How should I amend my eBay listings around Christmas time?
The festive season is the busiest time of the year for online sales and that applies to eBay as well.
Professional eBayers are well aware that they should expect to shift a higher proportion of products during the final months of the year, whilst casual sellers should be able to attract a lot more interest in their unwanted items.
There are certain selling methods which can improve your eBay selling success over Christmas. Here are five tips to help you rake in some festive dough.
Timing is everything
Make sure your items are on sale during the periods when traffic to e-commerce websites is expected to be high. List your items too early and you risk missing the festive rush. Put them up too late and there's a chance you'll only reach the panic buyers.
Black Friday (November 29) and Cyber Monday (December 2) - the Friday and Monday directly after the American holiday Thanksgiving - are regarded as the most popular days of the year for online shopping, so make sure you've started your online selling surge by then.
Christmas keywords
At Christmas, a lot of people browse eBay looking for inspiration rather than a specific product. After all, nearly everyone has that friend, colleague or relative that they feel obliged to get a present for but have no idea what to get.
Cater to this audience by ensuring your listing has lots of festive keywords. "Christmas present" is a no-brainer, whilst "stocking filler" or "secret santa" are other useful suggestions. Just by suggesting that an item might make a "great stocking filler", you may find that sales improve.
Adjust postage expectations
A lot of festive ebay purchases are rendered almost worthless if they don't arrive before Christmas Day. As a seller, it's your responsibility to make it absolutely clear when a package is due to arrive. Do whatever it takes to prevent newbie buyers from selecting a postage set to arrive after Christmas. Write the postage details in capitals in the description if you have to. The deadlines for 2013 UK delivery is 20 December for 1st class and 23 December for Special Delivery.
Even if you don't offer super-fast delivery options, consider doing so at Christmas. Some buyers might need their items a couple of weeks before Christmas Day, for example if they're travelling a long way home.
Make use of 'Buy It Now'
Some Christmas shoppers might not want the stress of trying to win auctions in order to get their Christmas shopping done on time.
With this in mind, it might be worth adding a Buy It Now option to your listings at this time of year. Stressed shoppers could be willing to pay a premium just to ensure they win the auction.
Festive extras
Including an option to add gift wrapping is a clever tactic that most department stores use at Christmas to make a few extra pounds, so why not do the same in the online world?
Also, professional eBayers could find it fruitful to include money-off vouchers for their website with all Christmas purchases. Consumers tend to have a lot of time and money to spend in the days immediately following Christmas, so why not give customers an incentive to spend both on your website?
eBayers who follow these tips could find that their PayPal accounts are much fuller than usual during the festive season.