eBay as Entertainment - De-Mystifying Angelina Jolie's Bra, a Mutant Steak Chunk and an Anti-Oprah Winfrey Helmut

Not only is eBay an auction medium.. it's rapidly becoming an entertainment medium. It's almost like a goofy cable access QVC show that knows no bounds.

There are people selling Angelina Jolie's bra and panties from the movie "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." Someone's selling animal crackers in compromising positions. There's a "gross valved steak chunk" that was found in a can of soup.

One guy's even selling a a PBR helmut that's designed to keep him from watching Oprah (that's who I'm guessing he's referring to).

So what's the point? Wildness and entertaining stuff is viral. If you can strike it big with a humor piece that also features gallery views of your other eBay auctions or eBay store offerings, you can make some dough via the humor email circuit and the sites that track this stuff.

Be careful that you don't offend your users, though. A misstep could cost you some customers.

DISCLAIMER: I don't endorse any of these sites or condone their taste. Just a little fun before the weekend starts.

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eBay Product Feature Positioning - Don't Try to Make Out at the Beginning of a Blind Date

Quite a few eBay listings start with bulleted lists of features.

In boxing this would be called leading with your chin.

In the dating world, I’d describe this as trying make out with a blind date when you first pick her up.

Feature lists are important to listings, but you don’t want to lead with them. In the dating scenario, you want to go to dinner first, discuss your strengths, values and career/interests. You see if your date is interested (and vice versa). Then you save the physical feature list (your make-out skills) for last.

You make a connection first. Then you close with the goods.

The same goes for eBay listings. Connect with the prospect’s dream first. Sell them on the idea of a new image, better health, a more productive work day, the promise of status or sexiness, or a money-making/profit proposition. Make the emotional connection and show them that you can offer these incredible, life-changing benefits.

Then you slam-dunk the sale with a feature list. Show them all the things your product has that make it equal to or better than a competitive product.

These kinds of descriptions can be as long or a short as necessary. It depends on what you’re selling. If you’re selling a boat, the list could be quite long. If you’re selling printer refill cartridges, chances are the benefits and feature list will be small.

In any event, don’t try to make out at the beginning of the date. Wait until you’ve established a connection.

Phil Dunn is a marketing consultant and co-author of The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing (McGraw-Hill, 2005). His eBay blog, http://ebay-marketing.blogspot.com offers tips, tricks and strategies that help people generate eBay sales now.

Do You Have the Guts to Sell?

Marketing Plans Should Challenge the Marketers

“If you don't believe in your product, of if you're not consistent and regular in the way you promote it, the odds of succeeding go way down. The primary function of the marketing plan is to ensure that you have the resources and the wherewithal to do what it takes to make your product work.

Chapter 1 of The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing covers this in-depth, and it points out the unique areas you need to tend to as an eBay seller.

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About.com has a lot of great resources for business people. I've been there dozens of times for specific small business information pertaining to marketing, legal, advertising and operational advice.

They plugged this blog and the 7 Steps eBay book recently, and it's been great for book sales and site traffic. I just want to publicly thank Mr. Scott Allen for checking out the blog and rating it so highly. He even rated some of my posts to give readers some indication of what he thought was valuable.

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Do You Have An eBay Marketing Question?

In order to make this blog a little more dialogue-oriented, I’m adding a new feature (a conceptual feature, I should say).

Up to this point, the blog has acted as a soap box or megaphone of sorts. A one-way broadcast.

Now, I’d like to open the room up to questions.

Are there specific eBay questions that you’re having a tough time answering? I’ve got a network of eBay PowerSellers and business leaders that can answer just about any question related to the eBay site, marketing products, shipping, and providing excellent customer service. If I can’t answer your question directly, I’ll bring in subject matter experts.

Give it a try – email me with a question (dunn@qualitywriter.com). Or post a question as a comment. Be sure to make it specific, and please add your insights if you’ve researched it a bit but don’t have the complete answer yet.

As we get more minds together, I think everyone stands to learn even more.

P.S. Amazon.com knocked 32% off the cover price of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill, 2005). Walmart.com sells if for 36% off!

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Google - eBay War Affecting Ads, Sales and Profits?

