Shipping products is a large part of selling on Amazon. Get it wrong, and you could end up spending over the odds getting your products to buyers. This can lead to frustrated shoppers and increased outgoings – not ideal.

By optimizing the shipping process and choosing the right delivery options, you can dramatically cut costs in this area, improving your bottom line and increasing overall revenue. 

The tricky part is knowing where to start. There are tons of different shipping options available, all with their own unique set of pros and cons. The best one for you will depend on the type of products you’re selling, the size and weight of them, and the delivery destination.

What Are Your Packaging Options?

One of the most common questions that crops up is about boxes for shipping. If you’ve ever wondered whether it’s cheaper to use your own box for priority mail or to use a flat rate box, you’re not alone. To help you get to the bottom of it, we’ve created a handy guide that tells you everything you need to know about shipping boxes.

The difference between the two is in the kind of postage you pay for. If you buy Priority Mail Small Flat Rate Box postage, you have to use a Priority Mail Small Flat Rate Box. The boxes are branded with the Priority Mail logo and design. If you don’t buy flat rate postage, you can use whatever kind of packaging you like.

It’s important to note that Priority Mail is just the name of the service class and you can use any box or packaging you choose. In the majority of cases, it actually works out cheaper to use your own packaging instead of a Flat Rate service.

The idea behind the Priority Mail Flat Rate service is that you pay just one fee regardless of the weight of your product or where it’s being shipped to. If it fits into a flat rate-branded box, you can send it.

It sounds simple, but the cost isn’t the only downside.

When you ship with a Flat Rate box, you have to use the Priority Mail Flat Rate service branding. This means you can’t use your own branding which can impact your customers’ experience in a negative way. It’s worth working out whether the minimal savings you might be able to make is worth the trade off of a potentially sub-par buyer experience.

Flat Rate Boxes vs Your Own Box

USPS Priority Mail service provides free shipping boxes for sellers to use. These come at no cost to the user which is a huge benefit when you consider that most boxes elsewhere cost between $0.25-$1 or more.

You can pick up Priority shipping boxes from the post office and they come in a variety of different sizes (we’ll talk more about this later). You can also order them online and have them delivered directly to your door. Again, this is free of charge and great for sellers who don’t live close to a post office.

The range of Priority Mail boxes available allow you to ship based on a fixed amount regardless of the weight of your products. The boxes are free to get your hands on, but will cost you to send them once you have packaged up your items and got them ready for delivery.

This can be particularly beneficial to sellers who regularly ship heavy products.

Here are the sizes of Priority Mail boxes available:

• Small flat rate box
• Medium flat rate box
• Large flat rate box
• Flat rate padded envelopes

Source

As you can see, there are plenty of flat rate options for sellers depending on the size of the products they’re shipping.

Alternatively, you can use your own box to send your packages in. The general difference between the two options is that Priority Shipping flat rate boxes cost more to ship but tend to deliver quicker than your own boxes. It’s up to you to decide whether speed or cost is more important to you, but it will also depend on the size of your items, their weight, and where you’re delivering them to.

It’s worth noting that if your products are under 2.5 pounds, then flat rate fees are often more expensive than shipping non-flat rate.

At Urtasker, our goal is to help you maximize your revenue and optimize your sales processes. So, with that in mind, here are some things you should be aware of:

• Flat rate is often only cheaper in a few situations, namely if you’re using flat rate envelopes or small flat rate boxes. As soon as you size up, the costs dramatically increase and it often works out cheaper to use your own packaging
• Flat rate boxes are delivered at the same speed as all Priority Mail, which tends to be between one and three days if you’re shipping to another US address
• Priority Mail flat rate shipping comes with full tracking, so both you and the recipient can keep an eye on where the package is at all times

Shipping Via Flat Rate Boxes

Now we’ve touched on the differences between the two options, let’s dig a little deeper into the details of using flat rate boxes.

How Much Do Flat Rate Boxes Cost to Ship?

For products that fall into the 1.4 pound range, Priority Mail boxes are often the cheapest way to ship. Like we said before though, this totally depends on the size of the box you use, where the product is being shipped to, and whether the destination is a business or home address.

Prices are mostly based on weight, dimensions, volume, and delivery address, so bear this in mind when researching your options.

Here is a general list of prices for flat rate boxes:

Envelopes are obviously the cheapest option to ship. Letter envelopes, gift card envelopes, window envelopes, and small envelopes all cost $7.15.

