Your Auction Headline - The Most Important Part Of Your Auction

by Robbin K. Tungett

The words you select to describe your item will have a tremendous impact on the final price it receives or if it receives any bids at all. This is because no matter how great the item is you have up at auction, if you use words that don't lead prospective buyers to it, no one will ever see it. You have a total of 45 spaces to use for your auction headline to get people to visit your auction, so it's extremely important that you use each space wisely. The vast majority of buyers search through eBay listings by entering the item they are looking for into eBay's search engine. The main auction search engine only searches for words listed in auction titles. If a person selects a word that isn't in your auction title, your auction won't come up as a result of their search. This means that by far the most important task you have when composing a title for your auction is to use words that are relevant and specific to the item you are listing. While this may seem obvious, a lot of sellers don't do it (in fact, searching for listings in which people have ineffective or misspelled titles can often get you some great items which you can resell for a profit). If you are going to spend any extra time on your auctions, thinking through the best key words for your title is where you should spend that time. With a limit of 45 spaces, writing everything you want in the title just isn't going to be possible. For example, say you have a complete set of four bobblehead giveaways, sponsored by Mountain Dew, that the Minnesota Twins gave away at select home games during the 2002 season. Although accurate, that description is way too long for the allowable number of spaces. The key is to think through an accurate description that includes everything and then taking the most important words out of that and using them. A simple title might read "Minnesota Twins Bobbleheads". However, that title would be ineffective because it isn't specific enough. While there are many buyers who are looking for Minnesota Twins memorabilia and bobblehead dolls, the categories are too large and your auction will be lost among all the listings. You will have a very limited number of people who will ever see your auction. A better title might be "2002 Complete Set Minnesota Twins Bobbleheads". This title uses every available space and gives a specific description of what you are selling. It will also now appear in results for a narrower search. Another possible title might be 2002 Minnesota Twins Bobblehead Bobble Head". People searching for this item type bobblehead into the search engine, while others type bobble head. A search for one will not bring up any results for the other, so at times it's to your advantage to list two different spellings of the same word. Take a few minutes to think about who would want the item you are selling and, if they were searching for it, what words would they be most likely to type into the search engine. You will find many sellers using what some call Power Words. These are words such as RARE, LIMITED, VINTAGE, UNIQUE, WOW, GREAT, WONDERFUL and AWESOME. Many sellers seem to think that using words such as these will attract more bidders to their auctions. I''ll guarantee you right now, that no one types any of these words into eBay's search engine. The use of words such as these does nothing but take up valuable space that could be used for words buyers do search for. Avoid them like the plague. The same applies to the symbols so many sellers use in their headlines. They try to make their headline stand out by using symbols such as $,#, %, and @ in their auction titles. A particular favorite of many is L@@K!. Once again, all of these are a complete waste of valuable title space. The only symbols you should ever use are & or + when their use will save you valuable title space. Acronyms and abbreviations are another matter however. Collectors of certain items have developed their own abbreviations and acronyms for certain commonly used phrases within their specific collecting specialty. It is to your advantage to learn at least some of these. NR, for example, means "No Reserve." To a Star Wars collector ROTJ means "Return Of The Jedi." Becoming familiar with some of these that are common with the type of items you sell will allow you to get more key words into the limited space which will result in more people viewing your auction. Spend some time browsing the titles that others have created for their auctions. Look for both good and bad examples of titles. Just spending a few hours doing this and thinking about where the seller could have improved their title will help you enormously in writing titles for your own auctions. Never forget - the first step is getting buyers to your auctions because if they can't find them, they can't buy anything from you. About the Author Robbin K. Tungett is online marketing and eBay veteran of 8 years. She is most widely known for her eBay expertise and her website http://www.AuctionRiches.com. Please visit her blog at http://www.AuctionHerald.com.

