go for the cheapest option with the best deal on delivery.

Pull some data for price comparison in your niche area and try to set a price that works for you to make a profit. Every penny counts.

Data-driven eBay selling strategies

By analysing past trends and buyer behaviour you’ll be able to identify common peak areas and predict what may be popular in the future. This is especially true if you sell seasonal items. Finding the data from last Christmas and understanding what sold well for other sellers will help you create the best inventory in the coming year, knowing how many items you’re likely to sell.

Leveraging eBay data insights in this way can help you set your store up for success and also limit the amount of waste, as you’ll only buy products that have always sold well previously.

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Dynamic pricing strategies for eBay sellers

Dynamic pricing is another critical aspect of data-driven selling on eBay and there are even automated repricing tools to help you move with the times and avoid the stress of constant manual adjustments.

However, these types of tools need to operate with a foundation, and for that you’ll need to look at the eBay data insights. The best way to understand your data is to find your top competitors and pull the raw information regarding sales and pricing over the past 12 months. This will set a baseline for your results and will allow you to revisit the information and rethink if one strategy doesn’t quite pan out the way you expected.

The best keywords for eBay listings

To maximise your eBay SEO strategy and move up the rankings on eBay, you need to make sure your product titles and eBay product descriptions are rich with powerful keywords.

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So, which keywords work?

Product specific terms

These are the names of the products, or the brand names. For tech products, the model numbers will work too. People looking for a specific item will search for its actual name first.

Descriptive keywords

These are for the customers who aren’t quite sure which product they want, but they know what sort of thing they’re looking for. Talk about the colour, the material and the size. It’s also good to mention the important features. For example, ‘waterproof’ or ‘handmade’.

Use words for buyer intent

These words will help buyers filter out products that they don’t find acceptable. For example ‘new’ or ‘used’. You can also include shipping methods here - ‘free shipping’ is always a winner.

Seasonal words

This is where the eBay data insights are particularly helpful. You can look into the products that sold well during a particular seasonal period and visit their listings to see which words were used. There’s no shame in using those listings as a template for your own - with some slight differences, of course.

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eBay listing mistakes to avoid

As well as ensuring your images are good quality and adding to your eBay listing optimisation with keywords, there are a few things that you should avoid when creating good listings. And guess what, data can help with those too.

Avoid keyword stuffing

We’ve talked about how important it is to have keywords in your listings. However, including too many keywords in your product description could be classed as ‘keyword stuffing’. This is a practice where sellers fill up their description with nothing but keywords, making the text unreadable or unnatural. You will get penalised in eBay search rankings for this, so make sure that your eBay product descriptions flow naturally, with just a few well-placed keywords.

Poor eBay title optimisation

This is when the title describes the item, but doesn’t state exactly what it is. It’s better to name the product with the brand name and exact title, than say that it’s a ‘new phone.’

Overpricing

This is the main reason for failure in the eBay marketplace. While you need to make a profit on every transaction, some sellers will list products at a much higher price than their competitors, meaning that customers will overlook a listing. At the end of the day, customers are always looking for the best deal.

Grabbing the data from your competitors can help you settle on a price that slightly undercuts, without cutting into your profits too much. Using the raw email data means you can not only use the best practice from successful listings, but you can find those listings which didn’t do so well and investigate why. If you see an item that you thought would sell well but didn’t, then you can check out the listing to see what went wrong - you’ll know not to do that in future.

How to increase sales on eBay using data with Indications

Your success as an eBay seller hinges on understanding exactly what works and putting that into practice. Trial and error rarely brings success, and is bound to cost more money in the long-run. To make a profit quickly, search out the top competitor listings and understand exactly which products work for your target audience and why.

This seems like a huge task - but not with the data from Indications.

Indications are experts on sourcing raw and relevant data for your niche, finding your competitors and displaying data in a simple and easy-to-read way so that you can pick out the best products and listings without hours of hard research.

Contact Indications to discuss your unique selling points, your goals and your industry and you’ll receive all the data you need to piece together a winning sales solution

Success is just around the corner with eBay data from Indications. Contact us today for fast actionable data. No research, just results.