Keep Your Ebay Costs Down
May 4, 2009 by paulsmerry
Filed under EBay
If you are starting your online trading adventure on Ebay, which is the fastest and easiest way to start, then you need to get on top of the costs straight away. Keeping a tight control on costs is essential to creating any successful business whether online or off and it’s equally essential with Ebay. The costs of selling on Ebay have risen sharply over the last year so if you don’t keep an eye on your costs they will eat into your profit base and you could end up working for nothing. In which case you are more a charity than a business. Here’s a few tips to keeping your costs down.
Host Your Pictures Outside Of Ebay
Good pictures are crucial to the success of your sales. At the moment Ebay allows you one picture free. The rest you have to pay for. In my experience I sell more on Ebay if I use at least three pictures of the product I have for sale. Pictures taken from different angles have a powerful effect to your listing. You want to keep your ebay fees down though so avoid buying extra pictures from ebay. Instead use an independant picture hosting service. I use Photobucket to add other pictures to my listings. It’s a free service and it allows me to put as many pictures as I like into the listing. I usually do three.
Don’t just relist items automatically
Avoid just relisting items without examining them first. I list products for 30 days. If I have not sold any of a particular product over that time scale. I examine the listing. How many visitors has it had? If it’s had quiet a few but not made a sale I will look closely at the description. Can I improve on it. The same with the pictures. I personally will not drop the price once I set it. I set the price to achieve my desired mark-up while covering the costs of selling on Ebay. I see no point in selling on Ebay if you are not earning more than Ebay on each sale. If you have an item that isn’t selling ensure the description is good and the pictures are done well. Relist the item for a further 30 days and see what happens. If after four relistings it hasn’t sold then you should consider dropping the item from your stock list. Every time you relist an item it costs you in Ebay fees. If you have a number of items to relist these costs can soon mount up. I personally remove slow selling items from my Ebay listings and leave them on my website where they don’t cost me anything to sell.
Don’t Compete On Price
This is a recipe for disaster. You’re not Tescos and unless you’re buying items by the thousands you can’t compete on price. There will always be someone selling cheaper than you. Let them. Make sure you achieve your desired margin on each sale you make. You’re working for yourself not Ebay.
It’s not just the costs you pay financially to Ebay there’s also the cost in time you devote to your business. Make sure you factor all this into your prices. Take postage for example. This isn’t just the actual cost of sending the package. There’s also the packaging and more importantly the time it takes you to wrap the product. If it’s a large item and requires me to go into the post office with it I factor that charge into the postage costs. The buyer can see the postage before he agrees to buy the item, by buying the item he accepts it. Your time comes at a cost. Make sure you charge for it.
Track Every Item You Have For Sale
This just comes down to being professional in your business. Keep a track of every item you are selling. You will soon build up information about your products this way. I use a simple excel file. I input my products into it and record each sale, each time I’ve listed it etc. After a few months you will have gathered some important data that you can use to make informed and logical business decisions.If you’ve had an item listed for six months and it hasn’t sold then it’s time to dump it, and stop ordering it. By keeping a close check on your products you will soon discover what products to invest your money in and what to avoid.
Keeping a close check on every item you are selling can reduce your ebay costs. Avoid relisting items haphazardly without any thought. By treating your business professionally you can use Ebay to sell and promote your products rather than Ebay using you as a cash cow.
