How to Use a YouTube Video in your EBay Auctions

YouTube is becoming a key to success in e-commerce marketing. First let's discuss how to get a youtube video in your eBay listings. After uploading a video to YouTube.com, they give you the code for their embedded player as shown below:

Simply copy and paste ALL of the text in that box into the html of your eBay listing.

Now WHY would you put a youtube video in your listings? There are three reasons that seem most prevalent:

1. Be able to demonstrate your product. You have much better control over your sales process when your potential customers hit your listings

2. Trust Factors. Putting a video on youtube automatically makes you seem like a more professional company. I've mentioned trust logos in previous posts, and I'll go into them in more detail soon. Long story short, just seeing the YouTube logo at the bottom of the video will add to buyer confidence.

3. Give buyers unique/privaledged insight into your company to make them loyal buyers.

Out of the three reasons I hear most often, I believe #2 is the most relevent. Expect to see a lot more from me about using YouTube to market your internet presence.

Final Word of Caution: If you are selling low dollar high competition products or products where your buyers rarely need to read the descrption to make their purchase decision, be weary of using video on your eBay listings. It might only serve to make the page load slower and give your buyers a longer chance to hit the back button instead of buying.

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Christmas in August!

Can you smell the sweet smell of fresh snow and evergreens? of store bought wrapping paper and freshly cooked ham? If not, we'll set you straight!

It's that time of year again to start thinking red and green (especially green, if you get me). While the summer sales doldrums are starting to wear off, this is the best time to plan out your Christmas season strategy. I've outlined a few suggestions for you:

Clean up your listings.
Examine your best selling products and make sure you have clear pictures portraying your products at their best. Check your sales copy and make sure your descriptions are short, to the point, impactual, and include all the necessary information. Make sure your text is selling your product.

Sales copy is often overlooked on a listing. If you're unfamiliar with writing sales copy, now is a good time to head over to amazon.com and purchase a highly rated book on it.

Optimize your workflow.
Clean up your workplace. One thing that will make you more efficient for the holiday season is to make sure there isn't a lot of clutter in your way while you're trying to get work done. Make sure all of your materials are stocked and in the right place.

Ask yourself if you can remember any roadblocks in your process last year. What takes the most time? Use the time before the sales increase to test process improvements.

Isolate the one thing that makes you different
Why should someone buy from you instead of your competition? Is it superior service or knowledge? a higher quality product? Do your listings portray your competative advantage?

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Hopefully this post sparked a few ideas. Our very own Sell Center experts are going to be focusing a lot on these same issues with the clients in our coaching program. I'll see if they can share some tidbits here in the coming weeks. Read More...

Shipping Box and Weight Requirements for UPS, USPS, Fedex

Just a quick note I had to share:

I found a page buried in the eBay help files that has ALL of the shipping weight and dimension requirements clearly and concisely on one page. The file lists each service level for USPS, UPS, and Fedex. Take a look:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/shipping-options.html

I can't tell you how much of my time and our clients' time has been wasted digging through the courier sites trying to find this information when needed. Hope this helps! Read More...