Goodbye eBay Marketplace Research, hello Terapeak
September 11, 2008
One of the most important steps that I recommend to all of my clients and everyone I know that sells anything, regardless of whether it is on eBay or not, is to research your niche. Really, it’s more than just your niche, it’s your products, how you list them, when you list them, for how much, what format… this list goes on.
eBay introduced it’s market research tool to help sellers, and saavy buyers understand the eBay marketplace by providing a peak into the tons of data within the eBay system. This included the hot catagories and products, what features to use ie gallery, bold etc., and when to sell. eBay not only use this data themselves, but they sold it to other companies so they could create data mining tools as well.
The amount of data available was astonishing. The question really was how to use it. Terapeak, purchased eBay’s data and provided a free website to slice and dice eBay’s marketing place data. They did it so well, that eBay began buying back their data from Terapeak.
Still, eBay decided to sell their Marketplace research tools as a seperate subscription and also offer it to eBay store owners. I imagine that they saw the writing on the wall as new 3rd party developers began popping up and creating their own research tools. So, eBay has decided to phase out the eBay Marketplace and recommend Terapeak as the preferred vendor.
This is a huge slap in the face for other vendors like Hammertap, which is Terapeaks closest competitor. But none-the-less, this works out great for those that choose Terapeak. Why? Because we are going to save money…!
If you are not already a subscriber, actually, even if you are already, you can take advantage of a nice savings. I was paying on monthly basis for Terakpeak. Now, they are offering a 60% discount for anyone that signs up and pays for a year in advance. I’m not sure how long they will be running this special, but it’s definately worth checking out.
If you are already paying on a monthly basis, you cannot directly upgrade your account. You actually need to cancel your account, signup for the yearly account and then get your discount.
If your not sure what TeraPeak is all about, check out their free version. The full version gives you some very nice features and in an upcoming product launch I’m going to show you how to use TeraPeak to make some serious money… more on that later. For now, my recommnedation, buy a yearly subscription to TeraPeal now.
Automate your eBay CD and DVD Listings
August 20, 2008
Automate Your eBay Digital Product Sales
I was going to hold off talking about this product until later but it’s something I’m so excited about I can hardly hold back.
When eBay did away with the digital download of information products it nearly killed off thousands of eBay sellers. They now had to find other products to sell or turn their digital products into a physical products. Granted, selling a physically product can generate more income, it has more overhead in terms of the physical product and your time to manufacture and ship it.
LOOK NO FURTHER! Auction Acrobat makes your life so much easier it is amazing. This little software package will walk you through step by step. You simply create your digital product as it would appear on CD/DVD and use Auction Acrobat to do the rest. It will completely automate your information product business!
I can’t say enough about these ingenious idea. Not too mention that this amazing product is priced SUPER CHEAP, but not for long. It was just released and I know the price will be going up and may even be taken off the market.
Here’s a link to the Auction Acrobat website, I strongly suggest not missing the boat on this one.
Get Auction Acrobat Now
Twitter use and a new ebay blog found
July 18, 2008
I’m trying to become more diligent about using Twitter in a positive way. So many people use it to complain, or as a personal diary. While I think that’s great, I feel that if you’re going to Tweet, you should at least provide some value to those following you.
For instance, a while ago I began following a local person from Richmond, Va. We initially exchanged some Tweets and then I began getting updates every 5 minutes about what songs this person was listening to, what they had for breakfast, lunch and dinner etc. It was a bit much.. and quite useless.
While I do provide some updates to what I’m doing on a daily basis, I also try to open up some dialog to those following as well as provide some good info back to those people.
Some of the best Tweeters I’ve seen so far are Guy Kawasaki and Joel Comm. Both provide some personal information for their followers and provide some valuable information.
Another Great eBay Blog
Slowly I have had some new followers on Twitter which is really cool. I don’t think I lead that exciting of a life, but it’s a great way to exchange information and learn from others. Yesterday I was able to find a great new eBay blog from Twitter. eBayInkBlog , aka Richard, began following my Tweets and as I result, I found his blog, http://ebayinkblog.com/ . Not only is this a great looking blog, but Richard is an eBay employee and provides some great behind the curtain information. I strongly suggest checking it out when you have time.
eBay Announcements - Big News
July 15, 2008
eBay Neutral Feedback
I guess that everyone yelling about feedback issues at eBay Live finally hit home. Lorrie Norrington announced that in late August neutral feedback ratings will no longer count against sellers. Additionally, in October, there will be a new method in which buyers and sellers can resolve their negative feedback issues together and have negative feedback scores reviewed.
eBay Link Policy
One of the other huge issues that people were complaining about was the new links policy. This policy stated that eBay members could no longer link to external websites from their auctions and ME pages. In the past, ME pages were one of the best ways to attract customers to your off eBay sites for more information and details. eBay has decided to not enforce the links policy in July and has instead decided to revise the policy.
The new policy will allow some offsite links which is good news for everyone who knows how to take advantage of the ME page. Further, eBay will allow 4 weeks for everyone to become compliant after the new policy is announced.
eBay Search Experience
Jeff King also announced that eBay will begin to direct more users to the new eBay search interface. The new search experience does have some nice features and I personally don’t mind the change. It does take some getting used to. If you would like to check it out for yourself, the link is http://playground.ebay.com/
Until next time…
Jeff
