eBay Auction Tip: A Case Study on How to Make Money on eBay

Apply These Copywriting Tactics to eBay Auctions Items to Make More Money

In this case study, you’ll learn how the revision of one of our client’s auction copy on eBay resulted in a 60% increase in the sale price of his auction after just 30 mins of applying proper copywriting principles to his listing. 

But that’s that the end of it - not only did the average sale price go up (signifying that buyers perceived value of the product increased) but the TOTAL sales also went up. In this case by 21%.

                            Before: Average Bid Price Of US$30-35

Notice in our auction screenshots below, What would normally sell at an average price of US$30-35, Sold for US$55 after our client implemented our tips on how to make more money on eBay auctions …

                            After:  Selling Price Increases to US$55

The Test Subject - Video Gaming Market On eBAY

As both a seller and a buyer, Akshay Of Akshay’s Toy emporium, has been trading on ebay for over six years now. His own business on ebay caters to the toy & collectible’s market .

Recently Akshay was offered a proposition. He was to list Gaming products on eBay on behalf of a Gaming Store. The proposal allowed Akshay to receive 55% of the selling price of each product, as long as he took the responsiblity to list the auctions, and handle all pre/post sale duties.

Upon having listed many auctions, Akshay soon noticed that the final closing price on his auctions, were not even close to what he had planned on achieving. So Akshay set about to rethink and reform a strategy for improving his sales on eBay from what we thought him.

Some of the changes he made to his auctions include:

Tactic #1

Some of the most noteable changes made to the auction, include highlighting the aspect of Free shipping, which was briefly touched upon in the first auction(before), however note that in the second auction(after) - Free shipping was highlighted in BIG/BOLD Font.

                             Before Free Shipping was Implemented

Also notice, that Akshay now had specified the Language of the game (ie English or Japanese). In copywriting, more information = greater sales. Previously the Language of the game was not mentioned, this could have resulted in the mediocre selling price of the first auction.

                                     After Offering Free Shipping

Tactic #2

Another major change came in the form of changing the entire listing structure itself from an online auction to a fixed price listing.

          Using an Auction Format          Using a Buy it Now Format

Why list an auction at a fixed price? Simple. Time. Many people prefer not to wait until an auction is over which could take days and not even guarantee them a surefire win, hence they prefer to just use buy it now to purchase their product directly, just like they would do in a brick and mortar store.

Tactic #3

On the Marketing side of things, One of the final major changes to the auction came through the creation of “Scarcity”, every person knows that if a product is Limited chances are it will sell better.

             Before : The Theory of Scarcity was not Implemented

Akshay, used this principle to his advantage. Since he only had limited products, he decided to disclose this information is his auction, by adding the phrase “Grab it now while stocks last!!!!!!”. This term creates a sense of urgency in the buyer, who feels compelled to buy the product as he/she may never see it again.

                        After: Using Scarcity to your advantage

Furthermore, to ensure that his customers are fully roped in he added the term “Price has been reduced further in Conjunction with our sale”, Think about it? If a product was limited and discounted as well, it would attract more attention and through that sales.

CONCLUSION

• Total Sales Up by 21%
• Average Buy Price Up by 60%

We have taken the above case study as reference, as it shows that the smallest changes can have a big impact -something that we in MindValley strongly believe in. As Price Pritchett said “Change always comes bearing gifts”, if we can learn to change the way we think and sell our products (market ourselves), chances are great improvement lies ahead.

We hope you enjoyed this tip on how to make more money on eBay auctions

Some of the key learnings here:

1. The tiniest changes in copy (it took Akshay only 30 mins) can lead to huge boosts in sales.

2. Good copywriting practices apply to ebay listings (and classifieds ads) as much as they do to direct marketing and website copy.

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About the Author

Prior to MindValley Media, Mike was the Head of New Ventures Strategy at eBay where he conceived of the strategies that led to the investment in Craigslist, the launch of Kijiji.com and the acquisition of Skype. Mike has an MBA from Stanford and previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group. He is also a certified Google AdWords Professional.

Check out other posts by Mike Reining

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