Padded envelopes and legal envelopes are a little more expensive, with the former clocking in at $7.75 and the latter at $7.45.

Small boxes cost $7.65, medium boxes are $13.20, large boxes are $18.30 and APO/FPO boxes cost $16.80. Look into the dimensions of each of these boxes to determine which one is the best fit for you and your products and calculate pricing from there.

Here’s how you can optimize the shipping experience:

• For items under one pound – ship via First Class Mail and select a box that keeps the weight limit at or below one pound
• For small items that weigh over one pound – some of the flat rate boxes available can save you money here, particularly small flat rate boxes, flat rate envelopes, and flat rate padded envelopes
• For items that weigh over two pounds – sometimes the Regional Rate (more on this further down) or Flat Rate boxes ship for less than your own box. Regional Rate A rates are very similar to the two pound Priority Mail rate. This means that you can ship in the Regional Rate A box for the same rate. In a similar vein, the Regional Rate B Box ships for pretty much the same price as a four pound Priority Mail box.
• For items that weigh over three pounds – it’s often cheaper to ship via FedEx or UPS depending on the size of the shipping box you need. However, FedEx and UPS both charge based on weight and dimensions and also add a $3-$3.50 fee for products being shipped to a home address
• If you’re shipping 50 Priority Mail packages a month – explore shipping services that allow you to ship via USPS Dimensional Weights

What About Regional Rate Boxes?

You’ve probably come across Regional Rate Boxes in your shipping research. They work in a similar way to flat rate boxes except there are only three weight tiers and the price is based on how far the package is going.

You can pick up the boxes for free (just like flat rate boxes) and, if your product is being delivered to anywhere in Zone 1-4, this option is usually cheaper than flat rate boxes.

Which Boxes Should You Use?

The best thing you can do is sit down and play around with the shipping calculators provided on each carrier’s websites. While flat rate boxes are free to pick up, they cost to ship, and sometimes this cost is higher than independent carriers even if they charge more for pickup.

We recommend starting with the UPS calculator and the FedEx calculator to get an idea about any savings you can make compared to Priority Mail flat rate boxes.

If you decide to use the Priority Mail service, you’ll need to calculate whether your own boxes are more cost-effective than Flat Rate Boxes or Regional Rate Boxes. Unless you’re sending packages in an envelope, it usually works out cheaper to use your own boxes. This means you can incorporate your own branding and ultimately provide a better customer experience for your buyers.   

At Urtasker, our mission is to help online sellers optimize their systems and their revenue. Shipping plays a huge part in this and choosing the right packaging option can save you a ton on unnecessary costs. Get in touch today to find out how we can help you streamline your sales.

Getting products to buyers is a vital part of the Amazon selling process. To do this, you’ll need to decide how you’re going to send products to customers. There are plenty of options out there, but the main question you’ll find yourself asking is whether you should send products via first class mail or via priority mail. 

You might be wondering what the difference is between the two or whether choosing the wrong one will affect your business. 

We lay it all out in this piece.

The New USPS Initiative 

First things first, we should point out that USPS has recently made some changes to its services. They will be standardizing mail delivery times and leaving more undelivered items behind to go out the following day. 

The new initiative will push mail sorting to the afternoon so that letter carriers can start on their morning routes earlier. At 2pm, they’ll return to their post offices to sort new items for the next day. This could push package deliveries out by a day depending on the time they arrive in the sorting office. 

This will be trialled for a period of 30-60 days and will only be picked up by city carriers, but it’s worth bearing it in mind as you read the rest of this post as it is likely to have an effect on customers that use its package delivery services regularly. 

Image by pch.vector on Freepik.com

First Class Vs Priority Mail: The Differences 

From the outside, first class and priority mail look pretty similar. They are both a step up from second class deliveries, but they each have unique features that bring different benefits.

Most importantly, first class and priority mail differ based on weight, size, shape, and the delivery timeframe for your packages. These are the most common elements you should take into account when deciding what kind of service to go for. 

First class mail is predominantly used to ship parcels that are 3.5 ounces or less. This means it’s mostly used for sending letters, thick envelopes, and lightweight packages that are of a standard size. 

It’s an affordable way to send smaller, lighter items quickly and efficiently. 

Priority mail on the other hand is often used to send packages weighing up to 70lbs. It’s prioritized first before standard mail, hence its name, and is the favored way to send large parcels and packages. In fact, these types of packages are almost always delivered using priority mail, while smaller packages that don’t exceed the 3.5 ounce limit are usually always sent via first class mail. 

