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This week, Brian and Griff take us back to four past segments with sellers sharing their sourcing tips. Tyler returns to help with questions about Title keywords, Terapeak and international eBay sites, and Brian and Tyler have fun tormenting Griff with “Vintage.”

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Episode Links:
2022 Spring Seller Update
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Brian: I'm Brian.

Griff: I'm Griff and this is the eBay For Business Podcast, your weekly magazine for the information and inspiration to start run and grow a business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And this is episode 187. Brian's back with us. Hi Brian.

Brian: Hi Griff. Good to be here.

Griff: What were you doing before you came into the studio? You were almost late.

Brian: So weekly, we do actually what we call voice of the customer report. And that gets sent out to over 500 employees here at eBay. For that report we look for emerging topics and things that are happening within the community, and that are impacting our sellers and feed that up. And you can imagine this was a big week for us because we had Seller Update

Griff: Spring Seller Update.

Brian: Spring Seller Update, yes,

Griff: There really wasn't much new in it, was there?

Brian: And the reaction from our community was relatively neutral.

Griff: Well, we'll talk a little bit more about that. I think.

Brian: I think we will. And so, you know, what's our topics this week.

Griff: Well, as promised last week, this is going to be a best of episode featuring interviews with sellers from four past episodes, all around the ever per perennial favorite theme of sourcing.

Brian: Fantastic.

Griff: Before that, is there any news? We've already talked about it.

Brian: Well, we did talk a little bit about it. Just one news item and that's last week's Spring Seller Update. Spring Seller Update 2022 had a number of changes. There were some comments about the category classification changes, which is common. Updates to items specific and category structures, reducing unpaid items, a favorite. Adjusting how listing page views are counted, the new messaging app Beta, and then more payout options for our sellers. And you can read the entire update at eba.com/announcements.

Griff: We'll put the link to the update page in the episode transcript, and we encourage you to read through it so that you stay informed.

Brian: If you miss the Winter Update, you can find a link to the Winter Update there as well.

Griff: For our quarterly, best of episode, we thought a good topic would be sourcing. What do you think?

Brian: I think sourcing is a good idea.

Griff: So to start off our best of sourcing segment, we're gonna travel way back to episode 132. When I spoke with eBay seller, Victor Rivera about his passion trading cards and how he uses eBay to source them.

Victor Rivera: ...And then my plan would be for the next three to four months is to put about $1,500 to $2,000 towards what I call investment projects. That'll be reinvesting back into sports cards that I buy through eBay and trying to, you know, generate profits with that through the power of what we call grading sports cards.

Griff: What do you mean by that process of grading sports cards? How do you make a profit doing that?

Victor Rivera: Trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents. A lot of people nowadays, they want the highest quality sports cards in their collection. The highest quality cards are gonna get the most you on the market on eBay. People are ripping their cards out of packs and selling them. And part of my business is to buy those cards through eBay and send them in to get graded with one of the big companies, either PSA, Professional Sports Authenticator, and Beckett Grading Services. And that's where I usually go to get my cards graded. And the process can be very long. It can take anywhere up to a year. That's why it is very costly, especially at the beginning of a business to do that process. So that's why this grant is gonna be so helpful to allow me to keep reinvesting back into those cards and buying from eBays and continue to support the eBay community.

Griff: So if I understand it correctly, you get the cards on eBay and then by having them graded by PSA or Becketts that increases their value. When they come back with a high grade, you can then re-list them for those customers who are looking for grade of card and not just something ripped out of a pack.

Victor Rivera: Exactly. And that's been an extremely hot market right now, and it's really had a Renaissance within the last year. And, and I can only see it grown even bigger.

Griff: It is an investment because some of these cards, once you've sent them off, it'll take a year for them to come back. So you have to have a constant flow of them. Going off to the authenticators.

Victor Rivera: Exactly. You know, I have a goal of anywhere between 50 to 100 cards a week. I think one of the most important things is to have a plan, having a plan and reaching those goals.

Griff: Why trading cards?

Victor Rivera: Trading cards has always been a source of happiness for me since I was a kid. And, you know, even through the tough times, sports has always been like almost like an avenue for me to really enjoy myself and almost feel like a kid again.

Griff: Did you start collecting as a kid?

Brian: Yes. Since I was like about seven, eight years old.

Griff: Now a lot of people that I talk to who are in the industry or who are avid collectors, some of them have a story that they have in common, which always frightens me a little bit is they say, well, I used to have a big collection, but my mother or my parents threw them out. Did that happen to you?

