Building an eBay Brand - Consistency is Key

While doing my free eBay consultations I have noticed a pattern: many eBay sellers are not building a brand through consistency. I have seen a lot of sellers not using logos in their stores, or at the top of their auctions. Even more importantly, I have noticed a lack in auction template consistency. If you want a free logo, please just sign up here, and write "free logo" in the notes section.

The best thing you can do to brand your eBay store is to have ONE auction template. There are lots of places to find a free generic template on Google, or you can have someone build one for you.

The most important thing is that you use the same eBay template in all of your auctions. This is will save you time in listing, as you will not always have to add or edit all of your terms of sale.

The other benefit of using a template is that whenever someone goes to your auction it will look like all of your other auctions! This will make you look more professional, and will result in more repeat business, and more bidders buying multiple items.

Auction Formatting and Font Size

What is with the big font their guy? When you make your auction templates you should use a small font in a legible color. No giant light green letters. This not only makes your eBay ad hard to read, but it also makes you look unprofessional.

When formatting your add, keep it simple. Use crisp pictures when possible, and keep the majority of your font sizes under 16.

Tips to Save Money Listing Your Ebay Auctions

When you start to post several ebay auctions a day, your fees begin to mount. However, there are some things you can do to save some of your money from FeEbay.
The best thing you can do is to start your auction for .99 cents or less with no reserve. The reasoning behind this is that not only does it only cost .20 cents to list each auction below $1.00, but also the lower the price is the more tempting it is to buyers. Ebay sellers everywhere seem to agree that you make more money starting your bids low.

However, this way of saving money should be further looked into.
Let's imagine that you create 10 Ebay auctions a day, and you start them at .99 cents.
The Ebay fee structure works so that items starting .99 cents or below cost only .20 cents to post.
Thus your 10 auctions a day cost $2.00 a day to post, and $60.00 a month. You can see how Ebay fees add up.

Now, if you start your auction for $1.00, instead of .99, as many people do this will cost you an extra .20 cents an auction. That is an extra $60.00 a month you are just throwing away. That idea kind of makes me want to vomit. It is no wonder how Ebay makes so much money.

Here is a breakdown of how each extra cent will save you money.
.01-.99 = .20 to list -->
1.00 - 9.99 = .40 to list --> .01 extra is a waste of .20
10.00 - 24.99 = .60 to list --> .01 extra is a waste of .20
25.00 - 49.99 = 1.20 to list --> .01 extra is a waste of .60
50.00 - 199.99 = 2.40 to list --> .01 extra is a waste of 1.20
200.00 - 499.99 = 3.60 to list --> .01 extra is a waste of 1.20
500.00+ = 4.80 to list --> .01 extra is a waste of 1.20

The thing that blows my mind, and I hope you become aware of, is that even though it is a difference of .01, people are still posting things for $50.00 If you started 10 auctions a day for a month at this price you would be literally throwing away $360.00 a month.

This is not just a mistake made by beginners either, Powersellers are doing this too! It hurts me to look at them. But you need to learn from their mistakes! Look at this Auction house, for example: clarsauction.
This was just a random sample that I found, but it illustrates my point so well. Clarsauction is starting all of their bids at $10, $20, $25, $50, $100, $200... increments. And at this moment clarsauction has 1082 auctions running.

Here is the breakdown:
10 auctions starting at $10.00 --> loss of $2.00
148 auctions starting at $25.00 --> loss of $88.80
215 auctions starting at $50.00 --> loss of $177.60
67 auctions starting at $200 --> loss of $80.40
26 auctions starting at $500 --> loss of 31.20
Total auctions starting at a bad price = 466 (43% of total auctions)
Total amount of money thrown away in 10 days = $380.00

That is right, this auction house is throwing away $380.00 just to have their auctions start at a round number. Sure, as a brick and mortar auction house, they are making tons of money, 20% commission for up to $70,000, but the amount of money they throw away could pay for the person that posts their auctions. I would fire them! This is 466 10 day auctions. These people are throwing away more money in 10 days than most Ebay sellers make in a month.

I hope that I made it painfully obvious how this one little tip can help you save money on listing all of your Ebay auctions.

Please let me know of any other horror stories like this.