Remove These Objections and Watch Your eBay Auctions Fly

by Brian McGregor

"Objection" is a term taken directly from sales and marketing training, and it is important you understand the significance of objections to your sales process. Objections are those points, sometimes small issues, which make a bidder or a buyer think again about going for your offering. In your auction description you need to remove as many of these objections as you can. These are the kind of objections which your prospective buyers will have. Objection 1 Is the seller trustworthy? The buyer usually doesn't know you. If they're serious bidders they will check you out. How will they do this? a) A good Feedback Rating will be one way they assess you. Be determined in getting your feedback up, and making it all positive. b) They might also click through to your About Me page. This page gives you the opportunity to convey your personality and your honesty. One of eBay's standard About Me page formats lets you display your recent feedbacks - always useful - and also your other auctions, again useful. This is in addition to anything about yourself which helps to show what a sincere and genuine person you are. And finally, if you have a web site from which you sell products or services, you are allowed to place a direct link to it from the About Me page. This is in marked contrast to your auction description page, where eBay does not allow direct links to web pages. So, create an About Me page and incorporate the points mentioned. c) A prospective bidder may wish to ask you a question. As you will know, there is a standard eBay facility whereby a bidder can ask a seller a question. You should really welcome questions. Why do I say this? Well, if a bidder asks you a question, first of all you know they are interested in your offering. They wouldn't have wasted their time on typing out their question to you if they weren't. So, by asking you a question they are qualifying themselves in as a real prospect. And you now have the chance to directly influence them in your reply to their question. Depending on the nature of their enquiry, you have the opportunity to convey your integrity, honesty, credibility, fair mindedness, helpfulness, expertise, knowledge, other appropriate products etc. So, if questions are such good things, why not make it easy for the bidder to ask one? Always have some text in your auction description offering to answer any questions, with a link to your email address. If you have a little knowledge of HTML coding you will know how easy this is to do. It is far better than simply relying on buyers finding the standard "Ask the seller a question" link provided by eBay. d) You might consider a moneyback guarantee, if it's appropriate and you can "afford" it. Why would you or should you do this? Well, when you think about it, in online auctions, the buyer is normally asked to take all the risk. They usually pay the seller up front - before the item is delivered to them. The risk is all theirs that the seller doesn't perform. To some buyers, particularly on higher value items, this risk is so high that it can cause them to have second thoughts about bidding. You know you are trustworthy, but they don't. By offering a moneyback guarantee you are offering what is known as "risk reversal". You are taking the risk off your buyer. In effect you shoulder the risk. I know this works, because I use it myself. In thousands of auctions I've run, I can count on one hand the number of people who have invoked my money back guarantee. If you can practice "risk reversal", it will help your auction success rate, and it is vital on Dutch auctions. Objection 2 How do I pay? Always maximise the number of payment options you will accept. You should provide different types of payment options for your buyers: PayPal Nochex FastPay Cheque Postal Order Banker's Draft Bank Transfer Cash You can accept credit/debit cards on your auctions if you open accounts with relevant payment processors. These enable buyers to pay you with a credit/debit card even though you aren't a business, and you don't have what is known as a Merchant Account. As you probably know, PayPal is owned by eBay. Therefore eBay make it really easy for you to take PayPal payments from your buyers. But don't forget other payment processors, like Nochex and FastPay. It might just be that your interested buyer only has a Nochex account, or a Fast Pay account. Opening accounts is free. Paying anyone via PayPal, Nochex or FastPay is also free - which is why so many auction bidders and buyers use them. There are charges for you as a seller, however, and these are incurred when you receive money and/or when you transfer money from/to your PayPal, Nochex or FastPay accounts from/to your own bank account. Check out the respective fees via their web sites. In my experience, the rates of charges are reasonable for giving you the significant advantage of being able to accept credit/debit card payments on your auctions. If you are selling low value items, say less than £3, it may be prudent to add a small sum or percentage to the final sale value to cover this. Speaking personally, I never ask the buyer to incur additional charges for using PayPal, Nochex or FastPay. (You will now realise why - it's called removing an objection!) I take the view that buyers who wish to pay by credit/debit card should not be discouraged in any way - and a surcharge of this nature might just prevent them from bidding or buying. If you don't have PayPal account and you'd like to create one, click here. If you don't have Nochex account and you'd like to create one, click here. If you don't have a FastPay account and you'd like to create one, click here. As I mentioned, they're free to set up. Objection 3 Is delivery expensive? Always fully describe your delivery details within your auction description. Be up front about delivery costs. If bidders or buyers aren't given this detail within the auction description, they may become suspicious that the seller is hiding something, and therefore decide not to bid. There have been occasions where sellers have sold items at what appear to be cheap prices, but have inflated delivery costs to compensate, or even over compensate. Never do this! There is no reason why you cannot say up front how much P&P will be. You can find out the real delivery costs of the company you plan to use. You can get these details from their website. Once you have the postal costs you can add the appropriate handling and packaging costs, and there you have the figure to let your buyers know in advance that you're not hiding anything. You have just removed another doubt in your prospective buyer's mind. Objection 4 What happens if the item arrives damaged? In your auction description you should cover your policy in relation to damages and insurance. If you're selling higher value items you may wish to consider using a delivery service which includes insurance. Remember, even though the buyer has paid for it, the item is your property until it is accepted by the buyer. So if it is damaged in transit, this is your responsibility. You will have to arrange a replacement or a refund, and claim your costs back via your insurance. Don't forget, if you do need to have enhanced insurance cover, it is perfectly reasonable to include this is in your delivery costs as shown in your auction description. Objection 5 How professional is someone who has multiple spelling errors? It is very unreasonable for any bidder to overlook your auction just because you have spelling errors. Isn't it? However, they may believe someone who won't take the trouble to get their spelling correct might be equally unprofessional elsewhere. You and I might consider that stance to be unreasonable. With spell checkers available, however, there's no reason to have any spelling errors creeping through on your auction page. So, spell check your auction description page - please. Objection 6 What do I do now? You should always "ask for the order". In other words, suggest to your prospective buyer that they make a bid today for this valuable, rare, stunning, limited edition item! And remind them that when they win the item they will be enriched by the strongest benefit you have already identified to them in your auction description. Objections - Summary If you spend time removing these objections, you will be repaid handsomely. I can guarantee you will receive more genuine bids for each of your auctions than if you had left these points hanging for the bidder to ponder and make assumptions. About the Author Brian McGregor specializes in showing website owners how to make more money from their sites by applying inventive and original use of eBay. For a free copy of ‘The eBay Traffic Funnel’ which shows you how to use the power of eBay to make more money with your website, visit http://www.more-auction-sales.com/websites

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