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Auction Strategists Newsletter
Brought to you by Jenni Hunt
www.jennihunt.com
In this newsletter:
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1. 7 No Cost Ways To Bring In New Bidders
2. Over 50% of Americans Plan To Buy These This Holiday Season!
3. How to subscribe or Change your subscription status
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Happy Thanksgiving Week!!
We spent our morning hooking up a wireless printer… I know – we
are so behind the times! We actually got this printer LAST YEAR. In
fact, it was still sealed in the box this morning – but, now it is
finally up and running.
As we were pulling it out and getting it all setup with the laptop
I was blown away by how outdated the technology was. It is still a
great printer – but, it wasn’t designed to run with VISTA (and
Windows 7 just came out!)… and you have to use the CD with the
software on it to be able to set it up with a computer. Well, we
just bought one of those netbooks – and it doesn’t even have a CD
drive. Although I’m sure we can dig for a downloadable version
online… there was no mention of it in the installation
instructions.
All this got me thinking about how eBay has changed over the
years… and how technology has played it’s part in those changes.
It has provided so many ways for sellers to bring in their own
customers.
It use to be that sellers were completely reliant on eBay and it’s
own search capabilities for bidders to be able to find your
listings. Did you know that you no longer have to rely on eBays
search engine for your potential bidders to find your listings?
I’m sure you already knew that… but, either way, I put together a
short list of 7 ways you can drive traffic (more bidders) to your
current auctions… and not only will they not cost you anything,
most of them don’t rely on eBay for the traffic!
7 Quick Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Auctions
1. Add a shipping special and cross-promote between your auctions.
(okay, on a little side note, some of you might interpret the
discount on shipping as costing you something… and I did say that
these methods won’t cost you anything… keep reading 😉
IF you have an item that is very popular and selling like hotcakes
on eBay than a shipping special is a great way to get bidders to
look at ALL of your auctions. The key is to have the shipping
special only apply to multiple auction wins so they have to poke
around at your other listings.
2. Comment on a blog that is related to the items you are selling.
Be sure your comment provides value to the blog itself… and then
when you are promted to leave your website/url, use your eBay store
link or the link to your listings. Not only will other commenters
see your link, but, you will be creating ‘backlinks’ to your
listings which increases your Google ratings!
3. Add a link to your signature for email or forums you are
involved in.
It is important that you follow all rules for any forums or
discussion boards you are participating in… It is also a good
idea to only do this with forums that discuss a topic that is
related to what you have listed… That way the audience you are
hitting will be more likely to actually click. 😉
4. Write an article related to the kind of things you have listed
and post it on ezinearticles.com or other article directories. In
the author box, include a link to your listings or eBay store.
5. Get involved in the eBay community by participating in the
forums. Your eBay ID is there and anyone reading through the
discussions can click to see your listings.
6. Do you Twitter? Use twitter as a tool to share what you have
listed and offer shipping discounts to your followers… you can
even use it to just share tips related to the market you are
selling to.
7. Be sure you are using solid keywords in your titles.
It kills me when I see a top brand little girls dress with the
title “Cute Dress L@@K!!!!!” We have all seen them! Be sure to
include words in your title that people will use to search for and
find the item you are selling.
Got anything to add? Would love to hear your comments…
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2. Holiday Sales – What Consumers Are Planning To Buy
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We have heard the news…
We have heard the media…
Here is a study that was done that asked the consumers what they
were most likely to buy this holiday season… and it goes one step
further by comparing the data to last year.
This particular study focuses on toys – which makes sense since
this is the largest toy selling season for the year. What they
concluded was that 54% of Americans plan to purchase toys this year
for the holidays – up from 47% last year.
Then, it breaks it down to the types of toys they are looking to
buy…
#1: 45% will be purchasing children’s books
2. 36% will be looking at games for consoles
3. 30% – board games
4. 29% – dolls
5. 28% – Arts and crafts
6. 21% – Building blocks and bricks
7. 21% – Sports equipment
8. 20% – handheld electronic games
9. 12% – game consoles
10. 26% – something else
11. 21% – not sure
** obviously they could choose more than one option
The study was conducted online within the US on October 5-12, 2009,
among 2,293 adults (age 18 and over).
Read the full article here:
http://tinyurl.com/yklgymb
Are you selling toys this year?
We are getting ready to send out the 4th update for the Holiday Toy
Guide… and I’m preparing a special Black Friday report to go
along with it!
It’s not too late to get started with selling toys this year for
the holidays… we only have 157 membership spots available though.
Get started selling toys on eBay this week with the 2009 Holiday
Toy Guide:
http://www.holidaytoyguide.com
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Copyright 2009 Jenni Hunt, www.jennihunt.com
You MAY reprint any of the articles in this newsletter for any
purpose as long as no portion of the article is modified without
permission.