Episode 43 || What Makes the Perfect Listing

[doug@ebay]

Our theme this week is The Perfect Listing. For our Main Story, we talk with eBay sellers Nick Dunkley, PJ Scott, and Bill Ingersoll and learn what they believe makes the perfect listing. On Inside eBay Chris Van Wagoner gives the eBay perspective on what makes up the perfect listing. Also, Jen Deal visits with international sellers Nick Dunkley from the UK, and Joe Latif from Australia. Of course, we’ve got The Buzz, and we’ll answer some questions for sellers. To have your questions answered on eBay for Business, call us at 888 723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com.

eBay for Business- Episode 43 – What Makes the Perfect Listing

Our theme this week is The Perfect Listing. For our Main Story, we talk with eBay sellers Nick Dunkley, PJ Scott, and Bill Ingersoll and learn what they believe makes the perfect listing. On Inside eBay Chris Van Wagoner gives the eBay perspective on what makes up the perfect listing. Also, Jen Deal visits with international sellers Nick Dunkley from the UK, and Joe Latif from Australia. Of course, we’ve got The Buzz, and we’ll answer some questions for sellers. To have your questions answered on eBay for Business, call us at 888 723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com.

Links

ebay.com/podcastebay.com/podcast
ebay.com/meetups
ebay.com/community
ebay.com/sellercenter
ebay.com/communitychat
explore.ebay.com
plumbworldUK
bikes_trikes_quads
velocityelectronics
handyimports

Hosts

Griff, Alan Aisbitt, Jen Deal, Doug Smith

Guests

Nick Dunkley (eBay Seller), PJ Scott (eBay Seller), Bill Ingersoll (eBay Seller), Joe Latif (eBay Seller), Chris Van Wagoner (eBay Staff)

Transcript

I'm Alan.

And I'm Griff and this is eBay For Business. Your weekly source for the information and inspiration you need to start, run and grow a business on the world's most powerful marketplace. Welcome, Alan, what's our theme for this episode?

Thanks Griff. This week we focus on the perfect listing. What makes a listing perfect and what doesn't.

That's truly an evergreen topic. We've been discussing this one since I first showed up on eBay back in 1996.

Whoa. 1996, an old timer!

I'm only as old as I feel. And on this particular topic, I can tell you this, there are as many opinions on what makes up a perfect listing as there are sellers.

True, but not all opinions are necessarily facts.

Oy. You know, I could repeat an old saying about opinions right now.

Which old saying is that Griff?

You know the one about how opinions are like a certain part of the anatomy and that everyone has one and they all...

I think it's best that we leave that one alone.

Good advice. And I guarantee that the opinions of our seller guests this week never stink. So who's on deck this week Alan?

On our Main Story, we'll talk with some experienced eBay sellers to learn what they believe makes the perfect listing.

I have no opinion on that.

Right. Sure. You always have an opinion Griff.

Okay.

What's up this week for Inside eBay.

I'm glad you asked. On Inside eBay, our good friend and colleague Chris Van Wagoner gives the eBay perspective on what makes up the perfect listing. Plus we'll have a bonus segment Alan.

Sounds good. What is that Griff? Uh, podcast correspondent Jen Deal. You know her?

Yeah.

She's visited with two International eBay sellers who were on the campus here two weeks ago. Nick from the UK and Joe from Australia. And the three of them had an interesting conversation about how they started in business, what brought them to eBay and the special challenges they face selling in their specific eBay markets in the UK and Australia.

I definitely want to listen to that conversation and we also have a seller question coming up.

Yeah. And it's a pretty interesting one and I got a great reply from our colleague Valerie.

I love Valerie.

Great answer and great news. There's lots to cover, so let's get busy.

Yes, sir. Up next it's a look at what's buzzing in the eBay community.

We're back and it's all the news that fits in The Buzz.

Well I can't do it on my own Griff.

I'm flattered. Doug's not showing up late this week is he? Not at the spa with Audrey.

I don't think so.

Eating hot peppers while on Internet Explorer with Brian.

I'm not sure about that. It looks like it's just me and you, Amigo.

What do you have for us this week?

From the community we saw some promoted listing questions this week. Some sellers were concerned with the level of views and sales they were getting based on the add rate they had selected. Some members of the community advised that while the ad rate is one factor involved in visibility listing and prices updates are also important for successful sales. Anything that you'd like to add, Griff?

Yeah, I think it's important to remember that the trending ad rate is the average ad rates set by sellers for similar promoted items. It helps you stay competitive by improving chances your ads will be shown more often, but you gotta, you gotta test it. If it's not working, raise it or lower it and see.

Exactly. You find that sweet spot.

You just can't set it and expect it's going to always work for you.

Yeah. You need to keep reviewing the competition, like all things on eBay.

When it comes to sales and ecommerce and business, there are no guarantees.

There are no guarantees.

Thank you.

How we measure the 30 day sales attribution window is from the first click received and the charges based on the ad rate in effect at the time of the first click. Okay. So let me give you an example of how that works. When a buyer clicks on your promoted listing before you revise the ad rate or purchase the item after you revise the ad rate, you will be charged the ad rate before you revised it.

You know another example? So say a buyer clicks and purchases your item after you revise the ad rate. When a buyer clicks on your promoted listing, after you revise your ad rate and purchases the item, you'll be charged the ad rate after you revised it.

That makes sense to me. Now we're can sellers find more information?

Sellers can find all the info they need on the promoted listings page in Seller Center. The easiest way of getting that is by going to Seller Center and searching for promoted listings.

What's next, Alan?