If your parcels weigh less than 3.5 ounces, they should always be sent first class since it’s often faster than priority and costs less. 

Maximum Dimensions

As package size is one of the most important factors when considering which USPS mail service to go for, let’s take a closer look at the company’s sizing guide. 

The maximum dimensions of packages sent via first class mail can be 108” in combined length and girth – this is where the longest side is the “length” and the circumference of the parcel’s thickest section is the “girth”. The maximum weight of a package being delivered by first class mail is 15.99 oz.

Priority mail packages can again have a maximum dimension of 108” in combined length and girth, however the maximum weight is considerably more at 70 lbs. 

Find out more about dimensions here. 

Insurance Policies 

One of the biggest differences between the two services is that first class mail doesn’t have a default insurance policy like priority mail. So, in instances where a package is lost or damaged on delivery via first class, the sender isn’t covered. But with priority mail, they are. 

However, you can add insurance coverage onto your first class mail deliveries for an additional fee. 

Priority mail, on the other hand, comes with an insurance policy attached. This covers up to $100 for domestic coverage and $200 for international coverage.

Keep the products that you’ll be shipping in mind here because, while some products are light in weight, they may benefit from the insurance policy that’s included with priority mail. For example, watches almost always weigh less that 1 lb, which means they can be shipped at an affordable price through the first class service, but priority mail offers up to $200 worth of coverage depending on where the watch is being shipped which will cover if the package is lost or damaged. 

First Class Vs Priority Mail: Delivery Times

Delivery times are important if you’re selling goods via Amazon. You don’t want to over promise to customers and leave them disappointed when their products don’t arrive when you said they would. 

Both priority mail and first class mail tend to arrive between one and three days if they are shipped to a domestic address. If you’re shipping products abroad, priority mail can be the best option because it considerably cuts down the shipping time that is associated with standard shipping. 

First class international delivery times vary depending on the destination you’re sending your products to. Priority mail is often a better fit for international packages. This is because it tends to be faster, taking around six to ten business days if you’re shipping to one of the 180 countries that are listed on the USPS site. 

It’s worth bearing in mind that neither first class nor priority mail can guarantee a delivery date for international mail, so promising customers their items will arrive in a specific time frame isn’t always possible. 

Image by jcomp on Freepik.com 

First Class Vs Priority Mail: Services Charges 

You’re probably wondering how much it costs to send packages via both first class and priority mail. There’s actually no set pricing structure and prices for both services vary dramatically depending on the size and weight of the item you’re shipping and where you’re shipping it to. As a general rule, shipping via priority mail tends to cost about $3 more per package. 

To figure out how much each individual package will cost to send, you can use the helpful USPS domestic calculator if you’re delivering to a US address, or the international calculator to work out prices for sending your packages abroad. 

Prices are based on the size, weight, and delivery address of your product, but once you start to get a feel for the pricing structure, it gets easier to predict how much delivery will cost – particularly on your best-selling items. 

Choosing the Right USPS Service

Your choice of priority mail or first class mail will depend entirely on the products you’re selling and where you’re shipping them to. Smaller, lighter items are best sent through first class mail because it’s more affordable, but if you’re selling small high-ticket products that fit into the maximum dimensions for first class, it’s worth opting for priority mail to claim the insurance that’s automatically included. 

Take some time to play around with the domestic and the international calculator to see which option might be best for you in terms of price and delivery terms, especially if you’re going to be sending packages in bulk. 

First Class Mail Vs Priority Mail: FAQs

What’s the difference between USPS priority mail and USPS first class?

The main difference is in the size of the packages that can be delivered via each service. First class mail is limited to smaller packages that weigh less than 3.5 ounces, while priority mail can include packages that weigh up to 70 lbs. The other difference is that priority mail comes with insurance coverage if a product gets lost or damaged during delivery. This is particularly useful if you’re sending high-ticket items. 

Is priority mail faster than first class mail?

The delivery times of both services depends on where you’re sending your packages. Domestic deliveries are much quicker for both, as are international deliveries. 

Domestic mail sent via first class mail usually takes between two and three days to arrive depending on the delivery address, while domestic mail sent via USPS’ priority service can take between one and three days. 

For international deliveries, first class mail has no guarantee or estimate, while priority mail usually takes between six and ten days to arrive. 

