More traffic for my eBay listings – here’s how it works! [Republishing]
Hello dear listeners! We’re back from the summer break with a little surprise for you: so you won’t get bored until the release of our brand-new episode on August 14, we’ve brought along one of our podcast episodes from 2023. Because the topic is still highly relevant for online sellers – so be sure to tune in!
Good offers also benefit from good visibility in eBay search results. In this podcast episode, it’s all about creating and optimizing listings, as well as good communication with customers in the relevant target group. Isabell Butterwegge and David Philippe talk about all the steps that help drive more traffic to eBay listings.
**Important Links**
- eBay webinar on visibility
- Terapeak product research
- Promoted Listings Standard
- Promoted Listings Advanced (BETA)
- eBay Ads Academy
- eBay Ads marketing calendar
- eBay Social Media Tool
- eBay Community
- eBay for Business on Facebook
- More info on the eBay podcast “All top-notch. Happy to come back!” and our podcast hosts
**Mentioned podcast episodes**
- Social media for small and medium-sized businesses
- CRO - conversion rate optimization for online sellers
- SEO for online sellers
** Chapter markers **
- 00:00:00 to 00:00:36: Disclaimer
- 00:00:36 to 00:04:52: Intro
- 00:04:52 to 00:07:23: Listing title and description
- 00:07:23 to 00:09:15: Item specifics
- 00:09:15 to 00:11:43: Selling standards
- 00:11:43 to 00:13:43: Product images and videos
- 00:13:43 to 00:15:15: How do I create a good buying experience?
- 00:15:15 to 00:18:01: How do I use Promoted Listings sensibly?
- 00:18:01 to 00:21:22: Which marketing tools can I use?
- 00:21:22 to 00:26:42: How does social media help me increase the visibility of my listings?
Lisa: Hello dear listeners, and warm greetings from Isabell, Vincent, and me from the summer break. So you don’t have to bridge the time until the release of our brand-new episode on August 14 without any exciting input, we’ve got a podcast episode from 2023 for you: tips on creating and optimizing listings. In this episode, you’ll learn how to create the ideal listing and how to create a good buying experience. You’ll also hear how you can use social media and our marketing tools for additional visibility. So be sure to stick around! Have fun listening.
David: Today we’re going through the complete journey of a product, from creating the listing to optimizing it and communicating with the relevant target group. Together, my co-host Isabell Butterwegge and I make different stops to tell you how you can drive more traffic to your listings with simple tweaks. So buckle up and perk up your ears - we’re ready for take-off!
Isabell: Of course, we want to show customers who come to our platform the listings they’re really looking for. That’s why it’s so important that the listing is relevant to the customer, and factors such as the feedback left by previous customers play a role here. As a seller, I can of course influence that through good customer communication or the factors we’ve just discussed.
David: Welcome, dear listeners, to a new episode of “All top-notch. Happy to come back!”, the eBay podcast about commerce and e-commerce. I’m David Philippe. At eBay Germany, I work as a Seller Engagement Manager, and sitting across from me is Isabell Butterwegge, who also works as a Seller Engagement Manager, and also at eBay. What a coincidence! Hello, Isabell!
Isabell: Hello David, and a warm hello of course to our listeners too. Today we’re here in a pretty much empty studio, so it’s just the two of us and our production team, which naturally gives me an excellent view of everything that’s happening here in the studio.
David: Is that the best transition into the topic ever?
Isabell: I tried, but thanks for noticing. Today we’re talking a lot about visibility, specifically visibility on our online marketplace eBay, because visibility is basically the foundation for conversion and therefore also for successful selling.
David: Absolutely, because the best listing is useless if no one gets to see it. And on this topic, both of us have already had plenty to say and have shared our knowledge in various webinars and workshops. That means mainly you shared your knowledge, and I asked the questions, and today we’re doing the same thing again, or something similar, for everyone who prefers to learn via podcast. Otherwise, we’ve also linked our last webinar in the show notes for anyone who’d like to join visually as well. What do you think, Isabell, who is this episode actually for? Are these more topics aimed at beginners, or are professionals and the big brands selling on eBay also being addressed?
Isabell: Actually, this episode is relevant for everyone, both beginners and pros and brands. Of course, some sellers may already have heard one or another topic before, and maybe even implemented it successfully, but visibility is really an evergreen topic that you should always keep on top of. And that’s why, in my opinion, experts out there can also take something away from this.
David: But if we start now, I’ll just go through it chronologically: before we say we want to be visible, maybe we should first have something nice that we want to show, right? In other words, we want a good listing. We’ve already covered some of this in earlier episodes, but maybe you can briefly touch on it again.
Isabell: Exactly, so in the past we already had an episode on SEO, meaning search engine optimization, and an episode on CRO, meaning conversion rate optimization, and we thought we really needed to bring the whole thing together for the eBay universe and show very clearly: what are the levers I can optimize in a listing, specifically in an eBay listing, so it gets more visibility on the eBay marketplace? And as you just said, where do we start? First with what people can see. I’d say that means all the descriptive elements. We went into this in a lot of detail back then with Niels in the SEO episode, so title, item specifics, item descriptions, basically everywhere there are text modules. That’s where I usually start.
David: Yes, so for anyone now thinking, “Which episode do they mean?”: we’ve linked it in the show notes too, a very detailed episode on the overall topic of search engine optimization. So we first start by dealing with everything where we have text, where we can describe something, and work on optimizing that first.