Well, as you know on The Buzz, we always look to give examples of community feedback being implemented. A recent pilot to redesigned return requests view was adjusted based on feedback from sellers on our community. Which led to the reintroduction of the return by day to the new view. Additionally, feedback was shared regarding our instruction to sellers that they can refund now immediately after the return is accepted, leaving the seller at risk of refunding and not receiving the item back, Not good. Suggestions for improvements for the instructions provided to sellers for the replacements and exchanges flows were also passed along for consideration.

Well that's feedback in action. Any news this week?

Yeah, in international news. As part of our international Retail Revival program in Wolverhampton, England, eBay launched its first concept store in the UK. The new space has been designed with the theme Homegrown by Wolverhampton.

Yeah, and in the shop eBay brings together 40 small businesses that are part of the Retail Revival Program there and they're showcasing their products and personal stories in that shop. The selection of businesses featured changes each week and it will include businesses such as Tony's Deli, which is a local deli selling food online. Home Smart Blinds, a Wolverhampton based window, blind installer and White Bee gifts, a business selling illustrations inspired by local history. That's very local culture I think.

Nice I think. Can we manage the trip to go over and visit?

You can just walk up and down the High street. Visit all the shops.

I have never been to Wolverhampton.

I don't think many people have.

Griff. It's always nice to be on CNN.

The situation room with Wolf Blitzer.

Ahh, no.

Can I hope for, he's so dreamy Anderson Cooper?

Isn't he just?

He just is.

Yeah, you can hope put. Sorry Griff. No Anderson Cooper this time.

Okay.

CNN mentioned our week long Memorial Day deals that ran thru Memorial Day. There were deals across Tech, Home, Garden, Appliances and much more. The CNN piece run a nice breakdown of deal recommendations. No Anderson or Wolf though.

That's all right. But it was on CNN so we don't need a talking I guess. It is a little tragic.

Griff. There's a lot you can buy and sell on eBay.

Did you know, a man in the UK recently bought a tank.

What kind of tank, like a water tank?

I see what you did there. No, a military tank.

Come on. I recommend free shipping and returns if you're going to sell a tank.

Hey Nick Mead bought an Iraqi tank from the first Gulf War on eBay for 33,000 pounds.

What a bargain.

Nick did have to disarm the vehicle to meet legal requirements though.

Yeah. You don't want your tanks turret gun going off when you're rolling to the pub.

Indeed Griff. Well, while disarming the tank, however that is done, Nick discovered 25 kilos of gold ingots.

What?

Yeah, he reported this to the authorities who confiscated the gold and investigated.

He reported it to the authority? What is he out of his mind?

Yeah. Just melt it down. No one knows what it is.

All this extra gold.

Well, he's very honest and foolish. This is almost like finding $20 in an old coat you picked up at Goodwill, but then searching for the owner of the coat so you can give them the money. I don't know. Well anyway. So what else about this story?

The investigation revealed that the goals came from a robbery of Iraqi soldiers during the assault on a bank during the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Oh, so it was stolen booty to begin with.

Stolen. You do not want that. The authorities have contacted Kuwait to try and return the gold. Nick remains optimistic saying even if I don't get the gold back, my wonderful tank will still be there.

Tanks are wonderful. Gold is more wonderful.

Can you get an electric tank, a Tesla tank? Very California.

I'm sure you could rig one up.

Can you imagine the emissions from that thing driving around?

Imagine the traffic jam on 101?

You just drive over the cars so it's fine. Griff, let's talk about some unsolicited info. And you know eBay's not a dating site despite what may go on in eBay messaging.

Or snapchat.

Yeah. Be careful what you share or what you wear or don't wear when sharing.

Oh, brother.

A woman was looking through the reviews for a towel rack on eBay. When she noticed one man had shared a little bit too much in his photo. Is this going to be like the tea pot? Remember the teapot? Yes. The famous tea pot. Because this happened before. In fact, it's happened several times.

Don't Google it.

Lots of things reflect. Yeah, I know it. Let's just say there was a reflection in a mirror that was in the photo that left a little too much to the imagination.

Do you have any copies of this picture here? Do we have to go over the photo tips? I have a great workshop. It's always a hit.

Speaking of really needing a white background.

Maybe it was a bundles sale.

Oh we should probably stop.

Yeah. Well there's so many jokes to make here. I can feel the audience cringing.

Me too. Well that's all the news that fits this week. Thanks Alan.

I'll see you next week on a photo on eBay. Coming up next is The Main Story.

It's time for The Main Story. This week we're discussing the perfect listing, what it entails and how do you create it. And we're here with three sellers. We've got Nick Dunkley, he's from the UK. His user ID is plumworldUk. What do you sell Nick?

Every single bathroom item you can think of. So it's the complete bathroom solution. Everything from baths, to taps to shower enclosures.

Pj Scott is from the UK as well. Cambridge UK. And his user ID is velocityelectronics. What do you sell?

We sell branded electronics and our own brand, which is majority.

And welcome back Bill Ingersoll from Upper New York state and his user id is bikes-trikes-quads. The three of us are gonna have, well the four of us are going to have a discussion about the perfect listing. And I want to first get a little insight into what the challenges are for what you sell. We know that Bill sells power bikes and parts and accessories. PJ sells their own line of electronics as well as other branded electronics. And Nick obviously is the best person for anything to do with your bathroom. So Nick, you're putting together the perfect listing. What are the considerations that you need to keep in mind or you've learned over time when it comes to something like plumbing fixtures?

For me, it's making sure that you get the visibility that you need. So it's making sure that your title is comprehensive, you're making use of the full 80 characters, and also taking into account that the first 60% of the title makes sense when you read it. For example, if it was a bathroom suite, you say bathroom suite and then use your accessory keywords after that.

So it's the key are not necessarily important for ranking in search, but you're saying for visual?

Not visually for search.

Oh for search.

