In Jordan Sweetnam’s most recent update to sellers, he detailed both the strength of eBay’s current business and how we plan to continue our momentum.
One key part of eBay’s plan is Traffic Month, where all through June we’re educating sellers with practical insights into what you control in driving buyers to your listings and how to make sure your listings show up at the most critical moments of customers’ shopping journeys.
eBay makes it possible for you to connect with consumers around the world by making it easy for eBay shoppers to find your items on and off eBay. A key principle of good marketing is finding and attracting customers as early as possible in their shopping process. Many would-be buyers begin their online shopping on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Google alone processes 3.5B searches every day, accounting for 92% of the search market.
Part of what makes Google so convenient for shoppers is its Google Shopping tool, which displays relevant products in searches. This also makes it an incredible marketing opportunity for eBay sellers to drive more traffic to their listings.
Unlike on some other platforms, eBay sellers pay nothing extra to appear in Google Shopping. It’s included in your eBay fees, and fixed priced listings are automatically eligible to get pulled into Google Shopping results.
Your listings can be displayed by Google Shopping in two main ways.
At the top of relevant Google searches
In the Google Shopping tab
Every week, eBay millions of site visits from paid-search marketing, including Google Shopping. Getting listings to show up in Google Shopping isn’t free, but like we said before, our sellers pay nothing extra for this exposure. It’s an investment eBay makes in our sellers, and one we know is worth it.
To make sure your listings actually do show up at this critical shopping moment, though, sellers need to make sure their listings are formatted correctly and contain the right data. Unfortunately, approximately 12% of otherwise-eligible listings are being rejected because of a handful of fixable issues.
eBay is committed to helping you get your listings displayed, so we teamed up with Google to make a simple, helpful video that explains how Google Shopping works and what you should be doing to optimize your listings.
Here’s the complete list of what every seller should be doing to make sure their listings are approved:
Use high-quality images.
- Product images should be at least 800 x 800 pixels, on white backgrounds, with no text or watermarks.
- Show only single-quantity items, not multiples or bundles.
- Change photo backgrounds to white with image clean up tools in the eBay mobile app, and follow these other best practices for the best quality images.
Write well-structured product titles.
- Don’t include promotional text like "free shipping," all capital letters, or gimmicky foreign characters.
- Front-load your titles with relevant keywords and organize them in a readable, logical order.
- Don’t use acronyms that all buyers won’t know or understand.
Include item specifics.
- Include all relevant item specifics. You should complete all of the “required” and as many of the “recommended” specifics within eBay as you can.
- For Clothing, Shoes & Accessories, Google won’t display your listings, unless you provide the item specifics for Color, Size, Age Group & Gender.
- Include an MPN, GTIN, ISBN, or UPC whenever possible. Include manufacturer details and colors.
The steps are simple, but we recognize that completing them across multiple listings may take time. You don’t have to do it all at once. Set aside a few hours a week to optimize your listings. Consider granting account access to a friend, family member, or employee with Multi-User Account Access, and ask for their help.
Consider it a small investment that can put your business in front of the hundreds of millions of people searching on Google every day.
For a deeper understanding of our marketing efforts, listen to this week’s Traffic Month interview with our Head of Seller Experience Harry Temkin on our podcast or watch it on Youtube.
Do you have questions about Google Shopping or anything else related to Traffic Month? We want to hear from you in the Community. We’ll address the top trending questions in Week 5.
As always, thank you for selling on eBay.