So eBay and Google are in a cat fight. The former just suspended AdWords purchasing because of a party Google launched in protest of eBay's decision not to allow eBay sellers to utilize Google's checkout service (during eBay Live).

Here are some additional links describing the brouhaha:

http://tinyurl.com/ysj52j
http://tinyurl.com/yo7hna

What does this mean to you, the eBay seller? Will limited Google AdWords advertisements impact the exposure your products get outside of eBay? Have you been able to track or measure this?

I'm very interested in any observations you have on the subject and any impact you've seen in the market place. Please comment below. Thanks.

eBay Marketing

Sometimes I go to the local coffee shop – Diedrich’s. Yesterday was one such day.

They had an odd piece of information up by the register in a holder. You can see it below – I scanned it. They had 30 or 40 of them stacked in a stand-up paper/brochure holder. The piece itself was printed in B&W on a standard 8.5X11 piece of paper. Super low tech. Very non-threatening (from a marketing perspective). It’s a story about how coffee got started. Take a look.

Kind of interesting. A conversation piece. You might tell your friend or wife about it after you stopped into the shop. It’s something to read while you’re waiting for your latté.

It’s not trying to sell anything. But it leaves you with a positive feeling about Diedrich’s.

Essentially, I think its purpose is to spread the word about the particular patron’s trip to the coffee shop. You might come home from work and tell your wife that “goats discovered coffee.” This is one of those fun, Cliff Claven-type factoids. You tell her the story and where you saw it. Then she thinks, “I love going to coffee houses, maybe I’ll go tomorrow.” This type of effect is probably working for Diedrich’s as we speak/read.

I like it – nothing to sell but some information that’s connected to the establishment. The word will get passed on, and the brand will be mentioned.

Can you think of stories that are not your own that you could co-opt for marketing or customer information purposes? Try it out. Find some stories that relate to your eBay products or eBay store and fashion them to your liking. Pop them into shipped packages. Send them to your newsletter subscribers.

P.S. Amazon.com knocked 32% off the cover price of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill, 2005). Walmart.com sells if for 36% off!

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Selling Via Education - 6 Critical White Paper Tips

Delivering white papers over the Internet is a great way to communicate in-depth information to highly targeted audiences. White papers also offer companies the opportunity to build marketing lists…. But, you’ve got to write them first. Some tips for producing first-rate white papers follow:

1. Offer a solution. Many white papers waste all kinds of time and ink on theory, probability and speculation. Good white papers establish well-defined problems and offer easily understood solutions. Leave the pontificating to the industry analysts.

2. Reduce marketing language to a minimum. These days, this tip even applies to marketing materials. The more you economize your exposition and eliminate hyperbole, the better.

3. Support assertions with evidence and examples. Tangible, mentally vivid examples help pull readers through long pieces of text and provide them with ammo when they go to present your assertions to somebody else. Metaphor is also helpful (for example, ammo).

4. Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them. Classic business presentation structure.

5. Use graphics, charts and pull quotes. White papers tend to be long. So, help the readers along with visual cues and graphics that complement the text and illuminate your explanations further.

6. Watch the length. Less than 15 pages is preferable for a given topic. If you find that your page count is hurtling toward novella length, consider breaking the project into several separate but related white papers.

P.S. Amazon.com knocked 32% off the cover price of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill, 2005). Walmart.com sells if for 36% off!

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If you're running a home business

If you're running a home business (eBay or otherwise) you need to constantly pay attention to marketing, network with people who can help you succeed, and stay inspired week in and week out. Des Walsh has a blog called Thinking Home Business that helps with all of these home biz aspects.

Surf around that site for a bit, and I'm certain you'll find a handful of insightful business tips that you can apply directly to your eBay business. Walsh brings a lot of other good resources together at the site, and he acts as an excellent information filter.

There's a lot of garbage out there that gets cycled and re-cycled through blogs. This one helps you weed through it all and increases the chances that you'll stumble onto something really useful. If you're looking for accurate, reliable, actionable small business information, watch this blog every week.