Is first class mail considered priority mail? 

First class mail is considered a priority mail over other standard mail services. However priority mail is an extension of first class mail that includes weightier packages. Packages sent through both services are prioritized, it purely depends on the weight of your products and whether you want to take advantage of the built-in insurance that comes with priority mail. 

Both Services Have Their Benefits

To wrap up, priority mail is often the most affordable way to send packages. This is because it comes with free package tracking, a one to three day delivery time frame, and $100 of built-in insurance. There is a much higher weight limit on products sent through this service and it is treated as a priority by the USPS. 

First class mail is often the preferred way to send lighter items, like cards, thick envelopes, and letters that weigh less than 3.5 oz. This service is predominantly used for personal correspondence, but it can and definitely is used to ship smaller, lighter packages. 

Use the USPS’ calculators to determine which method is best for sending your products depending on their size, weight, and value. 

We’ve become so thoroughly engrossed in the internet age that we don’t call it that anymore. It’s become commonplace, expected even, that if you’re running a business and you’re running it well, then you’re relying on the internet in some capacity.

But things move more quickly in the digital age, as well. As soon as the world gets comfortable with some program or technology, a new version comes along and shakes everything up. It can get especially hectic if you’re trying to manage online sales. Just as working with the top online retail space becomes routine, a new giant comes along and chomps down on some of the market shares. Suddenly, it can feel as though you’re missing out. But that’s where eCommerce comes in!

If you’re ready to be present on more than one platform, then the good news is that you’re not alone, and software developers have been working for years to tackle this exact problem. Multi-channel listing software can do the heavy lifting for you. Read on to learn more about how multi-channel listing mirror software like Listing Mirror can help you.

Amazon or eBay?

This used to be the eternal question. To which of these internet behemoths do you entrust your sales? Do you go with Amazon’s unbeatable market share and omnipresence, or eBay’s unique sales methods and branding-friendly interface?

As we mentioned previously, you no longer have to choose where to place your resources. You can expand your business to as many online storefronts as you feel, and without the stress headache, you might be expecting. Multi-channel eCommerce is within your grasp.

Listing Mirror and the magic of synchronization

Like all things in life, you get what you pay for. There are a lot of different companies popping up with their own multi-channel listing software, and it pays off to partner with the right one. Nonetheless, Listing Mirror tops the list for many reasons, perhaps most notably for its greatest strength: synchronization.

Syncing all your listings at once allows you to place your products on many sites across the internet without any hassle or potential inventory disasters.  Listing Mirror can be a lifesaver, especially for smaller businesses which can’t spare the human resources to keep track of a dozen different listings for the same product. Here’s how it works:

Syncing Orders

Are you hesitating to expand your online horizons because you’ve become comfortable with one fulfillment process? Maybe you use Fulfillment By Amazon and don’t want to mess with figuring out how eBay or Walmart.com work. Don’t worry, Listing Mirror has you covered! When you sync your listings through Listing Mirror, you can rest easy knowing that orders from all channels are fulfilled by the program of your choice. That’s right, with Listing Mirror you can fulfill orders on eBay using Fulfilled By Amazon. It doesn’t get much easier than that!

Syncing Inventory

This might be the most important service Listing Mirror provides. It keeps track of how many units you’ve sold across all your platforms and automatically updates them. This way, you won’t ever find yourself in that disastrous situation where you’ve sold more units than you have available. And on sites like Amazon, where you may find yourself promising same day shipping, overselling can become a big problem really fast.

With Listing Mirror you’ll have one catalog to handle, and that catalog will go out to all your listings. You’ll save time, money and manpower.

Syncing Copy

Listing Mirror automatically updates more than just your orders. When you add or update a product listing, those changes can be pushed out across other online marketplaces from within Listing Mirror. Now, you’ll never have to worry about adding new products to each site individually. This will keep your storefronts and branding consistent.

Synchronized but not identical

Every online market is a little different — that’s what allows them to coexist. People who are used to eBay are looking for something a little different than those who frequent Amazon. On the other hand, Walmart.com attracts a complete type of customer. Sometimes sites specialize in certain products; other times, customers are simply seeking a different UX.

In any case, each channel has a unique customer base, and you don’t want to miss out on any of them. Listing Mirror understands the differences in the major listing sites and will tailor your listings to fit each site you use. So while each channel listing is synched with all the others, they’re not identical clones. Each is optimized to be the best listing it can be for the channel it’s on.