Victor Rivera: I tried to be a smarter kid. So I was like trying to like hold onto the, you know, the good cards, but I'm such a salesperson. I always ended up usually selling them actually.

Griff: When did you sell your first card? How old were you?

Victor Rivera: I think I might have been, um, between 10 and 13 years old and I opened up an eBay account when I was really young too. so I've always been a part of the hobby for a long time, and it's definitely a fun to sell.

Griff: Brian, Victor's story is a great example of someone using their childhood passion for collecting as a foundation for building a, a really successful and self-sustaining business.

Brian: I enjoyed Victor when he was on and I mean, just incredible, you know, he pivoted with his business and found success and also leveraged the platform you sell on too for inventory options. Back in episode 128, eBay seller, Alec Larson visited the podcast to tell us how he built a business on eBay in the auto parts and accessories categories. It wasn't easy as you'll hear but Alec stuck to it and turned a dream into a viable business.

Griff: Remind us again, the different ways that you source product for your business, which again is primarily auto parts.

Alec Larson: So back when I got into e-commerce, the main challenge was finding hot selling products. How do you find a hot selling product? What is hot? You know, I have to get on a trend. How do you have to find a trend? And what's cool about the model that I'm using is that it primarily runs on slow moving inventory, inventory that I could take sometimes a year or two to sell one part. But the X factor there is that you have much less competition. You have a lower cost in inventory. You have a bigger access to a larger supply of inventory. I think you have a more consistent cash flow and you can predict things a little bit more consistently. So the challenges though, is that it's a little more time consuming because you're going to have to be refreshing inventory. You're always gonna have new inventory coming in. You're not gonna have the same SKU. Once I have a product it's likely that once it sells, I probably won't ever have that same part number again, that's gone. Whereas if you had your basic model that works where you're buying from a supplier, you're buying this product, you know, it's gonna sell, It's gonna turn this many times a year. And that's great that works with this model. What's cool about this one is anybody can get into this with a small investment. You can start very small, grow without a huge investment. There was one really cool example where I had paid about $154 for a pallet of GM parts. It ended up being worth around 1800 in total value. And I made that initial investment back with maybe selling two parts. You take that to any sort of niche industry. It could be printer ink from office Depot closing up shop in your local town or industrial parts, hydraulic parts, washer and dryer parts. The model is you're investing in not just one single SKU you're are spreading that out and having an assorted selection of inventory. So that way you can recoup that initial investment continue snowballing it, growing your inventory amount, growing the cash flow and that gets you started. And it's a great way to get started because you learn all the initial mistakes with shipping and all this. So the sourcing is great because I have several different methods of looking for inventory. I initially started off with the basic auction sites that I'm sure everybody knows. You know, you've got, I think B stock, Liquidation.com. You've got a lot of the government surplus websites, and then your local auctioneers, you'd be surprised at how many there are out there and just calling them and getting on their email lists. I'm in auto parts and that's its own niche, but there's so many different niches out there that are probably even better than what I'm in now. So that's where I started and I still use auction sites today. The other supply route I use is, I'm in automotive parts. So a lot of my inventory is OEM. It's primarily like I mentioned before, it's Ford, GM. And the cool thing about the market is a lot of times I can compete with the aftermarket version of a part with the OEM version, because your cost in it is much lower than if you were to say, if you're paying 80% of cost for a part, you really can't afford to take your original OEM alternator and price it below the cheap knockoff brand. But a lot of the times, because I have such a low cost in it, I can do that and not even worry about competing and for buyers. It's great because they just saved hundreds of dollars on a part that they would have to go to a dealership up to buy, or they would have to go to a manufacturer. You can go on eBay and find it for much cheaper.

Griff: And quickly.

Alec Larson: And quickly. Exactly. And think about that with the different areas of different industries like washer and dryer, electronics parts, the same concept can apply. If you can pay for a lot, like as in a bulk load of some of these products, you're gonna have a lot of time invested in listing them and getting sorting through them, making sure they're not broken, but your return is gonna be much higher. It's gonna be much more worth the work and you're gonna provide value to the market because you're giving buyers a great deal on parts. You're usually cheaper than the list prices.

Griff: For auto parts. You actually contact dealers directly in your area. Have you established relationships with specific dealers that you can go back to over and over again?