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Darple an eBay-like Web

Darple is an eBay-like Web site that allows bidding on multiple items.. without buying multiple items. When you win an item, your other bids for similar items are automatically withdrawn. It's pretty cool. My local paper wrote an article about it this morning. eBay should be doing this. They'd get a lot more activity, and pricing would reach realistic levels quickly because serious buyers would be able to rapidly place bids without worrying about ordering multiple items. As a buyer, you wouldn't have to spend so much time surfing eBay itself and mulling over choices. You'd just search, bid and wait for everything to shake out.

Do you think a feature like this would boost or erode pricing levels on eBay? That's the most interesting question, I think.

Please comment below and let me know what you think. Thanks.

Dale Carnegie's eBay Marketing Connections

"There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it."

- Dale Carnegie

Though Carnegie was actively presenting his self-help courses and books in the early half of the 20^th century, you can certainly apply this little bit of wisdom to modern day eBay listings.

What we do: Are your eBay customer service policies, follow through, and shipping practices consistent and helpful? Do you keep the marketing and sales promises you make?

How we look: What do your pages look like? Are they typographically legible? Do they use sound layout and design strategies? Do the photos look good and represent the products accurately?

What we say: Is your copy connecting with the needs and desires of customers? Is it simple, conversational and free of hyperventilating exaggeration?

How we say it: What is the tone of your description copy? Does it fit your audience? Are you closing throughout the copy?

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Coca Cola, Oprah Winfrey and Wendy’s Use eBay to Cozy Up to Customers

Earlier this month, USA Today ran an interesting article about how big brands are using eBay to build buzz around their products and sell related products.

This got me thinking. Is there a way to hitch your eBay wagon to the bigger brands and cash in on some bigtime promotion and publicity? Could you be the kind of vendor who sells the “Zero-inspired jewelry” that’s mentioned in the article? Are there other avenues into this market?

Also – can you use the popularity of certain trends, fads and well-known advertising campaigns to gain visibility with your eBay products? Remember a while back when I blogged about How Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie Can Help You Connect with Customers? I think we’re talking about something similar here.

Let me know if you have similar ideas or approaches that have worked. I’d be happy to get into your successes (and failures, too) here on this blog. It will help all of us.

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The Care and Feeding of eBay Customers

"Be it furniture, clothes, or health care, many industries today are marketing nothing more than commodities -- no more, no less. What will make the difference in the long run is the care and feeding of customers."

-- Micheal Mescon

This is true on eBay as well as in the brick and mortar marketing world. Customers need attention, sustained dialogue, service and respect.

P.S. Amazon.com and Walmart.com have the lowest prices for "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill, 2005)

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Bob Bly, eBay Marketing and 1985

“Maintaining a dignified image or getting people to remember your message is not important. The only thing that counts is how many sales or inquiries your mailing generates. The more responses, the more successful the mailer.”

This is Bob Bly writing in 1985 (The Copywriter’s Handbook).

The same ideas apply to eBay listings. The listing itself is a direct sales letter, or a piece of direct mail. It doesn’t come in the mailbox, but it does show up on search results in eBay (unless the keyword title has been botched somehow). You need to test what works and tweak your copy and presentation until you hit on a combination that brings in more bids and better margins.

Check the “completed items” box when you search for items sold to see what kinds of items you (or anyone else) has had success with. Or use one of the many auction analysis tools that we discuss in the book – The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing.

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Dermatology and eBay Selling

If anyone tells you that doctors aren’t salespeople, consider dismissing what that someone has to say from then on.

I know, most doctors get into the profession to save lives and comfort the sick, but part of that process involves persuasion. And today’s system of drug and treatment development has placed heavy sales pressure on doctors. Some resist it, but many improve the revenues of their practice by playing the game.

Case in point: I went to the dermatologist to have a mole looked at, and I went home with a hole in my head and a tube of lotion unrelated to the hole in my head.

The mole was “suspicious looking,” and the lotion is used to treat something called rosacea – redness of the face brought on by all kinds of things including avocados, chocolate, alcohol, stress, and hot weather. All things that I’m fond of. Maybe not stress.

Anyway, the lotion was a classic cross-sell – the kind you should be proposing to your eBay customers. When someone’s is getting ready to check out, offer them additional items related to their initial purchase. In my case I came in for potential skin cancer removal. They cross-sold me some cream to deal with something else skin related.