Isabell: Exactly. So if you think of the listing chronologically, I’d start with the title. On eBay, the title has 80 characters; on external search engines, it’s often a bit shorter. That’s why it’s especially important that the first three terms in the title are really the main terms, let’s say the main keywords, and generally: the title should really include everything around the brand and descriptive words, but things like evaluation - if I say “great shirt,” for example - are less helpful. So: no subjective judgment in there. But size, color, the model number if I have one, and all special features absolutely need to go into the title. Best to put the brand at the beginning, and as I said, 80 characters, so use the space as well as you can and avoid special characters like commas, hyphens and that sort of thing, because that’s just a waste of space.
David: And as I said, the 80 characters apply to us. For search engines and the like, sometimes not. So put the most important things first. If we move on: besides the title, we have other descriptive elements in a listing. One thing that comes to mind is the plain item description. How should I structure that?
Isabell: Yes, and opinions differ a bit here because, of course, when I look at the eBay listing, especially on mobile, too much text would just overwhelm me as a buyer. Still, text is super important for search engines. So our recommendation is: keep everything short and to the point, and don’t include a company history or shipping information and so on. Put all that at the beginning, and anything else I want to optimize can go below that. So the buyer who really wants to know more can keep reading. But the most important things need to be visible at a glance.
David: Mm-hmm, and you just said shipping information - I actually shouldn’t really have to mention that there at all, because I usually have it elsewhere, right?
Isabell: Exactly. If I’ve set shipping preferences, then all of that is also listed in the shipping settings field on the item page. So I’d just be repeating myself there. And the same applies to company details, by the way, so an imprint, for example, does not belong in the item description.
David: So on the one hand, it makes things easier because it’s always automatically included, and you save the space for the actual description. That’s definitely something to keep in mind. What other options do we have?
Isabell: Exactly. If I wrap up the descriptive elements one more time, then item specifics definitely shouldn’t be missing either. On eBay, you can - and must - provide item specifics for the listing, such as color, so that the buyer can filter the search by these attributes. Here’s a tip: it’s less useful to create your own item specific; instead, really use the preconfigured item specifics. If I’m selling, say I mentioned color, if I sell a Pacific blue scarf, my customer is probably less likely to search for “Pacific blue” and more likely to search for “blue.” So use the preconfigured specifics there. And otherwise, include everything you have in terms of information.
David: Yes, so for anyone familiar with search engine optimization: yes, you can think of our item specifics a bit like keywords that are used for our internal search, so items can be found. And for those who aren’t that familiar with it, just listen to the SEO episode. Isabell, we also have another tool in our lineup, especially for these search terms. It’s called Terapeak. Can you say a bit more about it?
Isabell: Yes, our Terapeak product research is available free of charge to all eBay users, and I can search for my product and then see similar products and how successful they are. So I can also filter by revenue, or rather by sales, and see what works well on the marketplace, and I can learn a lot from that. Usually the tool is used for keywords, but you can also use it, for example, to see how much free shipping is offered. So how important is that in my direct category?
David: You’ve already brought up free shipping, which leads us nicely into the next topic a bit, namely, I’ll call it the second point: selling standards. Because nowadays on most marketplaces, certain standards have become established, and since you’ve already mentioned free shipping, would you like to start there?
Isabell: Yes, and this is always a point mentioned by sellers: shipping can’t possibly be free, and of course that’s true. Still, it’s helpful to offer free shipping to buyers. We also have a filter option for that, so customers really can filter by it on the marketplace, and it also simply helps to be more present in search. Ideally, handling time and delivery time are short too. That the item reaches the customer’s home as quickly as possible. The same applies to returns, by the way. So the more flexibility you can offer buyers - quick delivery and a long consideration period, so to speak - the more appreciated it is, and it also has a very positive influence on the purchase decision. And one more note here: free shipping and fast shipping are important, but offering different shipping options can also be a selling point, for example shipping to a Packstation, if that can be enabled, if the inventory suits it, different shipping providers, or even the pickup option we have on our marketplace. So simply offering even more flexibility.
David: And with the long consideration period, meaning also a long return period, it’s not about saying, well, the 14 days you have to offer anyway, maybe offer 30 days too, just to say - not because you assume they’ll send it back, but simply to give a kind of trust and say, if there are problems with it, if something’s wrong, you really... well, we trust our product so much that we give you that time.
Isabell: Yes, exactly, and the trend is even - you just said 30 days - the trend is actually moving more toward 60 days, and in some cases even 90.
David: Personally, I actually pay attention to that when I buy, that I really have the option to return something a bit longer if anything is wrong with it, because you don’t always notice it right away. Sometimes things lie around at my place for a long time too, and that’s why I think it’s very, very good and I can completely understand why buyers pay attention to that. Are there any other things to watch out for in the area of “selling standards,” or have we covered everything already?
Isabell: Yes, we’ve actually covered everything regarding selling standards. Before we move on to the last part, let’s talk about the images with us once more.
David: Right, I skipped over that a bit because of your wonderful transition. Of course, an important descriptive element in a listing is the images. Isabell, what should I pay attention to when I take pi
Isabell: Well, you can select up to 24 images, just to answer that question first. We recommend at least five, but there are also big differences between categories, and it’s worth using Terapeak to look at similar products: how many images is the standard there? For the images, it’s super important that the first image is a cut-out image, meaning ideally a transparent background. The item is visible, there are no distracting elements, and definitely no overlays or text or drawings or anything else on it - or brand logos - ideally, the first image is really just the product, cut out, because only then can it be used by external search engines. The other images, and we had a really nice conversation about this in the conversion rate optimization episode, can of course be a bit more creative. Karl talked a lot back then about how important purchase psychology is here, meaning that with the images you can really tell a story. Of course, I don’t have to do that, and you can’t do that with every product. What’s important, though, is that all details are shown, that defects are highlighted, that you have close-up shots, and that the images are simply high quality. That’s really super important, and maybe one point still worth mentioning: you can also upload videos. You can upload one video per listing, and there I can maybe show the product in use or, in a way, do a 360-degree view. Exactly!
