Leverage Your Authority and Expertise

Excerpt from "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing."

Buyers worship authority and buy from experts they trust.Hence, establishing authority and expertise is crucial to selling on eBay. (Chapter 6 shows you how to develop trust by cultivating progressive customer service practices. The following sections are more presentation oriented.)

Some eBay sellers are experts in their particular fields. They know their products inside and out, they offer valuable advice to prospects, and they’re painfully aware of market conditions and pricing. Other sellers just sound authoritative because they know how to research topics and write compelling descriptions. Whichever boat you’re in, you can still improve the way you’re perceived. You can present your wares better and thus show off your expertise more effectively.

You can also fake it a little. Everyone has access to Google, and if you understand your prospects’ motivations, you can focus on what matters, what keywords to use, and how to direct your prospects to additional information. It’s also useful to use the “I’m not an expert, but…” approach while citing other sources.

Tip: When you position yourself as an expert, other opportunities inevitably arise. For example, if you head into Yahoo Groups and find discussion forums within your realm of expertise, you can answer questions there and help all kinds of people. Just be sure to insert your eBay Store URL as your signature file in the bottom of your posts. This drives targeted traffic directly from the forum postings to your listings.

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