Ebay research!

[PremierPDS]

I've been doing some thinking lately on how to best promote my craft forum and one of the ideas I have is to open an ebay store selling craft related items so I can send out flyers promoting the forum and competitions with purchases to a targeted audience as well as make some money to invest in other promotional ideas.

However, although I've been an ebay user for many years and sold the odd thing I've not looked into selling on it in a business capacity. Ideally I'd like to see what sells and what doesn't and in what quantities etc but I'm stuck on how to go about doing this? I've heard people say in the past that they've done research on sellers to find out this kind of thing but I'm at a complete loss on where to start with it? How is this done? do you have to look at every sellers feedback individually to get some idea of what and how much of it they're selling? Is there some kind of tool akin to the Google Adword Tool which I can look at to see how many searches are being done for particular products etc? I'm probably asking a bit too much here but surely there are ways of researching ebay sellers??? Any help will be gratefully received!

[Punched]

Ebay is Great for getting the word out on your items, I don't sell much on ebay but i guess 25% of my Main Site Traffic comes from Ebay so its definately worth it, another thing i do is stick a link back to my main site, and tell people my terms and conditions etc, but whilst they are on my site they buy there as opposed to ebay as i've made the goods cheaper than i have posted on ebay.

Naughty but nice :001_rolleyes:

[wickedd]

Originally Posted by Punched

Ebay is Great for getting the word out on your items, I don't sell much on ebay but i guess 25% of my Main Site Traffic comes from Ebay so its definately worth it, another thing i do is stick a link back to my main site, and tell people my terms and conditions etc, but whilst they are on my site they buy there as opposed to ebay as i've made the goods cheaper than i have posted on ebay.

Naughty but nice :001_rolleyes:

And very effective

[Big Pete]

Does the ebay theory work for just using as a link ..

eg;

if you placed a product on it with really over the top prices but a link where you can buy them sensible cheap prices ( your own web site ) would that work ?
and presumably it doesnt cost ?

[Big Pete]

Originally Posted by PremierPDS

I've been doing some thinking lately on how to best promote my craft forum and one of the ideas I have is to open an ebay store selling craft related items so I can send out flyers promoting the forum and competitions with purchases to a targeted audience as well as make some money to invest in other promotional ideas.

However, although I've been an ebay user for many years and sold the odd thing I've not looked into selling on it in a business capacity. Ideally I'd like to see what sells and what doesn't and in what quantities etc but I'm stuck on how to go about doing this? I've heard people say in the past that they've done research on sellers to find out this kind of thing but I'm at a complete loss on where to start with it? How is this done? do you have to look at every sellers feedback individually to get some idea of what and how much of it they're selling? Is there some kind of tool akin to the Google Adword Tool which I can look at to see how many searches are being done for particular products etc? I'm probably asking a bit too much here but surely there are ways of researching ebay sellers??? Any help will be gratefully received!

Does your forum cover card making supplies etc, ? and is it only Uk or is it European ?

reason i say is that Mrs BP has just set up a card making supplies site www.greeting-cards-direct2u.com i could get her to do a link swap maybe ?

the more direct related links the better for both right :001_rolleyes: so if your interested just go to her links page and email her , i will put a good word in for you while she makes me cuppa :wink:

[Punched]

Originally Posted by Big Pete

Does the ebay theory work for just using as a link ..

eg;

if you placed a product on it with really over the top prices but a link where you can buy them sensible cheap prices ( your own web site ) would that work ?
and presumably it doesnt cost ?

Of course Pete it does, You just add a link back to your site for whatever reason, say to see terms and conditions please visit our site www..... and people will go back and take a look. Works every time, not only do you get "Free Advertising" but it comes up great in google searches too.

[PremierPDS]

Yeah but putting things up for sale on ebay for silly prices isn't going to attract viewers is it? I mean if I searched for say a ' Sony flat screen LCD TV' and seen the same model in the list for £880 versus Big Pete's £1400 price tag then I'd steer clear if you get my meaning. You need to pull them in with a sensible price- somewhere in the middle of the cheapest and the most expensive so the ebay price is still higher than those advertised on your website!

[PremierPDS]

Originally Posted by Big Pete

Does your forum cover card making supplies etc, ? and is it only Uk or is it European ?

reason i say is that Mrs BP has just set up a card making supplies site www.greeting-cards-direct2u.com i could get her to do a link swap maybe ?

the more direct related links the better for both right :001_rolleyes: so if your interested just go to her links page and email her , i will put a good word in for you while she makes me cuppa :wink:

I'll defo email her Pete, this is exactly the type of thing I'm looking for. I'm also looking for people to write articles on the different crafts so I can make them stickies and use them as landing pages for an Adwords campaign- all in return for a bit of free advertising so it's a win win situation all round and something Mrs BP might be interested in! To answer your question, the forum has a .co.uk extention but most crafts are more or less the same the world over so we'd welcome members from anywhere!

[Punched]

i see where your comming from but i guess it depends on what your selling judging by your reply. It works for me as i'm the only one in the UK doing what i'm doing so, its only bound to happen that people will get onto my website from my ebay page, apart from one of my customers who sells what i make (£10 dearer!!) i've not got anyone else on ebay selling what i have which is great.

But with Craft related items you'll find 1000's of listings so i guess you you it will be a lot tougher and perhaps this idea may not work with your type of listing.

The gist of it would be to have a slightly higher price tag on ebay than you would have on your site even by £20, people will go to your site to pay, but i guess your trying to sell on ebay too, so your prices would have to remain competitive to others, but worded correctly you can still pull in ebay viewers via a well placed link on your site, but make sure you word it correctly as ebay get a bit funny otherwise.

[PremierPDS]

Arh right, well that's a lovely position to be in Gerry- having no competition is every business persons dream lol! You're right though, it'll be a lot tougher for me and especially as there are no tools so I can research before hand! Ebay is defo a good place to drag traffic onto your website for a relatively small fee per advert- if you can get it right of course!

what do you mean when you say 'but worded correctly you can still pull in ebay viewers via a well placed link on your site'? did you mean a well placed link in your listing???