eBay Watch: Choosing Categories for Conversions
Published March 30th, 2007
eBay Watch: Choosing Categories for Conversions
EBay began extending its maintenance period by two hours to four hours a week. It’s likely many sellers won’t even notice the change, though sometimes during the maintenance period there are disruptions, such as slow-performing or unavailable eBay features.
In other updates this week, it appears that the Buyer Experience Team has been fooling around with the Favorite Searches option, which allows you to save your searches instead of repeatedly typing them and to receive e-mails when new items that match your terms have been listed. A “save this search” link now appears to the right of your search criteria, making the Favorite Search easier to use. You can also set e-mail notifications and save your preferences for future searches.
Meanwhile, eBay and Mozilla formally announced plans to improve the online auction experience for people in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The two companies are presently collaborating on technologies that will keep eBayers up-to-date on their auctions more easily from within Firefox “regardless of where they are on the Web.” Right now details are sketchy on exact approaches the companies will take, but they are expected to provide more information within the next few months.
eBay Services and eBiz Tools Round-Up
Google Checkout is now on the growing list of AdSense referrals. Affiliates earn a $1 referral fee when a shopper clicks on the Checkout button link and signs up as a buyer with Google Checkout using a valid U.S. credit card. The customer must also complete a purchase of at least $10, before shipping and tax, through Checkout within 90 days. Checkout referrals are currently only available for U.S. publishers, and Google Checkout is only available for buyers with a U.S. credit card. Those publishers currently using AdSense will find Checkout referral ads in their AdSense Setup tab.
DS Data Systems UK Ltd recently released KonaKart v2.2, a free Java-based e-commerce application. It offers merchants an extensive set of online shopping cart features, including the KonaKart Administration Application that allows you to manage and edit the contents of your online store. KonaKart is an osCommerce compatible application so you are not charged for the software — just for additional services and maintenance contracts where required.
Eye on The Little Guy: Using Categories To Research Your Way to More Buyers
eBay’s product categories and subcategories can be used for much more than narrowing down an item search to produce more relevant results. At times you’ll have an item to list that really does fit well into two or more categories, and unless you want to pay additional listing fees to place that item in multiple categories, a little research can help you figure out the best place to pick. Start by simply searching eBay for items similar to yours that are starting or nearing your selling price. When you view the other auctions, be sure to note the ones that have bids, and if an auction doesn’t have bids, be sure to check the actual listing page for a hit-counter to see how many potential buyers have viewed the auction. Then, make note of which category other successful sellers have used to obtain their positive selling results.
eBay Research and Trends
This week eBay Pulse data shows that console game systems, including wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 are still the most popular searches on the auction Web site. With the high price tags on these systems, its no surprise that many are bargain hunting on eBay. Here is a snapshot of several eBay categories and their corresponding top three searches in each for March 29, 2007:
* Computers and Networking: laptop, Dell and memory.
* Books: Harry Potter, Stephen King and Easton Press.
* Children’s Books: Lot, Children’s books and Little Golden Books.
* Sporting Goods: Bowflex, fishing and golf clubs.
* Video Games/Vintage Games: Nintendo, Atari and arcade.
Source : Ecommerce-guide.com
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