Alec Larson: Oh yeah. And what's interesting is I had no idea how it worked when I started, I was, I never worked at a dealership. I don't know who to even talk to. So I just said, all right, I just gotta start calling. I think I probably called 10 and got some confusing reactions just because I really didn't know what I was talking about. I'm I'm calling there. Hey, I sell stuff online and I was wondering if you have junk parts to sell or something like, uh, old parts to sell. I don't know. And, and then I finally, I think contacted one dealership and I, I ended up leaving a voicemail and he called me back and he's like, I've got a list I can send you of stuff. And then that sparked the other challenge was figuring out what's a fair price to pay and figuring out what value you're providing to the dealership as well. So you have your customer that you're selling to, but you also have to make another customer happy and that's the supplier you're buying from. And so if you're buying out, say a hardware store or something, you're liquidating their inventory for them, instead of them throwing it out, you're taking that off their hands. You're clearing out the shelves for more inventory. You're giving them capital to reinvest. You keep those two in mind, essentially that your supplier more in my case, my supplier is a customer as well.

Griff: Have you developed now a kind of, I don't want to call it a spiel, but almost a script of how you would approach a dealer who you've never spoken to on the phone before to help make yourself sound more serious and professional?

Alec Larson: I think sounding not too professional, not sounding too much like a big service or something because a lot of these businesses get calls every day. So I just kind of approach it as normal as I can, as authentic as I can as transparent and as honest as I can, I usually say I do online sales. I do e-commerce and I help dealerships liquidate inventory. If you have anything that you'd be interested in selling, gimme a call back, or if you wanna send me a list of things. And so I usually do that and usually I don't hear back and I used to go sort of above and beyond. I would go in and I would just appear inside the dealership. I would walk in and meet people, bring donuts or something. And so usually that works. So then I've developed some relationships where I get calls on a quarterly basis, or someone will send a list over. And that was the one thing that I was looking for. I wanted something consistent as far as supply, and that gives you confidence moving forward. Cause you know that there's inventory out there. You learn so much. I mean, I learned everything I know from just talking to parts managers. That right there is enough of a benefit to the cold calling.

Griff: Just getting that knowledge, that institutional knowledge.

Alec Larson: Yeah. And I mean, there's just so much opportunity. And especially this coming year with seemingly a lot of other businesses going online, some businesses liquidating a lot of their inventory. Like I mentioned, hardware stores, you've got office supply stores. Those are filled with huge inventory opportunity, just like automotive parts. You can buy truckloads of inventory from like, I think Lowes and Walmart, if you have the means to store some of that stuff, there's just so much opportunity there for other niche items as well.

Brian: Alec story is pretty timely. Don't you think?

Griff: Yeah, I do. And with the supply chain snafus impact on the car market, more and more car owners I hear are holding off buying a new car or instead they're maintaining their cars they already own and DIY adding parts or changing parts out and adding accessories,

Brian: Selling in Parts And Accessories or P And A, as we tend to call it around here might prove to be a good business model for many sellers considering what they want to sell.

Griff: It's no secret how important the collectibles category was in the early growth and appeal of eBay. And that remains true today. And back in episode 137, too long time sellers Bill and Maida Webster were eager to share how they were successfully sourcing inventory for their business Connectable using local online auctions for a source during the worst of the pandemic restrictions.

Griff: How connects been impacted by the last year?

Maida Webster: I think the biggest way has way we've sourcing because we sell nearly all one of a kind, meaning we only find it once unique vintage antiques and collectibles. And to do that, we used to go to a lot of live local auctions, as well as tag sales, but I don't like getting up early in the morning. So that was never my thing but we used to go to a lot of local auctions. And obviously as soon as COVID hit, we are seniors. We're very high risk. We were going nowhere, but the most beautiful thing, which I cannot recommend enough and is what got us through the year. There are local groups that sell online, but you have local pickup in Connecticut. We're in Connecticut and they are all around the country. And every week there would be at least one or two a day where we could sign on look at two, 300 items bid in my pajamas. They would assign a day where you could go and pick it up safely. COVID safe, outdoors, no contact. We did not miss a week of sourcing new, wonderful material. And I can't think of another job that you could be staying home and have items come to you. Every once in a while, one of those options would do shipping only. Then we had to be careful thinking about, weight and size of what we were bidding on, but we have not missed a beat in every week bringing new, exciting collectable inventory because there seems to have been no shortage during COVID of people going through their house and taking time to clean out collectibles.

Bill Webster: Let me just piggyback on what just it, me a into a business that I hadn't been specializing in, much buying electric trains and reselling them. At local flea markets and stuff we would never really see those, but on the auctions I found a tremendous source for electric trains, and it's been very helpful to me in trying to specialize in that. So that's an item that I've gotten out that I wasn't really selling much of in the past.