Yeah. Visually we make sure that we use the highest definition images that we can, so we've got zoom capability. So over a thousand pixels. We've got our own mobilized templates, so we've got sort of key features and benefits where we call out the main features of the product and then we use the main body to go into more detail for the description. In addition to that, we'll use cross sell boxes to join up sell and cross sell relevant products.

Can you explain a little bit what cross sell boxes are?

Say for example, we are selling a bathroom sink. We know that that buyer needs to buy a tap and a waste to go with it. So we'll try and cross sell those additional items when they appear on the listing.

And for our American listeners, tap means Faucet and trap means the thing underneath the little u shape thing. Right?

Sorry.

PJ, what are the top concerns when you're selling electronics? Again, a very competitive category to sell in.

Super competitive. I think the Chinese, as I said about our own brand products, the Chinese are getting extremely good at selling in the UK. And I actually think that's a great thing. I think it increases competition. They've upped their game but I do think it's title its images. As Nick said, I can't stress enough on images now especially we're seeing a transition from desktop to mobile. Because a picture paints a thousand words and actually I'm not sure a lot of the time now that customers are even getting to the description. Everyone is so much encapsulated in the images. I think that's where you have to start.

But you would think you're a selling electronic device. It's not like a one of a kind antique or collectible. But you're saying the images are still important.

Absolutely.

And Bill?

I would agree. I mean four years ago, my images, they were top notch for what I saw, but now, I mean they are still attractive, the white background and stuff. But now I see buyers getting even pickier about image resolutions and they can't see enough detail in the photo. Because it doesn't matter how detailed you are with the listing or what you put in the description. If they can inspect it and trust it themselves, they are not going to buy it. You need to format the listing in a way where the customer can inspect it almost like they had it in their hand. And I think I had said it once before, you got to photograph it like there's no description and and write a description like there is no photograph. Those things are to me key. I find the same as PJ where customers aren't really even reading descriptions anymore. I think if they could click buy it from the search results, I think they'd started doing that without even going into the listing. And it's still important to have all the information where it's supposed to be. But I would say there's been a big shift in the last couple of years.

Pj, what do you use your description for then? What are you putting in the description?

We still have everything that you normally would have. So features and benefits, full length description. I think we go to the end of the earth to do in a description now because we're selling quite technical items. We, on a monthly basis go through all the feedback and the customer messages for a particular model. If there is a current or a themed question we are being asked all the time, we encapsulate that into the listing. Every time I can do that I'll get less returns. I get less customer messages. As a business i'm more efficient and being more efficient that obviously can feed through to the price I might be able to sell out. So it's a constant evolution, but I think we're always adding. Start with features and benefits and standard description and then evolve over time.

Nick, sorry, you, you look at, you're going to say something.

I was just going to go back to the images. We use the white background as the main image. I think with bathrooms it's more of a considered purchase. So we do rely on detailed descriptions and very detailed images. So we'll have the products in situ, like a lifestyle image and we'll also have to have the dimension drawings because obviously people need to measure up and make sure It's going to fit in their bathroom.

Pj doesn't have to necessarily show a device in situ.

I think you'd be surprised. Sorry.

Really?

Oh yeah. One of our biggest return issues is actually people not getting an area of perspective on a sound bar. So is it, is it this big, I'm sorry guys, you can't see my hands, but is it, you know, is it the size of a 24 inch TV or is it the size of a 37 inch TV? On pocket radios we put them next to a 50 pea piece or (inaudible).

Sorry, soI was wrong.

Yeah.

You need to show how the product works within an environment, whether that's because of a size consideration or whether it's, you know, is it going to be my taste and it's going to work with my decor.

I think we can give inspiration as well. So if we've got a good product set in and we can make the product look nice amongst other items, then we can obviously sell that whole complete bathroom rather than maybe just the one item that they're looking for.

Oh, of course. Cause you can pique their interest.

So if they're looking at a wash basin than we can show them the matching toilet in situ with the rest of the bathroom items.

Do you arrange your listing so that there's not just visually, but there's a marketing incentive to maybe you get a discount if you buy?

No. So what we'll do, we'll have sets created. So, um, if they were initially landed on a toilet listing, um, we'll have another listing for the complete bathroom suite. So we can say, look, were you looking for a complete bathroom? Click through to here. There's a cost incentive for purchasing the item as a complete unit.

Bill you sell mostly parts though, right?

Yeah, and i'm the used side, so all my items are one of a kind and it's stuff with a lot of wear and tear. So where my listing would different from theirs would be my customer, they're going to put it together themselves so they know more about it. They basically just want to inspect it. They want to view the condition notes if they're going to look at anything and then they're going to look at the price. So it's very important, especially if something has some wear and tear to it to have a process where you can identify those damages and put them in front of the buyers. If we are photographing something with a blemish, we'll take a paint pen and mark that blemish. That way if the customer chooses not to read the description and only look at the photos it's pointed out for him in that way. And stuff as far as sizing, I, for example shocks, someone might want to know if they could fit the shock to another piece of equipment. So we'll put a tape measure down with it so they can see the length in reference to that. But we won't always give specific dimensions because we run into customers who measure at different points and then they say, well, you told me it was this at that, and there's terminology that comes into play. So we're better off just putting it in front of them and letting them kind of look and see where it is. I almost feel like if there was a way to put the description in with the pictures, so when they're swiping through the picture, they end on the description. That'd be more ideal than having an actual description section.

Right. Getting them to read.

Yeah. That's always a challenge, isn't it? Yeah. Do you find that as well, PJ for electronics buyers tend not to want to read?

Definitely. And that's why we've moved to annotated images. So the more and more we're seeing the sellers shoving the specification, but in a very pictorial way. I think that so much more engaging and people tend to view that a lot longer than they would reading the description.