Don’t miss out on a single site

Give Listing Mirror a try today. There’s no time like the present. It’s risk-free for two weeks, so you’ve got nowhere to go but up!

Got a negative review on eBay? Looking to remove negative feedback on eBay? Here you are, stay with us to get some tips to avoid getting negative feedback on eBay.

Firstly you have to know about the eBay feedback system; it is basically based on a member to a member evaluation system that moves your wheel in the online commerce market. You are recognized by the feedbacks you get from your customers. Sellers having a great number of positive feedback are most likely to get more attention to new customers.

Also, sellers get Detailed Seller Ratings (DSR) based on item descriptions, communication, shipping time & shipping cost. If you get high DSRs you will most likely to enjoy higher rankings and more earnings on eBay.

New Feedback, New Strategies for eBay Sellers

In the start it was in practice both sellers and buyers give each other good ratings to avoid being blacked marked; that result in artificially inflated ratings.

But now the things have changed, buyers can’t get negative feedback from the seller that gives them an open platform to give their feedback about the seller without any fear.

Before the start of any transaction, first of all, make your detailed product listing, define your terms and conditions that lead to positive feedback.

During and after the transaction remain fully intact with your customer in order to get a good review.

Here are some tips, how to do so:

1 – Clear and detailed product listing

Your customer is not seeing your product; it’s your description that defines your product to your customer. Write a clear and detailed description of your product to provide your customer with every question that may arise in their mind regarding your product. Your detailed description is the first thing that can lead to customer satisfaction.

2 – Use clear and sharp pictures

Remember your customer is not holding your product in his hand; you only have description and pictures to guide them about your product.  Use multiple high-quality images, most preferably of the actual product you are selling as it gives a bad impact to the customer when he receives a product that is different from the picture displayed online. Try to take pictures from different angles and try to buy cheap hosting of eBay to post several images as you can only post one free picture on eBay.

3 – Mention everything added in the Shipment

If your selling products contains several pieces or required some installation, write each and everything about it. It’s better to take pictures of your box with each item laid nicely.

4 – Cheap Shipping

On eBay, you get the benefit of “Best Match” search system that provides you with the lowest shipping. After your product delivery, send an email to your customer to remind them about free shipping and in return ask them for good feedback.

5 – Define your shipping time policy clearly

In case even you are running a small business on eBay and don’t deliver your products daily, you must write it in your policy that your products might take 5 business days for delivery. It’s not an issue that you don’t deliver your products daily, but it is necessary to mention it prominently on your product listing so that buyers must know about it.

6 – Easy Return Policy

You must accept returns from customers if there is any fault in your product to get positive feedback from your customer rather than not accepting return and getting negative feedback.

You must not charge any return fee instead you can ask them to share shipping cost with you. The best policy is to mention that the buyer will pay for the return shipping as you will be paying for product delivery shipping.

7 – Quick response to Emails and Messages

You must always be connected to the internet and must reply instantly to any massage and emails received from your customers. In case you have any bad news or don’t know the exact answer, still, give a quick reply.

You can simply reply with a small massage that “I have read your message will look into the issue and will reply back shortly”, you will be appreciated by your customer.  Think like a customer, won’t you hate it if you send an email and don’t receive any response at all.

8 – Put a Nice Feedback Letter in Your Shipment

Along with your product add a nice letter letting them know that their issue will be resolved if they have any problem. Ask them to get in contact with you (provide your contact details in a letter as well). The main reason for it is that the customer will be satisfied that he is buying a product from the right person who will help them out in case of any problem.

9 – Ask to give you Feedback

Don’t get feared by your customer feedback, ask them openly to give you feedback. Let them show that you want your customer satisfaction. Your existing customers will really like this and will ignore small mistakes of you. Best is to send a stamped postcard of self-address to get feedback or you can send an e-mail after your product delivery to give feedback.

10 – Get in touch with customer before canceling an unpaid item

Once a customer adds your product to cart and commits to buying it, your transaction will be counted. It means now your customer can leave feedback to you and the Final Value Fee will be charged by you. In case you don’t get any money from your customer, you can ask eBay to refund your fees by filing an Unpaid Item Dispute. But before filing a dispute, ask your customer about it and if he doesn’t want to buy you can mutually cancel it. For non-responsive customers send three reminders and after that, you can continue with your dispute.