Maida Webster: The other thing that has changed was our shipping. Bill used to go every day and love going to the post office and schmoozing with his favorite postman. We started right at COVID having daily pickup and we bought all kinds of snacks and candy bars. And every, every day we would leave a treat, you know, for the last 12 months for our local pickup postman. But those two things were the biggest switches for us not being able to go live to source inventory. And it turns out to be an absolute blessing. This could not have been easier. The amount of inventory we had to stop ourselves some weeks from buying. Now, you're actually bidding buying, paying, and still having plenty of room for resale on eBay.

Griff: Do you think you'll continue buying this way in the future?

Maida Webster: Absolutely. Last night, one of my high school, senior granddaughters fell in love with a pair of vintage 1970s, Gogo boots that I showed her in a local auction that we’re gonna pick up on sun, a three blocks from here, we bought 'em for $19. She thinks they worth worth $200. She's thrilled, and anybody can do this. And these companies are all around the country and you can be bedridden. You can just be lazy. We were able to keep our eBay business the same because of sourcing, which is pretty extraordinary. Now last night, Bill participated in a train auction and there ended up with no room for resale. These were real collectors, you know, just like going to a regular auction, like you used to. He didn't anything, but every other week we haven't had a go where we haven't added things to our inventory

Griff: Brian. I wonder if they're still doing this.

Brian: I wonder? That was a great, great segment by the way.

Griff: Yeah it was. Yeah, it was always good.

Brian: I hope our listeners on some of these go back and listen to the entire segments.

Griff: Our final look way back is from episode 73. That's way, way back when eBay seller Maria also known on eBay as The Style Lister shared her secrets for successfully sourcing fashion.

Maria: When I started going out to source, I had problems, I was buying stuff that wouldn't sell. That's real. It's part of the learning process of doing this. Whether you do electronics, whether you do hard goods, whether you do fashion, the BOLO list, don't always work because they're constantly changing. That's my 2 cents.

Griff: And BOLO is?

Maria: Be On the Lookout. I always tell people the best BOLO list you can have is look on any department store. If it's fashion, look on those, look at Nordstrom's inventory. What they currently stock. They have, they have a category, which is the brands that they carry. And you can look at that. And that's a good BOLO for you to start. And it's free. It's totally free.

Griff: You don't have to do anything. They have done the research for you.

Maria: They've done the research for you. They make millions and millions of dollars. They do a great job. Copy them. The biggest problem with people when they have unlisted inventory or listed inventory is fashion changes. Fashion changes.

Griff: Trends, you mean?

Maria: Trends change constantly. So something that's in style. Now that's in two years in five or six years, it's gonna look dated. So someone might not be interested in it as much as they would be five, six years ago, there was a really big brand about nine years ago, it was called Robert Rodriguez. Some people have out there might have heard of it. Yeah. I've heard of this. Yeah. They were huge in, I think, 2008 2009, 2010. Now, if I were to list anything of their, it's not gonna move. And it's the items that I have from then. Why? It's not on trend. So you can't go and purchase these major brands or they might have been really popular back in the day and they don't move. Now. I think the biggest problem with a lot of eBays sellers, especially with fashion is they have these piles of fashion, you know, specifically, and they're not listing those. What ends up happening is you are sourcing the first in, first out, like when it comes to fashion, it should be first in, first out, whatever you get in, you should list immediately. Right?

Griff: Because if it sits there for a few years, it's out of trend, no one wants it.

Maria: It's totally out of trend. Yeah.

Griff: I've seen this happen.

Maria: And then on top of it, say, for example, if you are thrifting or you are doing a retail arbitrage, the stuff that's in stores is what's on trend right now. So whether you go to a boutique thrift store, like one of these higher end or mid end thrift stores that are second hand, what they have is what's currently on trend for people to go out and buy. This is how they survive. And the same thing goes for, you know, Nordstrom Rack. I read this really interesting article. I, I believe that I think 35% of their inventory is items of theirs that did not sell from their main store. So you're talking about almost 40% of their stock is stuff that they believe that would sell in their major department stores. So when that stuff immediately comes in, you have to look at it as this should have sold. But for some reason it didn't, maybe it's a return. Maybe it's just a weird size or maybe just got caught up in the bunch and nobody bought it. Yeah. For example, if I'll go to Nordstrom Rack and I'll find a pair of jeans that I love, and they're not my size, what do I do? I hop on my phone and I try and find them on eBay or wherever else. Even online, maybe another retailer hat. That's what a lot of people do. So there is someone in Wisconsin that wanted that pair of jeans that you found at Nordstrom Rack that you found at some other store secondhand store, because it's currently on trend. So when you see something that is on trend, like I said, that houndstooth right now is really big. This Fall 2019, Winter, 2020, it's a really big print. It's a really big pattern that people should check out.

