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Best Software For eBay

In the past ten years, eBay has came a long way from the small auction site it once was, and it is now a veritable gold mine where if you’re creative, smart and original, anyone can start a business and even make money online.

With more and more people becoming regular eBayers, there is a big demand for functional software that makes peoples life simpler. After all, keeping up to date with all the tedious administration and ensuring that your listings look their best is impossible, or at the very least extremely time consuming without the help of some very useful third party programs.

To help you on your quest to eBay riches, take a look at our top five most essential eBay applications below.

1. eBay Seller Tools

eBay has actually created a wealth of tools available to try and help everything from casual sellers to power sellers and businesses with the addition of these programs.

These programs provide an all-in-one solution for managing your eBay business, and they really do make your life a great deal simpler. The products available are Turbolister, Selling Manager and Blackthorne.

Turbolister is a free program however the other applications do require a monthly subscription ranging from $5.99 a month to $24.99 a month. eBay has worked hard to ensure that its seller tools are second to none, and you can’t go wrong if you buy eBay.

2. Terapeak

Terapeak is not your typical sales management application. In fact it’s not a sales management application at all, it’s a marketing one. Subscribing to Terapeak gives you access to all sorts of analytical information based on eBay sales. This is the ultimate marketing tool, and it can save you a lot of money by simply letting you know the best times to sell an item.

3. AppEagle

AppEagle is a great inventory management solution and it does a great job in ensuring your listings are up-to-date and accurate. With AppEagle, it’s simply a case of telling it what you have in stock and it will automatically update your auctions, ending, listing, and re-listing until your stock is depleted.

4. Outright

With an eBay business it can be hard to track the profits and before you know it, you have hit a downward curve. Take affirmative action now, thanks to outright which is a completely free bookkeeping solution designed for anyone, so you don’t need to be an accountant to start managing your business successfully. It’s a priceless tool for any small business.

5. AfterBuy Message Manager

AfterBuy message manager does exactly what you’d think. It makes your life easier when it comes to managing those time consuming end of sale messages, and generally streamlines customer communication by providing templates, automatic responses and numerous other time saving innovations.

Out of all the products in our list, three out of five are actually cross-platform web based solutions. eBay products are dedicated windows applications, but in general, the way development is going, it will only be a matter of time before the majority of internet aware applications all become entirely web based.

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Getting the Most Out of eBay With Market Research

In past years, the famous eBay site has become more like a business and less like a place to sell your goods. Today, the best sellers on eBay are treated like merchants, and effectively for all intents and purposes, they are.

This has brought about an age of business-savvy eBayers who have taken the opportunity to use analytics, marketing and business tactics to rise up above the traditional home based seller.

Want to compete? You’ll need some help.

Marketing for many is a confusing term and a complicated one, but essentially it’s simple. If you market a product, you don’t just simply sell it, you sell it at the right time to the right person for the right price, and that’s it. When it comes to eBay, all the tools you need to perform your own marketing are already there. Take a look at our top five marketing tips:

Search Existing Auctions

Before you consider selling anything, the first thing you need to do is to establish whether or not a market actually exists. In the case of eBay, chances are the market will always exist, but to be sure take a look for similar products. If there are no similar products, you’re either going to make a killing as the sole supplier, or it’s been done before with limited success. At the same time, take a look at how the other auctions are selling their products. Are they powersellers? How does their auction page look? Most importantly, look at how much their products cost and ask yourself if you can compete.

Search Completed Auctions

Now you know how much existing auctions are selling for, take a look at completed auctions to find out just how much things have been selling for. Remember to factor in additional costs, and work out whether or not it’s a profitable endeavor.

Take a Look at TeraPeak

For premium market intelligence, the Terapeak product helps you find out what’s profitable in seconds. Whilst it is a subscription only service, it’s an amazing way to get real-time market analysis without having to do it yourself.

Construct the Perfect Product Page

eBay is a competitive auction site and to sell successfully you need to learn how to make an attractive sales page. The first and most important rule is to construct a good title. In marketing, we call it a call to action, so instead of just listing “used socks” for sale, spruce it up a little by using the sub-title element as well. A keen tip is to use a catch-phrase for the subtitle, which everyone will associate with you.

After writing a great title, you need to ensure that your product page is just as good. Most important of all is good photographs. Learn to photograph well, it’s not difficult and a few hours of practice is a lot better than simply snapping a picture and uploading it.

When you’re working on content for your eBay product page, ensure that you’re honest, informative and above all, don’t misrepresent the product you’re selling, because the most important aspect of eBay is in building a high feedback rating.

Posted in How To, Selling, eBay | No Comments »