A need was filled (I guess – I didn’t think my face looked red), and I was sent home with some free samples of the lotion. This is another good marketing tactic – send them home with a sample. Works great in the medical field, with food, beverages and puppy dogs. The classic example is called “the puppy dog sale,” where the pet store says you can take the puppy home for a day or two to see if you’re ready for the challenge. Invariably you become attached and keep the puppy.

Try some puppy dog sales and cross-sells with your own business. Throw in some free samples in a shipped package, suggest complementary items before checkout. You’ll boost sales in the process.

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eBay Sales and the Coffee Shop - Profit Stories

Sometimes I go to the local coffee shop – Diedrich’s. Yesterday was one such day.

They had an odd piece of information up by the register in a holder. You can see it below – I scanned it. They had 30 or 40 of them stacked in a stand-up paper/brochure holder. The piece itself was printed in B&W on a standard 8.5X11 piece of paper. Super low tech. Very non-threatening (from a marketing perspective). It’s a story about how coffee got started. Take a look.

Kind of interesting. A conversation piece. You might tell your friend or wife about it after you stopped into the shop. It’s something to read while you’re waiting for your latté.

It’s not trying to sell anything. But it leaves you with a positive feeling about Diedrich’s.

Essentially, I think its purpose is to spread the word about the particular patron’s trip to the coffee shop. You might come home from work and tell your wife that “goats discovered coffee.” This is one of those fun, Cliff Claven-type factoids. You tell her the story and where you saw it. Then she thinks, “I love going to coffee houses, maybe I’ll go tomorrow.” This type of effect is probably working for Diedrich’s as we speak/read.

I like it – nothing to sell but some information that’s connected to the establishment. The word will get passed on, and the brand will be mentioned.

Can you think of stories that are not your own that you could co-opt for marketing or customer information purposes? Try it out. Find some stories that relate to your eBay products or eBay store and fashion them to your liking. Pop them into shipped packages. Send them to your newsletter subscribers.

P.S. Amazon.com knocked 32% off the cover price of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill, 2005). Walmart.com sells if for 36% off!

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Apply Value-Add Strategies to Your eBay Auctions

The following is from Dr. Robert Cialdini's Inside Influence Report:

"...advertising campaigns that inform potential clients of the real-world threats that your company’s goods or services can alleviate should be accompanied immediately in time by clear, specific, effective steps they can take to reduce the danger.”

The whole article is very intriguing. Take a look at this article, and see if you can apply some of the wisdom to your own eBay listings and descriptions. The right application of this research will immediately increase sales and improve your eBay selling overall.

All of this relates to something the marketing business calls "value-add." By adding value to your products (whether it's through bonuses, additional information, or your specific expertise), you differentiate your products and gain greater market share and mind share.

Here's something else that Cialdini notes: "Potential customers are more motivated by fear than the opportunity for gain." Now that's intriguing. It goes against traditional marketing philosophy that stresses positive benefits. Usually we're taught to list all the great things that the customer will experience after purchasing the product. The sale, however, relies more on the fears that motivate the buyer in the first place. Cialdini has the data to back it up.

If you're serious about the science of marketing and persuasion, I highly recommend reading Cialdini's books (or listening to his audio resources). The level of detail is deep, and the insights are numerous.

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The Crazy eBay Price Reversal Axiom - Compliments of the Kellogg School of Management

There’s some new research in that confirms what a lot of eBay sellers have already learned through price experimentation…

With popular items, if you start prices low, you gain more bidders and stand a better chance of selling your item at a higher final gavel price. With not so popular items, it’s better to establish a higher price, since you may not get many interested shoppers

This is from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. The Minneapolis Star Tribune recently ran an article on the subject – The psychology of selling on eBay. The original paper, "Starting Low But Ending High: A Reversal of the Anchoring Effect in Auctions," was co-authored by Adam Galinsky, associate professor of management and organization at Kellogg.

What other special cases do you notice? How do you approach pricing unique items on eBay? Please share your insights and comments below. We’d love to learn from your experience.. mistakes.. discoveries. Thanks.

Read "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing"(McGraw-Hill) to learn more about eBay selling psychology.

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