Griff: This is the, the big print hound. Yeah.

Maria: Big, small whatever houndstooth period.

Griff: But houndstooth as women's fashion in different sizes has come in and out since the seventies. So you can find something that may be 10 years old, but it looks like fashion today. And that could be a real treasure

Maria: Absolutely. 100%. So I knew, you know, coming in July, August, I knew houndstooth was really big. You know what I did whenever I went out, I looked for houndstooth. And when I found it and it was something that I knew would make me good money, I would buy it. A lot of it is instinct. A lot of it is kind of that guessing game, like this coat I saw it and I knew, I said, it's boutique the buttons say boutique. But the thing is, is the second I saw it. I knew it would sell because I knew it was on trend. Because leather right now is also really big. The facts I'm giving you right now, they're relevant right now. They might not be six months from now.

Griff: If you're listening to this podcast six months from now, it might be hounds tooth is out.

Maria: And what are you wearing? She's so six months ago! That was in the last decade. Look at her!

Griff: Purse your lips, like Amanda Priestley.

Brian: I wonder if hounds tooth is still hot two years later?

Griff: I wondered the same. So I, I actually emailed Maria yesterday and she wrote back saying, absolutely not! Hounds tooth patterned apparel is well, apparently no longer on trend.

Brian: That sounds exactly like Maria. Yeah. Did she say what was on trend or what's currently in for fashion?

Griff: Well, she was about to tell me, but I asked her to wait, hold on to it until we can bring her back for a whole sort of what's on trend for fashion right now, segment and the new future. Well, that's it. That's our Best Of segment. We're gonna answer a few questions too. And if you'd like to hear more Best Of episodes in the future, let us know, tell us what topic you'd like us to cover. (888)723-4630 or podcast@ebay.com.

Brian: You got questions.

Griff: We got answers.

Tyler: Yes we do.

Griff: Hey Tyler. How you doing?

Tyler: I'm doing pretty good today. It's sunny outside for the first time in a while.

Griff: We're joined by Tyler Langston for our Let's Ask Tyler segment. Tyler, thanks for stopping by to help out with questions. Let's get right into it. Our first question is from eBay seller, TR Batman. Hello Rebecca, Griff and company. Brian, Tyler. Thank you for the podcast. I have been a part-time seller and have got over 20 years, but now I'm retiring and will become a full-time seller in the next few months. I'm looking now at so many aspects of eBay that honestly I never looked into because I was only doing it Part-time. Well, here's my question. Is there a way to differentiate Terra peak searches for international sales versus sales in the US? I ask this because I don't have a lot of international sales and I'd like to get more knowledge on what international buyers are looking for. Keep up the good work on the podcast. Listen to each one, about two or three times. Also I'd love a mug so that I can post my picture with it on my first day as a full-time seller. Thanks. That's all he wrote.

Brian: Well, thanks TR Batman. We'd love to send you a mug, but you have to send us your shipping address at podcast@ebay.com.

Griff: Yeah. And then we'll send you a mug and you can use it in your picture. Tyler, getting to his question though, is what TR Batman is hoping to accomplish with Terra peak possible?

Brian: Yes, it is. First off TR, congrats on retirement with regards to your question. If you click the research tab in Seller Hub, you will see in the upper right hand corner, a dropdown box with ebay.com. If you click the arrow next to ebay.com, you will see a list of each separate eBay country site. You can select one to Terra Peak research for all searches using that site. But there's an option at the bottom of the dropdown menu to search all eBay sites at once.

Griff: I use that one all the time.

Brian: You do? Why?

Griff: Well, because just like TR Batman, I wanna know what's popular and what's sold all across the world. So it's not so much knowing where I could sell them, it's knowing what the prices are.

Brian: That makes sense.

Griff: Well, I'm glad you think so, Tyler, thanks for the research on that one. That's really important.

Brian: Our next question was sent to podcast@ebay.com by seller, Lori. Thank you so much for all the great podcasts. You had mentioned some keywords not to use for Google search, and I was not aware of them. Is there somewhere to find a list or could you expand on more of these terms please? Also terms that eBay does not approve of. Can you talk more about dos and don'ts of titles? Is it better to write size small S Z S or just small? Is it best to include the word size? Do we need to write small S SM to cover all bases? Should we write men, men's mens' mens or capital M men's? That's a lot of men's. How about abbreviations? Like L forward slash S or SS so long sleeve short sleeve, et cetera. What is the best way to write men's jeans size 32 inches by 36 inches or 32 waist w by 36 L length? When it comes to jeans that are used and have a tag with size that has shrunk. What is the best way to write that size in the title? And do you include this tag size too? For instance, 32 by 34 tag, 34 by 36. And your favorite keyword vintage. Is it okay to put VTG? I'm gonna love to hear that answer. I know these are a lot of questions and maybe you have even done a podcast about this and if so, you could point me in the direction of that. I would love to hear more about it. And if not, can you please do one on it? Thank you so much. I learned a lot from your podcast and I really appreciate it.