How do you manage that? Do you keep your main image text free? Because I know Google and both eBay want to get away from text on images. Right?

Main image text free. That I'd say the next three or four images very heavily annotated.

Yeah. I know you keep an eye on your competition. Do you constantly see things that other sellers do that if you had a chance to talk to them, you'd say don't do that, Nick?

Yeah, I think we get a lot of Chinese sellers as well, especially in brass wear. And they'll try and call out things like UK seller premium quality and they'll just use these really tacky badges on their main image. And I just don't think it looks very good. And a lot of the time they're not UK sellers they are Chinese sellers with stock being dispatched from the UK. So it's slightly misleading. But yeah, I just think it's not, it's not clean.

PJ?

I'd come back to images. I just think it's such a simple thing that there are some very big sellers on eBay in the UK that just take a stock image. It's half the resolution it should be. It's just sort of simple stuff like that, that they're just not getting the basics right.

And Bill?

Yeah, I would agree. I would say that getting the basics right and you can find information about anywhere on eBay about what you should be doing. But to me it's almost up to that seller to figure out the game. You know, the guys that know what they're doing, know what they're doing. And the ones that don't, if they don't learn all you're giving them is an opportunity to give another customer, a bad experience If they treat the rest of their business that way.

And do any of you actually feel sort of a, I don't want to say a duty or responsibility, maybe a tendency that in situations like that you do want to tell another seller what it is they should be doing right? Nick is shaking his head no.

Absolutely not. So much for the sense of community.

I mean obviously we are sharing our tips and tricks now, aren't we?

Well, yes to a wider audience.

But I think in terms of competition, I don't want to do anything to help them. We've spent years trying to sort of elaborate and evolve from where we're at and we're trying to constantly improve. I mean, it's up to them to want to learn and find out for themselves. I mean eBay is pretty transparent. They can see what other sellers are doing, so if they want to learn, they can analyze a listing that is doing particularly well and pick up on the things that they're not doing.

Part of the perfect listing is also the service terms and it always, if I have to be honest, as a buyer, sometimes I'm shocked and appalled by some of the service terms I still see on eBay. Do not do this, do not do that. Do not do this. How do your listings rank up? I'm putting you all on the spot now when it comes to service. How do you approach that part of the listing? Because if you've never had a customer deal with you, part of doing businesses is making sure they feel comfortable and assured doing business with you.

Well we take feedback quite seriously. So um, we'll always follow up on a bad one. Um, to make sure that we maintain a high level. So currently we're 99.5% which for bathroom items is pretty good. You do experience damages from time to time. But also it's making sure that we conform to the premium seller so we offer a same or one day dispatch time. We've got 30 days or more returns period. And we offer fast and free service as well as a 24 hour express option. Which again for palletized goods is pretty challenging but we do offer it.

It's really important when you're competing right as well?

That can actually be the difference. As I said, we sell in some very competitive markets. Sometimes on certain products I would just offer a flat out better service. I'll move everything to a 24 hour delivery. I will push the last cutoff time till say 6:00 PM when everyone else's at 1:00 PM you know, cause that can be the difference on winning in best match just because of service.

Yeah. Now shipping concerns for you guys are a little bit different than for a US seller like Bill. America is so wide and expansive. Is it easier in the UK to get something to someone anywhere within the UK within a day or so?

Unless they are on a remote island off the coast of Scotland, it's a piece of cake. So at Christmas we'll be looking with the royal mail to offer a sort of collection time of 11:00 PM for next day delivery, which is insane.

Wow. Yeah, that's hard here. Bill. What about delivery?

My post office is only open from 8:00 AM until noon. So we have to physically drive packages to the post office each day and I can't get past one day handling because of that. You know, and I'm even skirting the limitations of a one day handling. Sometimes it's about a day and a half, but luckily it's usually a little bit quicker. So we never get dinged on the metrics.

So they won't pick up where you are?

They will, but then you don't know if you're getting a scan and you don't know if it'll actually ever make it to the post office. The post office itself, the people that we work with, they're good, but the infrastructure is old and we have one postmaster that we work with that's not even in our zip code. So we deliver it to one of her post offices because we know we'll be taken care of. So I mean that's like a big limitation for us.

Do you see some of the challenges we have in the US. If you don't live in an urban area, the postal service can be kind of spotty.

I think we've got it easy it sounds like.

I think one of the challenges for me is full palletized deliveries. We incur different charges to different zones. So where we've got set rate for say the UK mainland, sort of the higher up areas, Scottish highlands and Northern Ireland, they could be double or triple the price of UK mainland. Obviously we're offering free delivery, which obviously incorporates a delivery cost. But we have to take into account that percentage of orders that we do send outside of the UK mainland zone. The problem is with eBay we can't sort of specify those different zones within because we've got a set, a set cost haven't we so?

You know, I agree with that. Even though it doesn't necessarily apply to the States. Like in motors, parts and accessories, some stuff's pretty large. And I can offer free shipping within certain regions, but you know if I'm in New York and it's got to go to Arizona, Texas, California, Washington, it would be nice to be able to put a small surcharge on some of those or restrict the free shipping to certain regions and zones.

Well you're in luck.

Really?

Bill, You didn't know, we have, there is a zone option.

Where you can dictate between free and?

Well I don't know if you could dictate between free, but I know that you can set rates based on zone, but it's actually a flow in a service for labels that you have to opt into. We can discuss it on another program. I don't know if they have that for the UK.

I actually have done that in the UK with the likes of Scotland.

How does it work?

Effectively, I can effectively state the zones I want and put a surcharge on there because similar to Nick, the larger items I sell surcharges can be 20, 30 pounds. And my standard charge is only four, so it's a huge increase. Actually. It was either block them or actually put a surcharge on it.