11 – Give shipment tracking number to customer

Buyers want to know about the status of their shipments. Whichever shipping provider you are dealing with, make sure you keep a track of the shipment. It’s quite good if you let your customers know about the shipment tracking number so that they know about the exact delivery date.

12 – Give freebies or refund shipping for a return

If you feel that you have done something wrong that might frustrate your customer or make him unhappy, to avoid getting negative feedback provides him with free shipping or give some freebies like free samples or coupons for their next shopping. Patrons love free shipping and it will do a lot to make your angry customers happy. This techniques best works for returned shipments.

13 – Resolve customer problems to make them change their feedback

eBay has introduced a new feature that allows sellers to ask their buyers to revise their feedback but you can’t do it for all your reviews, you have a limitation of 5 requests per 1,000 feedback.

While submitting your feedback revision request, you will have the following options to give your customers along with a small message box for providing a small explanation.

• I resolved a problem the buyer had with this transaction
• The buyer confirmed that he or she had accidentally left the wrong Feedback
• Other

This system is an updated version of the previous “mutual feedback removal” feature that allows sellers to extort customers to give them only positive feedback, which inflated every seller’s feedback rating.

14 – Reply negative feedback immediately

Whenever you receive negative feedback on eBay, respond to it immediately. In those case especially when you can’t change your customers’ mind, even though you can sort out their problem but still answer them at your earliest.

When you reply to a comment it will give you a chance to give your clarification and if you don’t respond to it, you will give a really bad impact on your new shoppers. You will be assumed as the worst on the site by the patrons, who even don’t reply to customers complaints.

15 – Move on Quickly

Don’t just live with the negative feedback on eBay, move on to make your products selling better. Your business is a moving wheel, so just keep it on the track and do as much as you can to make your customers happy. Positive feedback will be synced down by positive feedbacks if you have done well to fix the problem and responded to the negative feedback.

16 – Block Bidder/Buyer List

If you are facing problem from buyers or any sellers you have bought something from and received negative feedback from them, just put them to the blocked bidder list. By doing so, you can avoid retaliatory bidding and in further purchases that may cause much trouble than their worth.

Hope so you find the avoiding tips about negative feedback on eBay quite useful; do share your feedback with us. Thanks!!!

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Sometimes you had a messy house or a workplace, having a lot of things that might not be useless and you just stacked and stored them. Like one of our friend who was in love with old Nintendo systems and video games, he has a huge bulk of old Nintendo’s and games with him. It seems a bit ridiculous to us but he had something else in his mind. He used to buy old broken/faulty Nintendo’s and video games from eBay, repair them, clean them up and after that post them again for sale with a good profit margin.

eBay Selling Tips

With his Nintendo venture, we came to know about plenty of good eBay selling tips. So, we decided to share it with you guys, to help you maximize your profit on eBay. We have applied these tips as well and earned a huge profit in short tenure.

1 – Know When to Use eBay

For maximizing your profit the first step is to opt for the right place. You must get knowledge about eBay and other available options like Amazon, Craigslist or other small commerce sites. For the eBay you have to be very selective for product selling, you can sell items on eStore like:

• Item that is easy to ship
• Popular products (to attract multiple bids)
• Rare items (for customers who can’t find your products elsewhere)
• Items that can be sold online easily (don’t sell items that require a hands-on experience)

2 – Choose Your Words Wisely

At the time of posting your item on eBay, you have to play with the words very carefully, to choose the right set of words for your product. You should start with a concise title using as many descriptive words that can be effective to keep you on top of the search results for most of the searches related to your product. The more expressive you will be for your product the lesser you have to deal with the buyers questions.

For an effective keyword, you should use all the terms that can describe your item in the best way. Like for “Xbox 360” you can use the title as “Xbox 360 Video Game Console System Controllers.” You can also make a search on eBay to check out titles of similar products with a lot of customer feedback.

3 – Be Honest

It is being absorbed that most of people think that to be honest regarding your product can be handy and may cost you money. But we have immersed that to be honest can build trust to shoppers on you that will ultimately result in good reputation of you on eBay, helping you in boosting your sale and earn more money on eBay. In the virtual market, your reputation is the key factor in generating sales.

eBay has helped sellers by generating feedback option to encourage buyers to give repute with their valuable words for the sellers. People are most likely to complain against you if you had lied to them and will also give you negative feedback that can destroy your repute in the virtual market.

