What does it really mean to succeed on eBay?
No matter what kind of niche you’ve chosen, the answer is always the same: increasing conversion rates and increasing those profits.
The question isn’t about ‘what’ — it’s about ‘how’.
That’s why today, we’ve put together a list of 10 tips you can use on eBay today to increase your conversion rates, save you money and (more importantly) make your business more profitable.
Sound good? Great, let’s get started.
1. Be Honest
Let’s get one thing straight: no business is an island.
Every single business in the eCommerce space is in service to its customers and you’re no exception.
Honesty isn’t just something for the sake of being considerate. It’s a vehicle you can use to preserve a ‘conversion gone wrong’.
If your product arrived cracked or damaged, chances are that your customer isn’t particularly happy.
In fact, there’s a good chance that if you do nothing, you’ll end up with a negative review. And if you expect to thrive on a platform like eBay, you can’t afford to let that happen.
eBay rewards highly rated sellers, so make sure you’re one of them.
Instead of simply letting that happen, do your best to smooth over the situation and see if you can turn this unsatisfied customer into a repeat customer.
2. Don’t Use Too Much Copy
For whatever reason, there are tons of sellers on eBay cluttering up their product descriptions with massive walls of text.
Whatever you do, don’t use too much copy!
The modern consumer is already busy enough. The last thing they want to do is read your giant essay describing a hiking backpack.
At best, they’ll ignore the wall of text and at worse, they’ll ignore your product entirely.
eBay lets you heavily customize your product presentation, so aim for a more visual presentation whenever possible.
3. Build an Email List
Here’s one that you won’t get with most other eCommerce platforms.
If you’re trying to build a legitimate business, you’re going to need an email list.
Why? Because having an email list means you’re no longer at the mercy of the Google algorithm.
You’re able to market directly to interested parties, and you’re able to do this easily with a platform like eBay.
There are plenty of eBay templates you can invest in that lend themselves directly email marketing (something you just won’t find on platforms like Amazon).
4. Respect Trust Signals
Selling on eBay comes with a lot of perks, but those perks don’t come without a cost.
If you want to take full advantage of everything eBay has to offer, you’ll need to have a high rank within the platform.
And it’s easy to see why. If eBay is going to provide you with all these perks, they want to be sure they’re rewarding the best sellers.
These are the sellers that give customers exactly what they’re looking for, consistently and efficiently.
Interestingly enough, if you’re taking the time to create a top-notch experience, you should take the extra step and showcase your success.
If you’re highly rated, make sure that potential customers can see that. These trust signals are the first step into turning a ‘maybe’ into a ‘yes’, and you’d be a fool not to take advantage of them.
5. Focus on Search Rankings
Like any savvy seller, you want to increase your conversion rate.
And as we mentioned earlier, if you want to make the most out of eBay, you’re going to need to prove you’re a top seller.
Why do we mention all this? Well, because being a top seller is about more than just having lots of sales.
The higher your conversion rate is, the higher you’ll be ranked. And having a high conversion rate comes down to the number of people that consider your product vs. actually buying it.
If 1 out of every 100 visits results in a sale, you’re going to have a low conversion rate, no matter how many sales you make.
Focus on creating an undeniable experience that can convert every customer considering your product. You’re going for quality over quantity here.
6. Research using Google
Our favorite research tool? Google Autocomplete.
It might sound simple, but there’s nothing more likely to give you the answers you’re looking for than Google.
Conducting some eBay research is important too, but if you’re looking for global market trends, Google is where you get started.
The top three results are worth investigating further, especially if you want to remain competitive in your industry.
7. Invest in Marketing Wisely
As far as marketing goes, most sellers don’t typically know where to start.
Which is understandable. There’s so much conflicting information out there that anyone would be unsure of where to start.
The golden rule of marketing budgets is that they should start at a 1:3 ratio.
In other words, whenever you’re selling a product, you should never spend more than ⅓ of the price on marketing.
If your watches sell for $210, your marketing campaign shouldn’t cost more than $70.
As an eBay seller, you have to worry about shipping, sourcing, packaging…and all of that costs money.
Keep your profit margin healthy and your business will thank you.
8. Write Appealing Titles
We live in a time where business owners are more concerned with algorithms than they are with customers.
And that’s no surprise, since predicting algorithm behavior is easier than predicting human behavior.
But keep in mind that you’re not selling to algorithms — you’re selling to people.
At the end of the day, if your copy isn’t appealing to the average consumer, you’re never going to make that sale.
Do what you can to leverage eBay SEO, but don’t compromise the integrity of your sales journey in the process.
9. Use High-Quality Images
Remember what we said earlier about the wall of text?
Having too much copy can be a disaster, and that’s not by accident.
eBay is a platform that focuses on making the user experience as enjoyable as possible. That’s why it rewards sellers that do the same.
When you’re creating a visual experience for your users, you’ll want to be sure that you’re using high-quality images whenever possible.
It’s not enough to snap a picture with your phone and hope for the best.
Take pristine, clear pictures on a neutral background. If it’s blurry, it’s unusable.
Make sure to take images of your item from multiple angles. Not only does this inspire confidence in your consumers (showing you have nothing to hide), but it gives them more visual content to absorb.
And whatever you do, don’t use images that look better than what you’re actually selling. This can quite literally ruin your business, so make sure you’re doing everything possible to improve your relationship with customers.
10. Tap Into the International Markets
Here’s one that most people aren’t talking about, but is massively useful on a platform like eBay.
According to eBay themselves, 61% of their marketplace revenue is international.
In other words, you can’t afford to ignore the international market. The real question is: how do you actually tap into it?
Start by making sure you offer international shipping. If you can afford it, free international shipping will make a huge difference.
But you can even go a step further and list your products on a ‘local’ eBay site for a particular country.
Log onto eBay France and create your listing there. This ensures that your product gets listed higher in local results, and will help you beat out your fellow international competitors.
We all want to make more money (eBay included).
But if we’re going to do it, we need to improve the individual user experience in every way possible.
Always be honest and transparent with your customers. With any luck, you’ll be able to nurture that relationship and turn your audience into a community.
Resist the urge to overload consumers with too much copy. Build an email list using eBay and take your marketing efforts into your own hands.
Learn to promote your trust signals and respect the fact that eBay will reward you for this (if done properly).
Prioritize search rankings and increase the quality of your user experience instead of focusing on quantity.
Conduct your research on Google and eBay, don’t spend too much on marketing, and create copy for humans.
Finally, learn to use high-quality images to create more compelling experiences and leverage international markets to increase sales.
All of these alone would be enough to elevate your business. But when you combine all of these tips with the customization and freedom that eBay offers, it’s only a matter of time before your conversion rates skyrocket.