If you had to give one bit of advice to a seller who was starting off and was fearful that they weren't going to make the perfect listing, what would you tell them?

Look at the people who are doing it particularly well. You need to live in best match and look at the people who are ranking for the keywords that you're searching for. Look at how they construct their titles, look at their image quality, look at their descriptions, and just try and make sure that you've got all your items specifics on point. Because if a customer is filtering down, then you need to make sure that those item specifics correspond to these specific categories.

So go to Nick and see what he's doing and then you'll know. He hates that I'm doing this, but learn from the sellers who have already experience. It's great advice. PJ?

Okay, so I think Nick's answer was actually perfect, so I back him 100%. but I'm going to give all your listeners a challenge for a lovely little game of how I learned best match when I started the business. Okay. So if you wait roughly 15 minutes, which is I believe the timeframe it takes for the eBay search algorithm to update. Make a change to your listing, go make a cup of tea. In five, have you gone up or down? And actually you'll soon, you'll soon learn what you need to change on the listing.

I had never thought of that before. That's brilliant. And also make sure that you do it incognito because if you do it on your normal browser you can cache so your positions can look a lot different.

Right. And we mean like the incognito feature in chrome. Yeah.

Actually, i've one thing I do need to add to that. Because the amount of mobile traffic that you'll see, we largely now just look at the mobile app. I think it's quite easy to get sucked into where you are in desktop, which is as much smaller part of the pie and actually cause you're working in an office environment with a laptop, you know, stop doing that. Always look in your mobile phone as well.

Because the majority of buyers now are buying on...

Over 70% of ours.

Exactly. And that's, that's across eBay by the way, Bill?

Well you need the specifics and everything correct. But I would make it aesthetically pleasing too. Nobody wants to look at anything that's unpleasant to the eye no matter what it is. So in the way you orientate your text and the structure of you title, even though it needs to fit for search, you want to have it in a way where if a person reads it, they know what it is. They don't want to look at something that looks like a bunch of words thrown up there. So I would just make it clean and to the point.

Well I want to thank all of you for stopping by today. We recorded this during a leader's week here at eBay and you, you guys are taking time out of a busy schedule to be on the podcast and we really appreciate it. So thank you everyone.

Thanks Griff.

We've been speaking with three sellers from eBay. Nick Dunkley, he's from the UK and he sells under the user id plumworldUK. Pj Scott also from the UK sells electronics, both branded and his own brands at velocityelectronics. And our returning guest dujoir is Bill Ingersoll. He's located in Sloansville in Upper New York state and he sells bikes, trikes and quads and that's his user id, bikes-trikes-quads and it's mostly parts and accessories.

Up next it's Inside eBay. Don't go away.

Welcome to Inside eBay. I'm Griff and today we're talking the perfect listing with our frequent guest and colleague here at eBay. Chris Van Wagoner. He's the Senior Program Manager at eBay. Welcome back Chris.

It's good to be back and chatting with you about eBay and selling on the site.

Specifically the perfect listing.

Absolutely.

So Chris reminded us quickly, what do you do at eBay and how long have you been here?

So I've been at eBay for 13 years now and I actually focus primarily on the selling platform. So I engage with sellers and understand what pain points they might have and then collaborate with Product and Policy and Customer Support Teams as a way to solve for some of the issues our sellers encounter and also help them scale their businesses.

That sounds like a full time job to me.

It is.

And you're perfectly qualified to answer this question. When you hear the term perfect listing, what does that mean to you?

When I hear the term perfect listing, I think about the optimization of the listing process in order to appeal to buyers that are looking for that item in. There are a number of best practices that we've articulated over the years and I think the application of those best practices is the way that you create the perfect opportunity for buyers that are looking for your item.

What is the most important part of a listing?

Boy, that's a tough question. Actually I think that that there are four most important parts of a listing. Title. Got to make sure that you're clear and concise in how you describe the item. And oftentimes that title is one of the first elements of exposure that a buyer has to the item that you have for sale. Secondly, image pictures are worth a thousand words. That's more important than ever to communicate what your offer is and what its condition is and what its value is. Number three would be structured information. Making sure that you're providing information in a structured way so that regardless of where the buyer journey begins, they can find your listing and then for price point, putting together a compelling value, a compelling price, a compelling shipping costs or elements that buyer's price sensitive or not are trained to take a look at.

For a lot of our sellers, they're obvious. They've been hearing that mantra for a while. Titles are important and pictures are important, but the third one was the one I think where a lot of sellers still today. Maybe drop the ball without knowing it. And that's where it comes to structured data and when we say structuring the listing. I'm assuming that's what you meant. Structured data. Absolutely. It's such a wide topic because we're asking for some information. When you list the item specific, those items, specific details, if you're not providing it, you may miss a really interested buyer who's filtering by some of those items. Specifics.

That's absolutely right. Even search engines like Google and Bing, they use structured information to try and narrow the number of listings, the number of products that they're surfacing to interested buyers. By not including that information you're missing out on potential buyers that are starting their shopping journey in aa variety of different places.

I was just on the site looking for some Nike shoes and I was limiting the search to just green shoes in my size. And I saw the selection and then I thought, I wonder how many sellers aren't using those items specific. I removed the filters and then scroll through tens and tens and tens of pages and I found listings that I would have found had the seller actually put those items specifics in there and had I not done my little experiment, I would have never found them.

Well that's absolutely right. What's interesting is I had a similar test not long ago for a pair of Adidas running shoes, and when I just simply typed in the keywords that I thought would direct me to the pair of shoes that I was interested in, I had a very limited selection that was available. It wasn't until I entered the actual manufacturer number that I was presented with a much larger of the type of shoes that I was interested in, interestingly enough, at a cheaper price than what I was initially presented with. I absolutely recommend that when sellers are creating that perfect listing, that they take a look at those universally understood identifiers. That structured information is a way to tell the story about their item.