It can be easy for you to gain sales by selling faulty products at a lower price but that cannot be effective in the long run.  We have seen many bidders who look for refurbished or reconditioned items that can be fixed up but it gives a really bad impact on buyers to see items in poor condition. So, always show the true picture of your product on eBay.

4 – Create a Professional Listing

eBay Selling tips is more about professionalism you show to gain more trust. For platforms like eBay, before posting make sure you have written down complete description along with sharp clear pictures of the product. You can also use eBay’s listing generator to minimize your time with organized templates for your listings.

To make your listing more attractive make use of bullets and numbering. Try to be concise with more informative lines, instead of being too wordy and covering a lot of space that might distract your customer.

5 – Take Good Pictures

Don’t be just mad with the images, keep quality instead of quantity. Images are the main tool for generating sales but you must not use more than 3 images per items. You should take pictures of your product from a different angle to represent it in the best way to the customers. Better to take pictures in sunlight with a neutral background, instead of taking it in your messy room.

Note: if your item had any defect you must take pictures of it and display it on eBay.

6 – Set the Right Price

The main thing to be in the run with the competitors is to set the right price for your product. If you have a popular product in the list, start with price as low as $9.99 or even $0.99 and as the demand for the product boost in the market, you can increase your price. If you have a product that is less desired or obscure you should set the price at the lowest level that you are willing to accept. Don’t be stagnant with the price; keep on changing the price as the big giants in the field don’t want the small entrepreneur to get involved in the field.

7 – Choose Start and End Times Wisely

Time is also a very effective factor in boosting your profit; start with doing your auction at night. Statistics show that most of the online shoppers buy in evening hours and weekend nights are the most profitable nights. As you will be charged ten or fifteen cents for your scheduled auction by eBay, but this worth the expense as you get the most out of it.  But also keep in mind, various time zones for your shoppers. You need to be aware of powerful business tactics for your E-Commerce business to uplift your business.

8 – Be Clear About Your Policies

To avoid any kind of confusion or misunderstanding and to maintain your reputation, your policies should be clear for each and everything regarding your product including returns and shipping as well. It’s better to spend your time on some other customers for selling instead of dealing with one upset customer who keeps on asking useless questions, to avoid such hassle be clear with your policies.

You should add a seven-day return policy that requires your customers to pay half of the shipping cost. Most of the customers will don’t take a chance to your product if they know that they can return your product free, but when they have to pay half of the shipment, they will most likely to take a chance with your product.

9 – Ship Smartly, and Don’t Inflate the Cost

Another eBay selling tips include is about Cost. Most of the buyers’ mood turns off when the see “penny to buy, $40 to ship” and inflated shipping costs. When shoppers see any unreasonable price they will not even go for your product. We recommend that if the actual shipping cost is too low, don’t even charge it to a customer and bear the loss yourself. Free shipping policy is too catchy for most of the potential bidders.

If you are dealing with fragile items, you should pack them securely before shipping. Buy some bubble wraps (better to buy in bulk to get low rates) or in the worst case, you can even use newspaper for packing your item, for stuffing you can use a paper shredder to shred some old papers. While packing your item you must also keep in mind that some packages might get wet in rain, so for items like clothing, books or any other precious items wrap them nicely in plastic bags.

Our friend uses USPS Priority mail that is convenient for most of you, especially for not big items. Mostly it costs around $8 and takes around 2 to 3 days for delivery and the best thing is that they provide free boxes and taping for your shipment. For international customers, ask for their country shipping rules and expenses before you finalize your shipping expense with your shopper.

10 – Practice Good Customer Service

In the online community like eBay, it’s not a big issue to provide the best customer service for a long period of time. We suggest you, not to be among those sellers who forget about maintaining a strong relationship with the customers, be the one who does his best to provide the customers with paramount services.

As soon as you receive a query from your shopper, reply to it at your earliest. Getting a reply makes your customer satisfied that you are looking into his issue and you will soon resolve his issue. At the time of shipping send shipping tracking id to your customer and let them know that their shipping is on the way along with the invoice. This effort will be really appreciated by your customer.

While dealing with your customer be polite and use a friendly tone for the conversation, just as you want yourself to be treated in any store. Show some leniency to your buyers in some special conditions that are within your policies but never compromise with terms of payment and always go for the transaction through as it will be secure for you. It might be expected to face some fraud if you deal outside eBay.

Here you are!!! Hope so you find these eBay selling tips useful and will implement them when you will start your eBay business.

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