David: Very good, so now we really have covered all the descriptive elements, right?
Isabell: Exactly!
David: Um, then let’s move on to the third part, which is the buying experience. And what exactly is behind that term?
Isabell: Exactly. At this point, it may be useful to explain how the eBay algorithm works. It focuses on relevance. Of course, we want to show customers who come to our platform the listings they’re really looking for. That’s why it’s important that the listing is relevant to the customer, and factors such as the feedback left by previous customers play a role here. As a seller, I can of course influence that through good customer communication or the factors we’ve just discussed. And here’s another tip: service status is also super important. So it’s worth regularly checking Seller Cockpit Pro as a seller and simply seeing where you stand.
David: Yes, definitely a very important point. Many customers really pay attention to what the customer service is like, what the sellers’ ratings are like, and of course service status is also simply important for visibility. That’s why I think it’s important that we mentioned it here. We haven’t explained exactly how the algorithm works, of course, but just so you know what to pay attention to. Isabell, by now we’ve basically optimized our listing. It looks good, we’ve got great descriptions in there, we meet all selling standards, and the buying experience should look good too. So now it’s there. How can I make sure I get even more visibility for it? What can I do?
Isabell: Exactly, we’ve basically talked about the foundation now, which should definitely always be in place, and then there are still a few things you can do to gain additional visibility, and I think you once got briefed by the eBay Ads team, because the topic of ads is of course super important in this context too.
David: Exactly, absolutely obvious is of course simply to run ads, and eBay has two major options that sellers can use, and that’s “Promoted Listings Standard.” It’s a cost-per-sale model, which means fees only apply when a promoted item is sold within 30 days after a buyer clicked on one of the standard ads. You really don’t have to worry about how often it gets shown, because it only matters once a buyer buys the item within 30 days after clicking an ad, then I only pay then. It’s super quick to set up, very flexible to adjust, and actually very intuitive to use. So anyone who hasn’t looked into it yet should definitely do that. It simply helps you get more visibility for your own products very quickly. Otherwise, it’s also worth saying that this option isn’t only available to business sellers, but also to private sellers. However, the “Promoted Listings Advanced (BETA)” option is only available to business sellers. That’s not a cost-per-sale model, but a cost-per-click model. That means I can set a daily budget here and bid on specific keywords, and whenever someone clicks on it, I have to pay for it. This is especially well suited for products that are very popular, and especially during seasonal peaks. Yes, I assume right now, with the great weather, grilling season is on; if you’re selling something like that, it makes sense, or at Christmas or in the run-up to Christmas, wrapping paper for example. Anyone who doesn’t have any experience here shouldn’t worry either, because it’s relatively easy to understand and, by setting a daily budget, can be used without much risk. But if you already have experience with cost-per-click ads, that naturally helps with optimization and a better understanding. I’ve also heard that our colleagues from the eBay Advertising team have a small eBay Ads Academy where you can learn all about it. Of course, we’d be happy to link that in the show notes too.
Isabell: Yes, you just talked about seasonality. We also have a seasonal calendar. Maybe we can include that in our show notes too. It’s also very relevant for the marketing tools we still wanted to talk about.
David: Exactly, and with that you’ve once again made a wonderful transition to our marketing tools. We have quite a few, and we’ve already held a webinar about them before. We’ll link that in the show notes again for anyone who wants to watch the recording. But maybe you can briefly explain which marketing tools we offer to our sellers.
Isabell: Yes, of course! We now have a relatively wide range of tools, so there should really be something for everyone. First up, we have multi-buy and volume pricing. Multi-buy is basically a classic tiered discount, for example if I sell light bulbs, two light bulbs are cheaper per item than just one, three are even cheaper, and so on. With volume pricing, I can also combine different items, even across categories, so I can say, for example, if I buy two items, I get 10 percent off the third or something like that. So there’s quite a bit of flexibility there too, depending on what the inventory allows, and then we also have strike-through pricing, meaning special promotion plus price reduction. That’s also what you might know from offline retail, let’s call it that: those red crossed-out prices.
David: Back in the day so much - now only…!
Isabell: Exactly!
David: Okay, so that’s basically then... does it show up properly on the product page too?
Isabell: Exactly, on the item page and even on the search results page!
David: Oh, so really very prominent!
Isabell: Exactly, it’s very prominent. Multi-buy and volume pricing are too, by the way.
David: We’ve now talked a lot about these visual marketing tools, so multi-buy, volume pricing, and strike-through pricing are all very visible. What other marketing tools do we have? I’m thinking along the lines of offers, for example.
Isabell: Exactly, I can also use offers to send a price suggestion to potential buyers, meaning people who are watching my listing, for example. And you can also automate that, so I don’t have to manually go into every listing every time or message every buyer individually... but instead send it in bulk to all my watchers, and that’s actually quite nice for engaging with customers in a more personalized way.
David: And that isn’t publicly visible, right?
Isabell: Exactly, it just goes into that person’s inbox.
