Directing Traffic Towards an Ebay Account WIthout A Store?

[AlterJoule]

I've been selling on eBay and I'm trying to figure out how to increase traffic to our listings. I have searched here on the forum and online but am having trouble finding info on how to drive traffic to eBay listings that aren't utilizing an eBay Store...Just a regular seller...No fancy tools.

I'm getting around 30 views a week on some of the listings and I want higher numbers. Does anyone have experience with this?

I've used keyword rich titles and have been extremely thorough and detailed in my listing descriptions. Using the Subtitle to Promote, "US SELLER!!!, FREE PRIORITY, and an additional unique selling point that I don't want to say.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Turbo]

I have a few questions:
Are you a Top Rated Seller yet? TRS gets the lion's share of traffic and sales. It's an uphill battle till then.
Is there a particular reason you do not want an eBay store? Stores are pretty helpful. I believe a store is required to put an item on 'sale'. Even if the end price is the same, sales give you a little 'bump' in traffic.

Are your items using all the correct 'attributes' eBay provides? Eg: Shoe size, color, etc. Are you filling in applicable skus/UPCs where available?

Remember not to 'keyword spam' in your titles. eBay tracks the number of times your item comes up in search results, vs the number of times it is clicked on. So if you have terms that aren't super targeted in your title, your clickthrough rate goes down, and you eventually start losing rankings for the same query! Many people do not understand this crucial point.

eBay also tracks the number of item views you receive relative to sales and/or 'watches'. These are indicators of interest in your item... if you have 200 views and nobody buys or watches your item, or even asks a question on it- it will be banished towards the bottom of the search results.

Do you want 'traffic', or do you want 'sales'? Ensure you have many nice big pictures, good calls to action, and that your USP is good. Do you have an awesome return policy? These things all help conversion to sales, and a higher conversion from clickthrough to sales means eBay in turn gives you more traffic. You can run your own metrics on your listings and see why the better-performing listings are doing well. There is even a way to download segments of this data from eBay as well... I forget where exactly but I could dig it up.

Another tip is auctions automatically get pushed to the top of the results. You can start an auction for the same price as a fixed price item, and get some risk-free attention that way. You could also do a $1 start if you want to attract dozens and dozens of watchers, while marketing a fixed price listing for the same item withing your auction, if that make sense. People who don't want to wait and bid on an auction could purchase the item outright.

PM me if you want me to take a quick look for some tips that may help further.

 

[lovecharm]

Well, are you a TRS? I mean Top rated seller?

If not then you need to become a top rated seller, otherwise you can't compete with the others.

Ebay has become like google now, those who are TRS, they get ranked higher.

@Turbo just posted while I was writing this, and he pretty much nailed it.

 

[AlterJoule]

I have a few questions:
Are you a Top Rated Seller yet? TRS gets the lion's share of traffic and sales. It's an uphill battle till then.
Is there a particular reason you do not want an eBay store? Stores are pretty helpful. I believe a store is required to put an item on 'sale'. Even if the end price is the same, sales give you a little 'bump' in traffic.
Are your items using all the correct 'attributes' eBay provides? Eg: Shoe size, color, etc. Are you filling in applicable skus/UPCs where available?

When applicable? Yes.

Remember not to 'keyword spam' in your titles. eBay tracks the number of times your item comes up in search results, vs the number of times it is clicked on. So if you have terms that aren't super targeted in your title, your clickthrough rate goes down, and you eventually start losing rankings for the same query! Many people do not understand this crucial point.
eBay also tracks the number of item views you receive relative to sales and/or 'watches'. These are indicators of interest in your item... if you have 200 views and nobody buys or watches your item, or even asks a question on it- it will be banished towards the bottom of the search results.

My keywords only pertain to the listing and the title is written in complete sentences, not just stuffed words.

Do you want 'traffic', or do you want 'sales'? Ensure you have many nice big pictures, good calls to action, and that your USP is good. Do you have an awesome return policy? These things all help conversion to sales, and a higher conversion from clickthrough to sales means eBay in turn gives you more traffic. You can run your own metrics on your listings and see why the better-performing listings are doing well. There is even a way to download segments of this data from eBay as well... I forget where exactly but I could dig it up.

I want sales. I take the max allowable pictures under many circumstances and showcase the items under multiple uses. All of which I fix in Photoshop and behind a nice white backdrop. I offer free shipping, free priority shipping, satisfaction guarantee, etc. I was trying to find tools but it looked as if that was only available to basic store owners and above. I will look again.

Another tip is auctions automatically get pushed to the top of the results. You can start an auction for the same price as a fixed price item, and get some risk-free attention that way. You could also do a $1 start if you want to attract dozens and dozens of watchers, while marketing a fixed price listing for the same item withing your auction, if that make sense. People who don't want to wait and bid on an auction could purchase the item outright.

I have not done this. I will try this. Thank you.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[crownbjj]

@Turbo, thanks for all the amazing tip! Its making alot of sense to me now

 

[RazorCut]

As Turbo was saying you can use auctions to funnel traffic to your Buy It Now listing. Look at your buying audiences history and figure out when the prime times they are making purchases is and schedule your auctions to finish over that period. Drip feed your auctions so you have them populating your prime selling time as much as possible. Make it VERY clear in your auctions that if they don't want to wait they can buy right now by following your link. Also use the auctions as a way of test market your titles. See which gets the most attention/conversions then use that info to tweak your BIN title.

When you have finalised your listing title then I would use that title as the link rather than a listing number so it always shows an active listing rather than one that has sold out/expired as you do not have a store, (I know eBay does provide a link in the sold out listing to your relist but not sure if that happens if you don't have a store as I no longer sell on eBay).

Stores are very powerful though so I would consider making the investment.

 

[Gale4rc]

Sell faster too, they rank you higher the better your conversions are.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.