Right. And if you're not sure where your item ends up, go look on the site. And when you see those search filters in the side, set them to say, not specified. And that's the category you just ended up with. And buyers don't tend to look in those categories. They don't tend to filter that way. Hey, you know earlier, Chris, you mentioned Google and I get this from a lot of sellers. You want to optimize your listing for eBay, but why am I optimizing it for Google? Why is Google so important?

That's because so much of the traffic that is redirected to eBay comes from Google. Then because Google is such an important part of the shopping journey, we want to make sure listings are optimized for that experience. With the various products that we create to empower sellers to run their businesses and give visibility to the inventory that they have available. We create these products, we create these policies, we create these functions that exist on the eBay side as a way to increase that traffic and get more eyeballs on the listings that you're taking so much time to create.

Because we do get a lot of buyers who initiate their search for a product off of eBay in a place like Google and you want to make sure you're showing up there.

Absolutely.

Does a seller always need to list with our catalog in order to create what we're calling the perfect listing?

One way to create the perfect listing is to use the eBay catalog. But as we've discussed earlier this year with a couple of seller updates, we're actually looking to make it easier to take advantage of what we referred to last year as product based shopping, but this idea of using structured information to describe your listing. With that objective in mind we've also looked to incorporate key item specifics. Where we see buyer searches for Adidas shoes or Nike sneakers and those search queries aren't returning the results that the buyer is looking for we're then recommending those item specifics to sellers as a way to improve their listings and make them closer to perfect. Absolutely continue to use the eBay catalog if you'd like to, but you can also take advantage of some of these same functions, these same benefits the eBay catalog has offered over the past few years by providing items, specifics that buyers are looking for when they're, they're trying to find items on the site.

When we're looking at items specifics, are there any in that list that should be at the top, top of mind, top of the list when a seller is listing an item, the ones that are more likely to improve the likelihood of a sale? Because there's some times, you know I was listing media this week. There's alot of item specifics that are not even related to what I may be listing. What are the most important when I'm looking at the list? Are they the ones at the top?

What's interesting is I think over the years we've had various iterations of how we've presented information within the listing flow to help sellers prioritize information and understand what a is necessary to create that perfect listing. I think of a brand, I think of product identifiers like global trade item numbers, UPCs, ISPNs, EANs, and as we've announced earlier this year, we're going to expand that list of recommended item specifics to include color in different categories, memory size in certain categories. And so you're gonna start to see eBay get more prescriptive around what items specifics recommends. And which items specifics are recommended and that's based on the buyer activity that we're seeing on the other side of the table.

That makes sense.

We want to make sure that we're connecting buyers to the right item specifics. And we want to make sure that when we are recommending an item specific within the listing flow that it's valuable and that it's helping your listing be perfect. We've announced that Home and Garden is one of the first spaces that we're going to be targeting as we start to recommend key item specifics, but fashion has been a space where we've incorporated the concept of key item specifics and electronics and some of the other categories that we have on the side. So we'll just continue to expand that and start recommending those items specifics that make sense in terms of a listing.

We get so many opinions on this and so much questionable advice when people are advising other sellers. What are we saying are the best practices for images? For example, backgrounds, how many pictures? What do we suggest?

So I think the first thing that you need to consider are the dimensions. And make sure that it's a square dimension so that it appears nicely within the frame regardless of whether the buyer is searching for your item via mobile or via desktop. And we recommend starting with 800 by 800 pixels to make sure that those details are crisp within the frame and appear as you intend them to appear.

But it can be larger.

It absolutely can and we actually say upwards of 1600 by 1600 pixels as a way to take advantage of some of the zoom functionalities that we have on the site.

Some items you can't make them square by the simple shape of the item itself and that's acceptable.

It is. That's an important call out is if you have a white background, it makes it easier for us to use the space to fill out some of the area that's not taken up within the frame. Sometimes when you have a complex background or a colored background, it can be a little bit off putting to buyers that are taking a look at the image and that's one other recommendation that we extend is, is that you should think about what backgrounds, when you're taking pictures of your image, just to make sure that it looks nice and professional.

I used to use white and black, but I use just white now.

I think that it looks so much more professional when you have that nice clean white background.

What about the description?

I think similarly to just the concept of images. You want to take images that clearly describe the product that you're selling and do it in such a way that the buyer can quickly consume the information and make that purchasing decision. Listing descriptions should be created in the same vein. Think about creating bullets or small snippets of information to describe some specifics about the product itself. Limit the flowery language that I think that we're tempted to include when we create these listing descriptions. These buyers, when they're taking a look at your listings, they're making purchasing decisions in 10 to 15 seconds or less. Making sure that you're very succinct in the information that you include is going to be important to persuading the buyer to purchase your item.

Yeah. Buyers don't come to eBay to read.

They don't. In this day and age, you need to try to be concise and you know, kind of accelerate that transactional experience the buyer's looking for.

Right. Especially the buyers looking at a lot items. They don't have time to read a novel. They have time to do that later they're shopping and they want to find a product.

You mentioned one of the points being pricing competitively. This can be a challenge that takes some research. What do you recommend to a seller to make sure they're priced competitively?

First thing that I typically do when I'm creating a listing on the site is I type in a keyword search and see what listings pop up with the keywords that I input. I think that communicates a couple of different things. What other items, are they accessories that are appearing in your search? Are they like items appearing in your search and what price points are those typically listed at? From a more scientific perspective use some of the analytics tools that we offer our sellers on the site. Recently we've rolled out Terapeak. Terapeak is a great tool to essentially understand the millions of transactions that have happened on the site and use that information to better price your item to sell. The great thing about Terapeak is that most recently within the last couple of months we began including Terapeak with basic store subscriptions and above. So basic, premium, inc or enterprise. And that's at no additional cost. So if you're a subscriber of one of those subscription tiers, I recommend you start today by going to terapeak.com entering your eBay credentials and using the research information to understand what's happening across 22 eBay sites, millions of transactions that are happening on a regular basis to really figure out what that price point needs to be for your item to increase the likelihood of sale and make that listing perfect.

