It has always been our endeavour to understand how buyers use different sort functions on eBay to search for the deals they are looking for.
What are buyers looking for?
Today’s consumers want choice, great deals, unique products, customization and specialization. Now this is not to say that we’re seeing the end of mass marketed, commodity products. It’s only to say that buyers are also hungry for something unique. They like new ideas, bundled offers, products and concepts. They like hard to find, obscure, up and coming brands. All this at great prices!
And the easiest way to find success as an eBay seller is to offer these kinds of products. Buyers in this segment are happy to search through 10 pages of results to find the product that is right for them. It pays off handsomely in terms of steady sales.
Specific & relevant selling
This means which listings are the most relevant to the buyer’s search. The more generic your product is, for example “silver hoop earrings”, the more likely those buyer search results are to return thousands of listings and pages and pages of search results.
And the harder you will have to compete (with all the other listings) to get your listing on those first pages of eBay's search results.
Importance of Keywords
In ecommerce, KEYWORDS play a vital role. Keywords, much more than browsing, are the way that the majority of people will find what YOU have to sell. Therefore, it is important, that no matter what you sell, you pay close attention to the keywords you use to describe the products you sell. Are they accurate? Are they relevant to your product? Are you using brand names, model numbers, colors, styles, descriptions, feature names, describing the functionality of the product?
Even if you STOCK the best products in the world, if you are using vague, non-descriptive keywords in your title and listing descriptions, shoppers will be hard pressed to find your products.
How shipping charges impact your visibility in search results?
With the increased competition in eCommerce, buyers have become much more sensitive to shipping costs on eBay. Expensive shipping is a reason some buyers leave eBay.
Hence eBay has made arrangements for listings that provide good shipping prices and offer the best opportunity to deliver great buyer satisfaction. Factors such as Relevance, Time Ending, Seller Performance, and Shipping & Handling decide where you are placed on the search results. The better you are on the above fronts the higher buyer visibility you gain through your listings placed on the first set of pages with search results. We recommend that you offer ‘Free Shipping’ which helps you increase your Shipping & handling DSR scores and thereby catch the first sight of the buyer.
Offer ‘Free Shipping’ to enjoy buyer’s preference
Free shipping deals play a major role in whether consumers buy in a store or online. 18% of respondents said they shop in stores so they won't have to pay for shipping and 33% said they have bought from web site instead of a store because the retailer offered free shipping. Three out of five online customers said the availability of free shipping greatly influenced their choice to shop at one e-retailer instead of another.
Avoiding shipping costs was the third most common response for why shoppers choose to buy in a store rather than on a retailer's website, behind the ability to receive the product immediately and being able to see or feel an item before purchase.
Moreover, consumers gave the retailers offering free shipping higher scores in every satisfaction category than those not offering it. The categories include: likelihood to purchase online, brand commitment, likelihood to return, likelihood to recommend and overall retailer satisfaction.
E-retailers are realizing that free shipping is a major selling point, the study shows. 68% of shoppers recall some kind of shipping offer – a percentage that has increased steadily over the last three years, 20% of holiday customers surveyed said they saw no free shipping offers over the holidays, while 12% did not remember.
Join this workshop to learn more about how buyers search for deals, variety and exclusive items on eBay.
See you on –
Wednesday, 11th February, 4 – 5 PM to learn more on selling on eBay.
Please feel free to ask any questions regarding 'Selling on eBay' on this thread.
Regards,
The eBay Team