David: So publicly it’s... again very relevant for sellers. You don’t always want to reduce your price publicly; instead it’s really only visible in the quasi-direct communication that it would be available for less.
Isabell: Exactly!
David: Then of course there’s stuff like coupon codes. I think everyone knows that, but what does that look like on eBay?
Isabell: Exactly, coupon codes haven’t been around forever, so it’s still a relatively new tool for us, and also really for exactly the use case you just described. If I, as a seller, don’t want to give a super prominent discount that everyone can see, I can also create a coupon code and, for example, include it with my orders or share it on my social media channels or send it selectively to buyers. That said, it can also be made prominent if you want that, so again there’s a lot of flexibility.
David: You just said that you can share coupon codes via social media, but of course you can share much more via social media too. We now have the option to share our own listings relatively easily on social media. Can you explain that?
Isabell: Exactly, for several months/weeks now we’ve had the function where you can create a post directly from your eBay shop and post it on various social media channels, directly with the listing. I can also combine different listings, and maybe I can already tease this: there will be more happening here this year too, and you can already tell from how we’ve explained everything so far... so, on one hand we have these super prominent visual discounts, but we also have the discounts where it’s more about customer interaction, and now the whole thing is becoming more public, or rather it’s moving into other channels again. So customer engagement and building customer relationships are simply becoming more and more important.
David: Exactly, we’ve talked a lot about generating visibility on the eBay platform itself, and this social sharing, as well as those coupon codes that can be shared via social media, takes it beyond the platform, as you said, beyond other channels, and I think that’s a very, very important factor that sellers should absolutely not underestimate: not only being visible on the marketplace itself, but beyond it too, and social media is of course a great fit for that. We also had a wonderful episode with Jonas. Of course we’ll be happy to link that here in the show notes too. You can listen very, very carefully to what’s available there. But do you think we should give a short overview?
Isabell: Yes, I think that would be really helpful again. Maybe one more point before we get into the tips: together with this social media function, we also launched analytics for it. So as a seller I can now look in Seller Cockpit Pro and see how much traffic really comes to my listings via social media posts, and I can also see how often listings are shared via WhatsApp, for example. So there are also...
David: That’s very interesting!
Isabell: ...some really exciting metrics in there. Exactly, so it’s definitely worth taking a look, and yes, David, as you just mentioned, why don’t you summarize a couple of tips for our listeners. What makes a good social media post?
David: Exactly, so as I said, if we don’t want to listen to the whole episode with Jonas about the whole social media topic, here are a few quick tips on social media. On social media, the image is very important too, yes, we already mentioned that earlier with the descriptive elements. That means visual hooks that tempt customers or potential customers to just stop scrolling. Because we all know that when you’re on social media, you scroll through a kind of feed, and if you have something there that first grabs attention a little - and that’s usually an image or maybe even a video - then you’ve already won a lot. Then you add an interesting text that ideally encourages potential customers to engage with it more and then really click through to get to the actual product. What you have to keep in mind: unlike search engines, where there’s already a basic interest because people are searching for something, on social media you’re sort of ambushing people with it. You should know that and factor it into the design accordingly.
Isabell: So that means I shouldn’t, for example, just use my item description one-to-one...
David: Exactly. So maybe you’d rather address the need or the use case, not just describe it. So not just a description, but something like “You know the problem...” I don’t know, “garbage bag ripped, now you have to clean everything up, yes of course, the vacuum cleaner is broken,” I don’t know, something along those lines. That... so really use practicality to make your argument, not description, because here, and we talked a lot about this in the conversion rate optimization episode too, it’s about psychological need and how customers think. And on social media it’s more about the benefit, the purpose, and less about the description.
Isabell: So would you say, more long and detailed or short and catchy?
David: Short and catchy definitely, because as I said, we have this feed you scroll through, the image may stop people at first, and then they read the text. But if there are 40 lines of text explaining in epic detail why this vacuum cleaner is so great, you’ll lose them after two lines anyway. So: short, catchy, maybe a little surprising, something that makes people go “Oh, okay,” just anything that initially holds attention. But in the end, never forget that the goal of the social media post is not for everyone to think it’s great and like it and all that, but rather to click through and buy.
Isabell: Thanks for adding that. I also always find it super interesting how many different elements come together here after all.
David: Definitely, and as I said, I highly recommend listening to the social media episode if you don’t have much experience with social media yet, because a lot, a lot more is explained there. I just wanted to shorten it here because of time. Otherwise, I think overall we’ve touched on many episodes today, and anyone who really wants to go deeper should maybe just listen to all the episodes one by one.
Isabell: Exactly, and we’ll also put all the links to the episodes in the show notes again. David, before we say goodbye, one last question for you: is there a product that’s been in your cart for a long time but still hasn’t made it to eBay checkout?
David: Yes, actually, there is - it’s the PlayStation 5. That was... availability was always an issue there too, of course. But in fact I keep thinking about buying it, but then I don’t, because I actually don’t have enough time to really game on it and I already have enough other ways to play games. So I still haven’t bought it. Isabell, do you have a product that’s been sitting in your cart for a while and you still haven’t quite managed to complete the purchase?
Isabell: I actually do, and that’s a baking pan. I’ve wanted a 30-centimeter loaf pan for a very long time, and as you know, I bake a lot and really enjoy it. I’d picked out a very high-quality one, but I always thought I wasn’t ready to spend that much money on a baking pan. But it’s not going to make it through eBay checkout either, because I got it as a gift.