And if you're a store subscriber on eBay, you can get Terapeak as part of that store subscription.

At no additional costs and it's right there.

Yeah, use it. Don't let it just sit there.

Yeah, exactly.

Talking about tools. Listing is a time consuming practice takes a lot of time to list a lot of data entry, especially if you're selling one of a kind items. What tools do you recommend for sellers to help them create the perfect listing quickly and accurately?

There are some great eBay tools that we've created over the years. The listing follows are improving every day to make it easier to either list with the eBay catalog or quickly identify elements that you need to include to make your listing more effective. There are other tools, especially in the promotional space that help your listing be more interesting to buyers that are interested in the product that you have to offer. And that includes things like Markdown Manager, promotional tools that have recently rolled out like Volume Pricing. And then one great tool, and I've used this quite a bit in the last few months, is a best offer. And that's another tool that we give to sellers to kind of empower them and help create that perfect listing. It helps continue the conversation even after they've left your listing. Which is something that if a seller doesn't use that transactional opportunity ends and those buyers leave the listing without continuing that conversation with the seller and continuing the interest that they had in the item that you were offering.

I was watching a t shirt seller had for sale, it was a nice one but I thought the price was a little too high so I walked away. But I had started watching it and an hour later I got an offer cause the seller now can make an offer to a watcher and it was definitely attractive. So I bought it.

Which is something that we've rolled out recently and that's something that I've also used as well. But we've looked at different ways that we can extend that conversation between buyer and seller. The offer to watch your functionality, which we've referred to as offers to buyers. Definitely something that enables that.

Thanks for joining us Chris. I really appreciate it. Great tips and I'm sure our sellers will appreciate it. These are tips for drafting the perfect listing.

Thanks so much Griff.

We've been speaking with Chris Van Wagoner. He's our Senior Program Manager here at eBay. We talking about the perfect listing. Up next, we'll take some questions.

Now it's time for questions or more to the point, a question cause that's all the time we have.

Question. Just one.

Just one question. It was a good one. It came into the podcast@ebay.com email address. Shall I read it?

Yeah.

All right, so this is what was submitted. Hi. Thanks for all the helpful information I've learned so very, very much from listening to your podcasts. My question is, since statistics show that buyers are using their mobile devices more than laptops, why do we have to click mobile friendly checker every time we add a new listing? Typically I don't use templates, but I use sell similar and the mobile friendly checker doesn't transfer. Can't eBay make every listing mobile friendly automatically? Are their sellers that don't want their listings mobile friendly? Thanks for your reply. eBay seller luv2buy and it's Luv the number two and buy and that's Ivy. Well Ivy. You know about this right Alan? Well we'll check her.

Yeah, and I've heard the sellers ask about this at meetups before. So good that we have a definitive answer?

Kind of have a definitive answer. So it's a work in progress. I sent off the question Ivy to our good friend Valerie in Product who is seller oriented like you wouldn't believe. If you're going to be at an eBay Open or eBay event and Valerie's there look her up, you'll love her. And she wrote back and she said, I have some good news and well maybe some not so good news. Or she called it bad news, but I'm going to say not so bad news. So the good news is all listings created on the, what we call the native APP are now mobile friendly by default. And that's the APP on mobile either or android or Apple iOS. So if you're creating your listing on that, you don't have to worry. It's all mobile friendly by default. It was fixed past February, in fact. So that's the good news. The not so good news is the Mobile Friendly Checker, which we call in our acronym heavy world MFC. It still looks for something called the view port meditag and it gives an error that the listing is not mobile friendly, but it really is because the tag isn't required anymore.

Okay.

It's not so good, but some of the goodish news is there is now a a project internally at eBay that's in process so that the Mobile Friendly Checker does not look for that tag anymore and Valerie's requested it be fixed by eBay Open. But to answer the question, if Mobile Friendly Checker is even still required? Well yes and here's the reason why. You can chime in if you want.

No. I'm learning. I'm sitting here taking it all in.

There are still tons of legacy seller descriptions that contain code out there with tons of stuff that aren't mobile friendly. So it's still there for those particular listings and the problem is that a lot of sellers who use sell similar, they keep propagating that stuff.

Exactly.

So the Mobile Friendly Checker is a way to say, hey seller, you want to make these mobile friendly, we should actually have a message that says, and don't use sell similar unless you're sure because it's an extra step to make it mobile friendly. There's things like fixed with images. For example, if those are in your description or your template that you're using. Ivy says she's not using templates, but if they are, they're getting carried over and they are not mobile friendly because it involves scrolling back and forth and up and down.

And I think on desktop you can click the html tab that's over the text editor and you can see all of the html that might be in there. So when you're in the default text editor, you mightn't see it could be hidden html, but if you switch to the html tab you can see whatever's in there, any legacy code and legacy html and you can delete it out. And that should help make your listings better mobile friendly. For me, when I list whether it's on mobile or on desktop, I don't really add anything. I add some text and I add bullet points, short concise bullet points and hopefully my title, my photos, my price speaks for itself. If I offer returns that's in return section. My postal rates are in my postal section. So really my description is just three to five bullet points. And If that's all it is that's mobile friendly and I don't need to worry about it and I don't worry about it.

And you can just ignore that if you're sure that your content in the description does not contain suspect code or html that's causing your listing to not be mobile friendly. Just ignore it while it's still there. Some day it'll go away, but you can just ignore it.