Griff: I think we're doing it right now.

Brian: I think so. I think this it. Well, thanks, Lori. I think with the three of us on we, hopefully we can tackle this one. Glad to hear you're enjoying the podcast. Griff, are their list of words. Google does not want in product titles?

Griff: No, there aren't actual lists of words that are discouraged by Google Shopping. The rule of thumb, as we stated in the episode is to avoid adjectives or editorial words like beautiful and wonderful and excellent and rare and lovely and extraordinary and astonishing. Shall I go on? I think you get the point, avoid any of those adjectives and always avoid punctuation marks as well. Don't surround your terms, Wow! With lots of exclamation points. That's definitely going to get you kicked right off the Google feed.

Brian: They look so pretty. No, I'm kidding.

Griff: Please. Oh, don't even show someone's gonna do it.

Brian: What about eBay list? I'm pretty sure we don't have such a thing either. Tyler?

Tyler: Not really. There aren't any eBay list of keywords that we prohibit, but there some best practice dos and don'ts can you guess them Griff?

Griff: Yeah, sure. Put me on the spot. I see how it is. Okay. How about using the rule of thumb for creating a title, which I've been using for 26 years? And that rule is so simple, so easy. It goes like this keyword space, keyword space, keyword space, and on and on until you reach 80 character space until you reach 80 characters.

Tyler: See that's two of them right off the bat. Make sure your title is clear, concise, and professional, and include important details that matter for your category, such as brand, size, color. Also, just to be clear, your keywords should only be words that define the item listed for sale. No handbag, bag, wallet, situation.

Griff: A handbag bag wallet?

Brian: With a watch.

Griff: What if it's a watch! What if it's an item that you can convert into all those things? Look, it's a handbag. It's a wallet.

Tyler: And it has a picture of a watch.

Griff: And it's reversing. If you turn it inside out and inflate it with air, it's a balloon.

Tyler: Do not do those things.

Griff: No, don't don't do those things, Lori. And all the examples you provided Lori like sizes for a pair of jeans. Those are actually best indicated in the matching item specifics. That's where they really count. Right?

Brian: You mean things like brand model, waste, length, fit, et cetera.

Griff: I do. Those can be included in the item title of course. And they should, but a really must be also indicated with the proper item specifics.

Tyler: Exactly. Putting it in both the title and item specifics are important because that guarantees they'll show up in searches where the buyer filters for certain aspects like size fit or brand. Brian, can you guess another title do?

Brian: I'll guess spell your keywords correctly.

Tyler: okay. Yes. You you'd think that goes without saying, but it's actually fairly important if you don't believe me do a search for iPone. So many listings that will miss out on views because they lack an H .

Griff: IPone ?

Tyler: IPone instead of iPhone.

Griff: Like Patty Iupone. Don't cry for me Argentina. I can see in the script that you spelled iPone with a lowercase, I it's right here. And a capital P would that matter for titles actually?

Tyler: Yeah. As a matter of fact, yes. Google and eBay encourage either sentence or title case. Uh, Brian, can you tell us the difference, Brian?

Brian: Sentence and title case? Yes. So sentence, is upper case letter at the beginning of a sentence and then title case would be like, if let's say you're using, you're selling Nike, you would use the capital word or capital letter N for the word Nike.

Griff: I capitalize the initial letters of all the words in my

Tyler: Title and that's that's title, case script. So if you were to say like Nike Shoes and did a capital N for Nike and a capital S for shoes, that would be title case.

Griff: But I shouldn't use caps for all the words. I know that Google doesn't like that.

Tyler: No, no cap, no all capital letters, unless that is actually the way the brand specifies. So like for instance, I think LUCKY jeans is all capital LUCKY.

Griff: Just so you won't miss 'em.

Tyler: Right, right up there. Very, very loud and proud.

Griff: Okay. So upper and lower case letters within the same word. I don't see very many sellers doing this, but there's still occasionally something that comes across with that.

Tyler: It's called camel case, which I think I was looking into it today. Definitely don't do that. It's hard to read visually and it mentally reads like a rising and falling pitch. No one likes to hear that the exception to this is if it's a brand's actual name, like the iPhone. Or eBay.