David: Ah, that’s a lovely... okay, then I’ll just wait a bit longer, maybe I’ll get my game console as a gift too. To the people listening, right! Have you already signed up for one of the stops on our event series “eBay. Das Lokal”?
Isabell: If you answered no to that question and are wondering what exactly “eBay. Das Lokal” is supposed to be, then quickly listen to the podcast episode where we tell you exactly what it’s all about, and secure one of the coveted spots on site.
David: “eBay. Das Lokal” - coming soon to a location near you. You’ll find all the important links in the show notes and otherwise at “ebay.de/daslokal”. Very, very exciting in any case, and with this extra info we can also let our listeners off the hook. Thank you very much for listening. We always appreciate feedback on the episode, feel free to leave it in our eBay Community or on Facebook as well. You can find us there under “eBay for Business Deutschland,” and of course wherever you’re listening right now, subscribe to us, like us, and help us keep growing and producing more new and interesting episodes. I want to say thank you very much, Isabel, for the incredible knowledge you shared with us, and goodbye until next time!
Isabell: Yes, thank you, David, that was a lot of fun as always. Goodbye, and until next time!
David: Today we’re going through the complete journey of a product, from creating the listing to optimizing it and communicating with the relevant target group. Together, my co-host Isabell Butterwegge and I make different stops to tell you how you can drive more traffic to your listings with simple tweaks. So buckle up and perk up your ears - we’re ready for take-off!
Isabell: Of course, we want to show customers who come to our platform the listings they’re really looking for. That’s why it’s so important that the listing is relevant to the customer, and factors such as the feedback left by previous customers play a role here. As a seller, I can of course influence that through good customer communication or the factors we’ve just discussed.
David: Welcome, dear listeners, to a new episode of “All top-notch. Happy to come back!”, the eBay podcast about commerce and e-commerce. I’m David Philippe. At eBay Germany, I work as a Seller Engagement Manager, and sitting across from me is Isabell Butterwegge, who also works as a Seller Engagement Manager, and also at eBay. What a coincidence! Hello, Isabell!
Isabell: Hello David, and a warm hello of course to our listeners too. Today we’re here in a pretty much empty studio, so it’s just the two of us and our production team, which naturally gives me an excellent view of everything that’s happening here in the studio.
David: Is that the best transition into the topic ever?
Isabell: I tried, but thanks for noticing. Today we’re talking a lot about visibility, specifically visibility on our online marketplace eBay, because visibility is basically the foundation for conversion and therefore also for successful selling.
David: Absolutely, because the best listing is useless if no one gets to see it. And on this topic, both of us have already had plenty to say and have shared our knowledge in various webinars and workshops. That means mainly you shared your knowledge, and I asked the questions, and today we’re doing the same thing again, or something similar, for everyone who prefers to learn via podcast. Otherwise, we’ve also linked our last webinar in the show notes for anyone who’d like to join visually as well. What do you think, Isabell, who is this episode actually for? Are these more topics aimed at beginners, or are professionals and the big brands selling on eBay also being addressed?
Isabell: Actually, this episode is relevant for everyone, both beginners and pros and brands. Of course, some sellers may already have heard one or another topic before, and maybe even implemented it successfully, but visibility is really an evergreen topic that you should always keep on top of. And that’s why, in my opinion, experts out there can also take something away from this.
David: But if we start now, I’ll just go through it chronologically: before we say we want to be visible, maybe we should first have something nice that we want to show, right? In other words, we want a good listing. We’ve already covered some of this in earlier episodes, but maybe you can briefly touch on it again.
Isabell: Exactly, so in the past we already had an episode on SEO, meaning search engine optimization, and an episode on CRO, meaning conversion rate optimization, and we thought we really needed to bring the whole thing together for the eBay universe and show very clearly: what are the levers I can optimize in a listing, specifically in an eBay listing, so it gets more visibility on the eBay marketplace? And as you just said, where do we start? First with what people can see. I’d say that means all the descriptive elements. We went into this in a lot of detail back then with Niels in the SEO episode, so title, item specifics, item descriptions, basically everywhere there are text modules. That’s where I usually start.
David: Yes, so for anyone now thinking, “Which episode do they mean?”: we’ve linked it in the show notes too, a very detailed episode on the overall topic of search engine optimization. So we first start by dealing with everything where we have text, where we can describe something, and work on optimizing that first.
Isabell: Exactly. So if you think of the listing chronologically, I’d start with the title. On eBay, the title has 80 characters; on external search engines, it’s often a bit shorter. That’s why it’s especially important that the first three terms in the title are really the main terms, let’s say the main keywords, and generally: the title should really include everything around the brand and descriptive words, but things like evaluation - if I say “great shirt,” for example - are less helpful. So: no subjective judgment in there. But size, color, the model number if I have one, and all special features absolutely need to go into the title. Best to put the brand at the beginning, and as I said, 80 characters, so use the space as well as you can and avoid special characters like commas, hyphens and that sort of thing, because that’s just a waste of space.
David: And as I said, the 80 characters apply to us. For search engines and the like, sometimes not. So put the most important things first. If we move on: besides the title, we have other descriptive elements in a listing. One thing that comes to mind is the plain item description. How should I structure that?
Isabell: Yes, and opinions differ a bit here because, of course, when I look at the eBay listing, especially on mobile, too much text would just overwhelm me as a buyer. Still, text is super important for search engines. So our recommendation is: keep everything short and to the point, and don’t include a company history or shipping information and so on. Put all that at the beginning, and anything else I want to optimize can go below that. So the buyer who really wants to know more can keep reading. But the most important things need to be visible at a glance.
