Thanks very much for giving me the chance to spout off every day for a month about eBay and ecommerce and the like. Thanks, especially, for the comments and conversations that have taken place. It has been fascinating to read the views expressed.
So I thought I’d finish with a sort of summary and pull together [...]

Whether or not you take any trading off-eBay, there is a potentially huge opportunity for you in taking some of your marketing away from eBay. 10% of the UK’s internet traffic settles on eBay. But 90% of it is buzzing elsewhere. You might be simply promoting your eBay Shop or pimping your own website, it [...]

As I’ve written before in this series, there was a time when there was just eBay when it came to individuals selling online. But now the scene is more fragmented. Buyers are changing their habits and willing to buy using different formats and services. If you haven’t thought about Classified sites or Comparison Engines before [...]

It’s totally right and natural for any eBay seller to want to find profits and growth in other marketplaces. However, it’s at that point that many draw a blank. There has been a tendency for new sites to seek to become the ‘eBay killer’ with a strategy fuelled by antipathy or anger resulting from site [...]

Of all the eBay sellers I’ve met over the years, I’ve never met one who regretted setting up their own website. But almost every single one I’ve spoken to regrets not having done it sooner.
I think that every seller dependent on the eBay monster needs some sort of independent online presence. It could be just [...]

What would you do if eBay pulled the plug? It could happen. What if a change makes eBay untenable for you? What if the developments to Search and Browse, combined with a few unsavoury Feedback, mean that your items are appearing at the bottom of the pile? Just like in the Thunderbirds, anything could happen, [...]

So far, we’ve only looked at online modes of marketing and branding. But there is one very obvious opportunity to connect with your buyers in a visceral way: by branding your parcels and using them to market.
There are two particular advantages of using this channel. Firstly, it’s free from eBay’s gaze. You are free to [...]

Here’s a washing list of things that I haven’t mentioned so far, that you should be doing. If not, you’re a maniac.
About Me Page: Just about nothing is free on eBay and yet this free option isn’t taken up universally. Your About Me page is a freeform page that you can customise, design and brand. [...]

The only really important aspect of your on-eBay branding and marketing is consistency. You don’t have the full gamut of options on the site that most businesses have so making sure that you extract the most from the ones you do have is vital. Everything you do on the site is an opportunity to tell [...]

I’ve read enough books about marketing and branding to know that whole forests have been sacrificed for nought. A lot of crap has been written but not much of it explains much about why it’s important. Or rather they do, using dictionaries of meaningless terminology.
I like to think about selling on eBay in contexts that [...]

In any sort of retail business there is, what in many ways resembles, a gamble at the core. Can you sell the stock you buy at a price, and in sufficient quantities, without having too much leftover, and still turn a profit? You’ll become more expert at this as time goes by, but it must [...]

One of the big sinks of time for any seller is dealing with emails from potential buyers and also dealing with the comms from buyers. It seems to me that there isn’t really a way of escaping from these (sometimes peculiar and moronic missives) so there is real merit in minimising the impact on your [...]

I once asked a particularly robotic, unimaginative and starched new employee at eBay (replete with crisp light blue shirt, tshirt underneath and immaculately pressed chinos) what he’d be doing. He replied, confidently; “I will manage the process.”
He’s doubtless doing well and is probably raking it in after numerous promotions and, even if I don’t totally [...]

I’ve met thousands of eBay sellers over the years: an admirable bunch for the most part, let me tell you. There have been a few nutters and wastrels, of course, but mostly I’ve met extremely hard-working, decent, ambitious and honourable folks.
In fact, if I have a general criticism of the eBay seller community, I’d say [...]

Even if an eBay Shop doesn’t necessarily float your boat as a way of selling, you can still gain benefit from the suite of marketing tool available to Shopkeepers. In particular, the email marketing feature is a powerful facility that can help you sell more. Bear in mind that it does take time to get [...]