Griff: Well, let's get back to Lori's question. Lori, If I'm selling a pair of men's jeans and I have in the past actually sold a lot. I would use the following title, keywords like brand space, gender space, condition, space, model, space to color or wash space item space fit. That can be important space, way size, space, length size. So for example, here's a title I would use Levi's space. Men's space. New. Just assume the space is from here. 5 0 5 stone wash jeans, classic fit 40 w 30 L.

Tyler: It really doesn't matter how you indicate size on the title. As long as you have selected the right sizes with item specifics.

Brian: Yeah. It's more informative for the, the person who's browsing through a whole bunch of titles. That's because non custom item specifics are actually searchable.

Griff: I actually proved this to myself with one of my items. I have an item that's a gift set of different Aramis colognes from the nineties. And there's four bottles in there. I had them in the title, the different names, but I took them out of the title and I put them in the bundled description text box, instead of having them in the title, I waited a day to make sure it reindexed. And when I searched for those names, even though they were weren't in the title, the items showed up. So the item specifics are searchable. In most cases, that's important information.

Brian: Something that comes up often from sellers is, is keyword order important?

Tyler: Not really, but think about writing your title as if you were a buyer searching for the same item. As a buyer. I'm never going to start a search with great conditioned, beautiful men's jeans. Look!! With the two at symbols and an exclamation mark at the end. I'm not gonna do that.

Brian: So wait, I can't use look or wow with exclamation points?

Griff: No, you can't.

Tyler: Keyword order. Doesn't impact search ranking, but it's probably a best practice to have the brand as the first keyword, because that's what a buyer was typically going to search with.

Griff: Right. And that's gonna make it stand out in a list of item titles or a search category, no matter how big or small the window is, there's title, it's the brand right there. And people search for brands.

Brian: Makes sense to me. Lori, one other thing, the Google shopping filter for submitted items from a marketplace will block listings with titles that have those extraneous words, Griff mentioned like beautiful or wonderful and phrases like free shipping or made in the USA. Those words and phrases don't really describe your item or they're fairly subjective. Maybe you think it's a beautiful pair of jeans and I don't.

Griff: I still might buy them. No one searches on beautiful. I'm looking for a pair of beautiful jeans. Beautiful.

Tyler: But I'll tell you the most beautiful thing I ever bought off eBay was a pair of jeans because the seller hand wrapped them in tissue paper and tied a bow on them and included a little tiny like it was like a little candy with a handwritten note. It was most beautifully packaged pair of jeans I've ever bought.

Griff: Did you buy those from me?

Tyler: Um, maybe if so you have beautiful handwriting.

Griff: Thank you. I went to Catholic school.

Tyler: Oh, well, there you go.

Brian: One of the other things that's really interesting Griff. Laurie asked about your pet peeve key word, vintage.

Griff: Don't even say that word. It drives me insane. I hate that word.

Tyler: Just, so you know, like when I used to travel a lot before COVID happened, the number of sellers who would come up to me at like seller meetings or meetups and say, I totally disagree with Griff about the use of the word vintage every time, when vintage comes up, I think about those sellers. And then I also know what your perspective is.

Griff: Yeah. And my perspective and the reason why I really hate the term is because it's meaningless. You don't believe me? Search eBay using vintage. I did this morning. Guess how many listings were returned? Just guess, guess.

Brian: Uh, 120,000?

Griff: Guess again.

Tyler: I was gonna say 200,00.

Griff: 38 million listings on eBay. 38 million. Have the word vintage across an enormous number of categories. It's virtually a meaningless word on its own. And the only time I would ever consider using that word vintage would be when I pair it with a specific year or time span, for example, vintage 1990s Members Only jacket. But even then I probably would avoid it.

Tyler: Oh, it's a kick in the gut to hear you say vintage 1990s.

Griff: Get used to it. It only gets worse.

Tyler: I know I'm not looking forward to it. But what about the acronym Laurie gave VTG?

Griff: It's just as bad as the entire word I avoid using acronyms in my titles. Like VTG I actually think that they make Google more inclined to take your listing and block it from their feed. And it too VTG that is, is an overused and meaningless key word acronym with nearly as many listings on eBay. I did a search of VTG and there were 37 million listings. It's just not efficient, 37 million. So I, I mean, I don't understand.

Brian: I always thought it meant vertigo.

Griff: Yeah. I get Kim Novak outfit on off and I do my hair in a bun and I jump into the San Francisco Bay.

Tyler: The Vertigo Members Only jacket.