David: Mm-hmm, and you just said shipping information - I actually shouldn’t really have to mention that there at all, because I usually have it elsewhere, right?
Isabell: Exactly. If I’ve set shipping preferences, then all of that is also listed in the shipping settings field on the item page. So I’d just be repeating myself there. And the same applies to company details, by the way, so an imprint, for example, does not belong in the item description.
David: So on the one hand, it makes things easier because it’s always automatically included, and you save the space for the actual description. That’s definitely something to keep in mind. What other options do we have?
Isabell: Exactly. If I wrap up the descriptive elements one more time, then item specifics definitely shouldn’t be missing either. On eBay, you can - and must - provide item specifics for the listing, such as color, so that the buyer can filter the search by these attributes. Here’s a tip: it’s less useful to create your own item specific; instead, really use the preconfigured item specifics. If I’m selling, say I mentioned color, if I sell a Pacific blue scarf, my customer is probably less likely to search for “Pacific blue” and more likely to search for “blue.” So use the preconfigured specifics there. And otherwise, include everything you have in terms of information.
David: Yes, so for anyone familiar with search engine optimization: yes, you can think of our item specifics a bit like keywords that are used for our internal search, so items can be found. And for those who aren’t that familiar with it, just listen to the SEO episode. Isabell, we also have another tool in our lineup, especially for these search terms. It’s called Terapeak. Can you say a bit more about it?
Isabell: Yes, our Terapeak product research is available free of charge to all eBay users, and I can search for my product and then see similar products and how successful they are. So I can also filter by revenue, or rather by sales, and see what works well on the marketplace, and I can learn a lot from that. Usually the tool is used for keywords, but you can also use it, for example, to see how much free shipping is offered. So how important is that in my direct category?
David: You’ve already brought up free shipping, which leads us nicely into the next topic a bit, namely, I’ll call it the second point: selling standards. Because nowadays on most marketplaces, certain standards have become established, and since you’ve already mentioned free shipping, would you like to start there?
Isabell: Yes, and this is always a point mentioned by sellers: shipping can’t possibly be free, and of course that’s true. Still, it’s helpful to offer free shipping to buyers. We also have a filter option for that, so customers really can filter by it on the marketplace, and it also simply helps to be more present in search. Ideally, handling time and delivery time are short too. That the item reaches the customer’s home as quickly as possible. The same applies to returns, by the way. So the more flexibility you can offer buyers - quick delivery and a long consideration period, so to speak - the more appreciated it is, and it also has a very positive influence on the purchase decision. And one more note here: free shipping and fast shipping are important, but offering different shipping options can also be a selling point, for example shipping to a Packstation, if that can be enabled, if the inventory suits it, different shipping providers, or even the pickup option we have on our marketplace. So simply offering even more flexibility.
David: And with the long consideration period, meaning also a long return period, it’s not about saying, well, the 14 days you have to offer anyway, maybe offer 30 days too, just to say - not because you assume they’ll send it back, but simply to give a kind of trust and say, if there are problems with it, if something’s wrong, you really... well, we trust our product so much that we give you that time.
Isabell: Yes, exactly, and the trend is even - you just said 30 days - the trend is actually moving more toward 60 days, and in some cases even 90.
David: Personally, I actually pay attention to that when I buy, that I really have the option to return something a bit longer if anything is wrong with it, because you don’t always notice it right away. Sometimes things lie around at my place for a long time too, and that’s why I think it’s very, very good and I can completely understand why buyers pay attention to that. Are there any other things to watch out for in the area of “selling standards,” or have we covered everything already?
Isabell: Yes, we’ve actually covered everything regarding selling standards. Before we move on to the last part, let’s talk about the images with us once more.
David: Right, I skipped over that a bit because of your wonderful transition. Of course, an important descriptive element in a listing is the images. Isabell, what should I pay attention to when I take pi
Isabell: Well, you can select up to 24 images, just to answer that question first. We recommend at least five, but there are also big differences between categories, and it’s worth using Terapeak to look at similar products: how many images is the standard there? For the images, it’s super important that the first image is a cut-out image, meaning ideally a transparent background. The item is visible, there are no distracting elements, and definitely no overlays or text or drawings or anything else on it - or brand logos - ideally, the first image is really just the product, cut out, because only then can it be used by external search engines. The other images, and we had a really nice conversation about this in the conversion rate optimization episode, can of course be a bit more creative. Karl talked a lot back then about how important purchase psychology is here, meaning that with the images you can really tell a story. Of course, I don’t have to do that, and you can’t do that with every product. What’s important, though, is that all details are shown, that defects are highlighted, that you have close-up shots, and that the images are simply high quality. That’s really super important, and maybe one point still worth mentioning: you can also upload videos. You can upload one video per listing, and there I can maybe show the product in use or, in a way, do a 360-degree view. Exactly!
David: Very good, so now we really have covered all the descriptive elements, right?
Isabell: Exactly!
David: Um, then let’s move on to the third part, which is the buying experience. And what exactly is behind that term?
Isabell: Exactly. At this point, it may be useful to explain how the eBay algorithm works. It focuses on relevance. Of course, we want to show customers who come to our platform the listings they’re really looking for. That’s why it’s important that the listing is relevant to the customer, and factors such as the feedback left by previous customers play a role here. As a seller, I can of course influence that through good customer communication or the factors we’ve just discussed. And here’s another tip: service status is also super important. So it’s worth regularly checking Seller Cockpit Pro as a seller and simply seeing where you stand.