Soon. It sounds like we've got a great person on the case in Valerie.

Oh the best.

Hopeful for that to be fixed in the coming months.

It's funny cause when you think back like 15 years ago even, you know, beginning of eBay, there was a tendency of sellers who discovered html to start putting tons of things in their listings. Like little kitties running across the description and music.

Oh Wow.

But if you look any commercial website today that does retail, they rely on straight texts. They are an envelope like eBay being the envelope that might have a design element. But when it comes to descriptions of product, just the text, just text. You know what I did?

No.

Just to make sure because I had the legacy stuff that was showing up. I went through all my existing listings and redid all of the descriptions where I just, I copied the text from the window, went into the html view in the editor and wiped everything clean. And then went back to the text, put it in and then used eBay's advanced editing tool and the bar there, and this is on the desktop, to then do some minimal formatting. And now I know all my listings are mobile friendly and they look it when I see it and I just ignore that Mobile Friendly Checker. Just ignore it.

Do you sleep better at night now knowing your mobile friendly?

No. I don't.

It's the same issues. Other things come into worry you.

Tons of other issues. Once that issue was off the page like 600 more issues came up.

Yeah, That's really good advice and the seller is correct. It's so important to make sure your listings are mobile friendly. So even when you list on desktop or when you list on phone, I'm addicted to viewing my listings to make sure they look okay. And if they go live and there is any issues or anything I need to do, I can quickly go in and edit it, make some tweaks and then get it up on eBay. So always double check. Even if you use the Mobile Friendly Checker and everything goes back okay, I would always go in and take a second look just to make sure. Because you know you're the expert on your listing and the product. So you want to make sure everything is as accurate as can be so the buyers can come in and make a purchase.

Well said Alan. So Ivy, I hope that answered the question. eBay's working to make all listings mobile friendly, but in the meantime with all that legacy code still out there, it's going to have to stay for awhile. Thanks again for your question. And I love your tagline in her email. I've got to read it to you cause it says Ivy her name and then it says, exercise with friends. It's cheaper than therapy.

They can bring that to an eBay seller meetup. There's also an exercise component. The first 20 minutes you do some jumping jacks or sprint on the spot.

We're all on the floor doing Pilates.

Yeah, it's easier to have a beer. Great question. I've learned a lot. Thanks Ivy for sending that in.

And thanks for closing out the show because Alan now it's time to go to our outro. Our outro segment.

Let's jump over there.

Let's jump over right now.

Well, well well would you look at the time? It's another episode in the can.

I really liked that one.

Yeah, it was pretty good if I do say so myself. So Alan Me Lad.

Yes.

Do you think you have a better grasp now on what makes a perfect listing?

Yes. Yes I do. Indeed. It's time to go and make some tweaks and revisions to my current listings so they are perfect.

Perfection is a goal one must strive to achieve even though true perfection is unattainable.

Oh, yikes. what a downer you can be.

Just grounded in reality. Hey, what's up for next weeks show Alan?

Well next week we delve into pricing strategies.

Another great topic and sometimes a confounding one. I'll be sure to tune in.

Griff, you'll be there as your the host.

Oh, oh right. Yeah, I forgot. Thanks for that reminder. Do you have any other reminders for us?

I do. For example, this one, if you want to join the fun here on the eBay For Business Podcast you can be part of the show when you call us on (888) 723-4630.

That's right. Call us at (888) 723-4630, go ahead. You know you want to, you can call that hotline anytime of day, any day of the week. Leave a question or comment and if it's appropriate we just might put it on the air.

And we have our very own email address where you can send your questions if you prefer. That is podcst@ebay.com that is podcast@ebay.com.

Hey Alan, lonely?

Sometimes.

Listless?

Always.

Confounded?

Probably.

Confused?

Definitely. Hungry?

If so, then you should be attending a local eBay seller meetup in your area. At seller meetups, sellers share tips, stories, insights, food, and even a little gossip.

Gossip? No.

Yes. Well you know how people in groups can be, but mostly eBay sellers at meetups share good advice and tips and fun eBay stories.

And who doesn't like those?

Exactly. So if you're into those, you can see meet ups that are scheduled on our special eBay community page for meetups at www.ebay.com/meetups.

And don't forget to tune into our weekly live video stream on the eBay For Business Facebook page every Wednesday at 12:30 pacific. Go to facebook.com/ebayforbusiness and then make sure you jump over to the community chat from 1:00 to 2:00 Pacific. You can have your questions answered live in real time by eBay staff. To get to the chat, go to ebay.com/communitychat.

Very good. And that's all we have for this week.

Guess it's time to roll the credits.

This podcast doesn't record itself. It takes talented people like well, Head of Community, Brian Burke, Segment Producer Douglas Smith, Marketing Strategists Liz Austin, Editor and Chief, Audio Engineer and Host Griff and rising star with a hot Q score Alan.

And don't forget it.

I won't, you won't let me.

The eBay For Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.

Q score. Did you look that up?

I did look it up.

And what did you think?

I liked it..

Yeah. Everyone who aspires to be a celebrity wants to check their Q score.

I'm a, yeah, kind of in between. I'm not sure if I do. We'll see. We'll see how this whole podcast thing goes. I think sellers like me, I hope they do.

Should we send out a survey? Do you like Alan, yes or no? Do we need a maybe question?

If you answer yes, you could win.

We could have it one to ten, how likely are you to like Alan?

Would you recommend Alan to a friend? Would you like Alan like as a friend? Minus 10.

I think all of these are really demeaning.

It's okay. I have thick skin.

The road to stardom. it's a dirty road.

I'm willing to roll my sleeves up and jump right in.

Okay. Be My guest.