Griff: Vertigo is my most favorite movie of all time actually. Alfred Hitchcock. One of the best movies ever. So, yeah, I don't like either of those. I don't like them. I don't like them. I don't like them, but Lori, if you want to use them and I gotta admit, I have to concede this. It actually, if you've got the space for it, it doesn't hurt. You can continue using vintage. You can continue using VTG. I would recommend probably against that because I don't think Google likes it, vintage. It's just, I gave up that fight a long time ago. I'm never gonna win it. It's like trying to push back a tsunami. I'm dying for someone to tell me what it means in a consistent way. Every time I ask a seller, I get to different, well, it means this, or it means that, or it means this. There are many days at eBay where my heart sank, but there was one where I felt a figurative knife go right through it. And that's when I woke up one day and saw that somebody from the Product Team from the data structure team had added a category that was called vintage. And it destroyed me.

Brian: He hasn't recovered. If he had recovered, there'd only be 34 million listings with vintage instead of 38 million. Cause you would've kept up the good fight

Tyler: You gotta pick your battles.

Griff: Have to pick your battles. And vintage is not the hill that I plan to die on. So have at it! Use vintage. I recommend vintage for all your item titles!

Brian: It gives you a competitive advantage. Cause you have extra space to not use vintage.

Griff: Something like 1990s is better than the word vintage. Anyway, you know, we're almost out of time here and Tyler, I hear you have some news to share with us.

Tyler: I do. I have up to a position with another company. And my last day with eBay will be....

Brian: The day this goes out.

Tyler: The day, this goes out, Ooh. The day, the day, this goes out Tuesday,

Griff: Every time that we get somebody as a regular on the podcast, they find a job somewhere else. We got Allen. He was working out great. He goes off.

Brian: Audrey,

Griff: Audrey working out great. She decides to follow her dream. I don't know what she was thinking.

Brian: Liz.

Griff: Liz, Liz was becoming a big part of the podcast decides she's missing Australia. And now Tyler. it's just like, we can't hold onto talent !

Tyler: Or, or is your podcast, the launching springboard for everyone else's next step?

Griff: So the glass is half full for you then.

Tyler: I mean the glass is definitely half full for me.

Griff: For me, it's filled with poison.

Brian: I'm super excited for Tyler and his next adventure. I'm really sad that he's not gonna be, you know, with any longer and uh, working on the team any longer, but I'm delighted for the next adventure for Tyler.

Griff: Me too. I'm only joking.

Brian: Well deserved.

Griff: I'll miss you.

Tyler: Well, thank you. It's been fantastic to work with. I've worked with you both for years at this point. So it's it's parting is sweet sorrow.

Griff: I have one consolation, a lot of people who leave eBay seem to make it... they make it back. Case and point our own CEO. Jamie Iannone left eBay quite a while ago. And then one day he showed up again. So who knows?

Tyler: The eBay boomerang may bring me back.

Griff: Is that what it's called? The boomerang?

Tyler: Yeah. The eBay, boomerang I think is, is what we call it.

Brian: We have a bunch of 'em Jordan. Jamie?

Griff: That's been the case for years here at eBay. Yeah. People come back, they try to leave and we drag 'em back in, You know, where do you think you going? Well, Tyler, we're gonna miss you for sure. It's been great fun working with you.

Brian: It sure has been Tyler. If you wanna join the fund here on eBay for business, call us on (888) 723-4630.

Griff: (888) 723-4630. Leave your message on why Tyler should stay and maybe we can convince him to change his mind. No, no, no. We wouldn't do that. You can call that hotline by the way, any anytime of day, any day of the week, leave a question or comment and we just might put you on the air.

Brian: And if you're not a call on the phone person, you can always email us at podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ebay.com

Griff: Don't forget your daily podcast. To-do list. Number one, check the Announcement Board for UpToDate Seller News.

Tyler: Two, read the latest announcements regarding the Spring Seller Update and view the Discussion Board where eBay team members answered questions posted by sellers.

Brian: And always check out the transcript for this in all episodes for follow up on what you've heard and to see the links we referenced during the episode.

Griff: And on our, our next episode, we'll meet at eBay seller named Anna Packer, who is one of the recent Up And Running Grant Winners.

Brian: We'd like to, again, thank our guests this week for their contributions to past episodes, eBay sellers, Victor Rivera, Alec Larson, Bill and Maida Webster and Maria, Thee Style Lister.

Griff: Tyler, why don't you sign us off this week for old time sake?

Tyler: Oh, thank you. The eBay For Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.

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The eBay for Business podcast is published every Tuesday morning and is presented by eBay, Libsyn and Podcast411.