David: Yes, definitely a very important point. Many customers really pay attention to what the customer service is like, what the sellers’ ratings are like, and of course service status is also simply important for visibility. That’s why I think it’s important that we mentioned it here. We haven’t explained exactly how the algorithm works, of course, but just so you know what to pay attention to. Isabell, by now we’ve basically optimized our listing. It looks good, we’ve got great descriptions in there, we meet all selling standards, and the buying experience should look good too. So now it’s there. How can I make sure I get even more visibility for it? What can I do?
Isabell: Exactly, we’ve basically talked about the foundation now, which should definitely always be in place, and then there are still a few things you can do to gain additional visibility, and I think you once got briefed by the eBay Ads team, because the topic of ads is of course super important in this context too.
David: Exactly, absolutely obvious is of course simply to run ads, and eBay has two major options that sellers can use, and that’s “Promoted Listings Standard.” It’s a cost-per-sale model, which means fees only apply when a promoted item is sold within 30 days after a buyer clicked on one of the standard ads. You really don’t have to worry about how often it gets shown, because it only matters once a buyer buys the item within 30 days after clicking an ad, then I only pay then. It’s super quick to set up, very flexible to adjust, and actually very intuitive to use. So anyone who hasn’t looked into it yet should definitely do that. It simply helps you get more visibility for your own products very quickly. Otherwise, it’s also worth saying that this option isn’t only available to business sellers, but also to private sellers. However, the “Promoted Listings Advanced (BETA)” option is only available to business sellers. That’s not a cost-per-sale model, but a cost-per-click model. That means I can set a daily budget here and bid on specific keywords, and whenever someone clicks on it, I have to pay for it. This is especially well suited for products that are very popular, and especially during seasonal peaks. Yes, I assume right now, with the great weather, grilling season is on; if you’re selling something like that, it makes sense, or at Christmas or in the run-up to Christmas, wrapping paper for example. Anyone who doesn’t have any experience here shouldn’t worry either, because it’s relatively easy to understand and, by setting a daily budget, can be used without much risk. But if you already have experience with cost-per-click ads, that naturally helps with optimization and a better understanding. I’ve also heard that our colleagues from the eBay Advertising team have a small eBay Ads Academy where you can learn all about it. Of course, we’d be happy to link that in the show notes too.
Isabell: Yes, you just talked about seasonality. We also have a seasonal calendar. Maybe we can include that in our show notes too. It’s also very relevant for the marketing tools we still wanted to talk about.
David: Exactly, and with that you’ve once again made a wonderful transition to our marketing tools. We have quite a few, and we’ve already held a webinar about them before. We’ll link that in the show notes again for anyone who wants to watch the recording. But maybe you can briefly explain which marketing tools we offer to our sellers.
Isabell: Yes, of course! We now have a relatively wide range of tools, so there should really be something for everyone. First up, we have multi-buy and volume pricing. Multi-buy is basically a classic tiered discount, for example if I sell light bulbs, two light bulbs are cheaper per item than just one, three are even cheaper, and so on. With volume pricing, I can also combine different items, even across categories, so I can say, for example, if I buy two items, I get 10 percent off the third or something like that. So there’s quite a bit of flexibility there too, depending on what the inventory allows, and then we also have strike-through pricing, meaning special promotion plus price reduction. That’s also what you might know from offline retail, let’s call it that: those red crossed-out prices.
David: Back in the day so much - now only…!
Isabell: Exactly!
David: Okay, so that’s basically then... does it show up properly on the product page too?
Isabell: Exactly, on the item page and even on the search results page!
David: Oh, so really very prominent!
Isabell: Exactly, it’s very prominent. Multi-buy and volume pricing are too, by the way.
David: We’ve now talked a lot about these visual marketing tools, so multi-buy, volume pricing, and strike-through pricing are all very visible. What other marketing tools do we have? I’m thinking along the lines of offers, for example.
Isabell: Exactly, I can also use offers to send a price suggestion to potential buyers, meaning people who are watching my listing, for example. And you can also automate that, so I don’t have to manually go into every listing every time or message every buyer individually... but instead send it in bulk to all my watchers, and that’s actually quite nice for engaging with customers in a more personalized way.
David: And that isn’t publicly visible, right?
Isabell: Exactly, it just goes into that person’s inbox.
David: So publicly it’s... again very relevant for sellers. You don’t always want to reduce your price publicly; instead it’s really only visible in the quasi-direct communication that it would be available for less.
Isabell: Exactly!
David: Then of course there’s stuff like coupon codes. I think everyone knows that, but what does that look like on eBay?
Isabell: Exactly, coupon codes haven’t been around forever, so it’s still a relatively new tool for us, and also really for exactly the use case you just described. If I, as a seller, don’t want to give a super prominent discount that everyone can see, I can also create a coupon code and, for example, include it with my orders or share it on my social media channels or send it selectively to buyers. That said, it can also be made prominent if you want that, so again there’s a lot of flexibility.
David: You just said that you can share coupon codes via social media, but of course you can share much more via social media too. We now have the option to share our own listings relatively easily on social media. Can you explain that?
Isabell: Exactly, for several months/weeks now we’ve had the function where you can create a post directly from your eBay shop and post it on various social media channels, directly with the listing. I can also combine different listings, and maybe I can already tease this: there will be more happening here this year too, and you can already tell from how we’ve explained everything so far... so, on one hand we have these super prominent visual discounts, but we also have the discounts where it’s more about customer interaction, and now the whole thing is becoming more public, or rather it’s moving into other channels again. So customer engagement and building customer relationships are simply becoming more and more important.
David: Exactly, we’ve talked a lot about generating visibility on the eBay platform itself, and this social sharing, as well as those coupon codes that can be shared via social media, takes it beyond the platform, as you said, beyond other channels, and I think that’s a very, very important factor that sellers should absolutely not underestimate: not only being visible on the marketplace itself, but beyond it too, and social media is of course a great fit for that. We also had a wonderful episode with Jonas. Of course we’ll be happy to link that here in the show notes too. You can listen very, very carefully to what’s available there. But do you think we should give a short overview?
Isabell: Yes, I think that would be really helpful again. Maybe one more point before we get into the tips: together with this social media function, we also launched analytics for it. So as a seller I can now look in Seller Cockpit Pro and see how much traffic really comes to my listings via social media posts, and I can also see how often listings are shared via WhatsApp, for example. So there are also...
David: That’s very interesting!
Isabell: ...some really exciting metrics in there. Exactly, so it’s definitely worth taking a look, and yes, David, as you just mentioned, why don’t you summarize a couple of tips for our listeners. What makes a good social media post?
David: Exactly, so as I said, if we don’t want to listen to the whole episode with Jonas about the whole social media topic, here are a few quick tips on social media. On social media, the image is very important too, yes, we already mentioned that earlier with the descriptive elements. That means visual hooks that tempt customers or potential customers to just stop scrolling. Because we all know that when you’re on social media, you scroll through a kind of feed, and if you have something there that first grabs attention a little - and that’s usually an image or maybe even a video - then you’ve already won a lot. Then you add an interesting text that ideally encourages potential customers to engage with it more and then really click through to get to the actual product. What you have to keep in mind: unlike search engines, where there’s already a basic interest because people are searching for something, on social media you’re sort of ambushing people with it. You should know that and factor it into the design accordingly.
Isabell: So that means I shouldn’t, for example, just use my item description one-to-one...
David: Exactly. So maybe you’d rather address the need or the use case, not just describe it. So not just a description, but something like “You know the problem...” I don’t know, “garbage bag ripped, now you have to clean everything up, yes of course, the vacuum cleaner is broken,” I don’t know, something along those lines. That... so really use practicality to make your argument, not description, because here, and we talked a lot about this in the conversion rate optimization episode too, it’s about psychological need and how customers think. And on social media it’s more about the benefit, the purpose, and less about the description.
Isabell: So would you say, more long and detailed or short and catchy?
David: Short and catchy definitely, because as I said, we have this feed you scroll through, the image may stop people at first, and then they read the text. But if there are 40 lines of text explaining in epic detail why this vacuum cleaner is so great, you’ll lose them after two lines anyway. So: short, catchy, maybe a little surprising, something that makes people go “Oh, okay,” just anything that initially holds attention. But in the end, never forget that the goal of the social media post is not for everyone to think it’s great and like it and all that, but rather to click through and buy.
Isabell: Thanks for adding that. I also always find it super interesting how many different elements come together here after all.
David: Definitely, and as I said, I highly recommend listening to the social media episode if you don’t have much experience with social media yet, because a lot, a lot more is explained there. I just wanted to shorten it here because of time. Otherwise, I think overall we’ve touched on many episodes today, and anyone who really wants to go deeper should maybe just listen to all the episodes one by one.
Isabell: Exactly, and we’ll also put all the links to the episodes in the show notes again. David, before we say goodbye, one last question for you: is there a product that’s been in your cart for a long time but still hasn’t made it to eBay checkout?
David: Yes, actually, there is - it’s the PlayStation 5. That was... availability was always an issue there too, of course. But in fact I keep thinking about buying it, but then I don’t, because I actually don’t have enough time to really game on it and I already have enough other ways to play games. So I still haven’t bought it. Isabell, do you have a product that’s been sitting in your cart for a while and you still haven’t quite managed to complete the purchase?
Isabell: I actually do, and that’s a baking pan. I’ve wanted a 30-centimeter loaf pan for a very long time, and as you know, I bake a lot and really enjoy it. I’d picked out a very high-quality one, but I always thought I wasn’t ready to spend that much money on a baking pan. But it’s not going to make it through eBay checkout either, because I got it as a gift.
David: Ah, that’s a lovely... okay, then I’ll just wait a bit longer, maybe I’ll get my game console as a gift too. To the people listening, right! Have you already signed up for one of the stops on our event series “eBay. Das Lokal”?
Isabell: If you answered no to that question and are wondering what exactly “eBay. Das Lokal” is supposed to be, then quickly listen to the podcast episode where we tell you exactly what it’s all about, and secure one of the coveted spots on site.
David: “eBay. Das Lokal” - coming soon to a location near you. You’ll find all the important links in the show notes and otherwise at “ebay.de/daslokal”. Very, very exciting in any case, and with this extra info we can also let our listeners off the hook. Thank you very much for listening. We always appreciate feedback on the episode, feel free to leave it in our eBay Community or on Facebook as well. You can find us there under “eBay for Business Deutschland,” and of course wherever you’re listening right now, subscribe to us, like us, and help us keep growing and producing more new and interesting episodes. I want to say thank you very much, Isabel, for the incredible knowledge you shared with us, and goodbye until next time!
Isabell: Yes, thank you, David, that was a lot of fun as always. Goodbye, and until next time!
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