Hello Yasasha. Having used eBay myself as a seller and being familiar
with selling on the Internet in general I feel like I can give you
some good advice on how you want to go about selling your furniture
online. I am going
to focus on selling on eBay, but I would also like to branch out a bit
into general online retailing.
In selling online, it is helpful to think about how furniture like
this is sold in an actual store. Customers come in, they can
thoroughly inspect the furniture, compare different pieces and they
are helped along the way to closing the sale by the salesman who tell
stories about the furniture, what high quality it is etc. Since much
of this salesmanship is lost on the Internet, it is important to make
the best use possible of what you can offer online and that is *great*
copy and *great* pictures of the product.
It was hard to get a real feeling for how much furniture of your
quality is actually being sold on ebay. Like yours, there were a lot
of fixed prices and the ones that were actually auctions looked kind
of slow. I did a good examination of your current eBay ads and this
is my evaluation of them.
Your copy needs improvement. It is flat and uninspiring. You need to
SELL the product.
To give you an example, this is something like I would suggest
writing:
-------------------------
Gautier Blues Contemporary Executive Desk (lose the 'fixed drawer
unit')
This beautiful designer executive desk is made entirely with Italian
Cherry wood. It is produced by the famous Gautier furniture company, a
leader in contemporary European style furniture. There is nothing like
the experience of sitting in a desk this well crafted. It will make
you the envy of your co-workers and business associates.
The design of the desk is both elegant and functional. A full 76"
wide, this desk will be able to hold a computer with plenty of desk
room to spare. It has three large drawers and an open bay area. The
rich Italian Cherry wood is the finishing touch to this fine furniture
offering.
This desk is built to last with a protective polyurethane coating. All
work surfaces on the desk have beveled edges. A leather insert on the
work surface adds an extra touch of class. The end result is a desk
that will add class and style to your office.
This model sells for $X or more in Europe and is a steal at this
price!
The shipping and handling on this desk is FREE and comes with a one
year manufacturers warranty.
small print:
The dimensions of this desk are 29"H x 76"W x 38"D. Some assembly is
required. Complete instructions on assembly using just an ordinary
hammer and screwdriver is included. Phone in support is available if
needed, but most peopel find it is easy to set up.
------------------------
Do you see how I built it up? I'm sure that you can do even much
better than this because you know your furniture, but I hope this will
help to give you ideas.
Along with good copy it is vitally important that you have good
photographs. You have only one photograph for each of your products.
If it is possible take some more *good quality* photos. The more the
better. Closeups are especially welcome. If you cannot get some more
good professional photographs at least offer a high resolution picture
of the one you do have (the pictures that you do have are great
quality by the way). Have a "click here to supersize this picture"
under the regular picture and they will should get a picture this
size or even larger:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2354799561&category=38188
You should definitely include your company name and contact info. It
will look more legitimate and people spending that kind of money want
to feel like there is a real big company on the other end of the ad.
Now to answer your specific questions:
Please be detailed about what kind of auctions I have to run, how
many, how often, etc. -
The answer to this is dependent on how successful your auctions are
individually. I would highly suggest keeping track of which auctions
work and which don't. You may find that certain pieces of furniture
just will not sell on ebay and some will sell more. By keeping good
records you will find this out. I don't think you need to be paying
for dutch auctions until you notice that you are getting numerous
responses. Also, forget the multiple auctions. Get one that sells,
then duplicate that ad with some time delays between your ads so they
are spaced out on the ebay listings. I would also experiment with
running some 'real auctions' along with your fixed price ones. You can
always set your reserve for your lowest price. Start the auction low
to draw in bidders. Say $595 for a $1095 desk. Just experiment with
this and see how it works for you.
Do I need to sell items separately or join them together in one
auction and sell it as one office or bedroom?
I would definitely sell these seperately. In your online store you can
offer them together at a discount if you wish.
Is it worth to open an ebay store?
I would say no to this. Ebay always strikes me as a place for bargain
hunters. I think that your money would be better spent opening up a
Yahoo store (http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/bzinfo/prod/com/). I would
suggest the standard plan
(http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/bzinfo/prod/wh/wh2.php) to start off
with. That should be enough for you, but you can always upgrade later
if you feel you need to. Another option would be to have an
independent site designed, but the Yahoo store is probably easiest for
you. Whether an ebay or Yahoo store I do think it is very important
for you to have an online presence outside of your ebay ads. One major
reason why people use ebay is to promote their web sites. It ads
legitimacy to you as a company and also it increases the chances of
sales. People might just click through on your site and buy from
there.
This whole eBay vs other sites issue also brings up the whole question
about whether ebay is the best place for you to be spending your time
and money promoting your furniture.I would say to implement some or
all of my suggestions and see what kind of result you get. If you are
not selling enough to justify your time and money, it is very possible
that ebay is simply not the best venue for you.
Other Internet advertising options would include:
Yahoo Product Submit:
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/bzinfo/prod/marketserv/prodsubmit.php
This makes your furniture visible on the Yahoo search engine on a pay
per click basis. For example if someone types in Italian Cherry Desk
your ad will come up and if someone clicks on it you will pay a fixed
price (say $ .29) and the person will be directed to that desk on your
web site.
Google Adwords: http://adwords.google.com
Similar pay per click ads you see on the right hand side of the Google
search results page.
Overture: http://www.overture.com
Pay per click ads in many other places around the Internet
These are the big players in pay per click Internet advertising. With
these three you will be reaching the majority of the Internet
audience. You MUST have a web site on Yahoo or elsewhere to
participate in this kind of advertising. There are other ways to
advertise, but none as effective as these. Again you would have to
keep good records on what you are paying vs what you are making to
find out what is working for you. There are of course other ways of
marketing a web site and particular products, but I would do this kind
of advertising first. See this posting I wrote on getting the most out
of this kind of advertising:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=193878
To summarize I would suggest implementing these strategies along with
recording in detail what works and what does not. Remember that good
copy and good high resolution are essential in selling a product this
expense. Put each type of furniture up in seperate auctions at least
three times each. If one type of furniture sells more, put more of
those up. Never get bids on another? No more auctions for that type.
Keep track of your sales and modify accordingly. And if ebay is not
working out at all you will need to venture into promoting your web
site using the pay per click advertising method. I would suggest doing
this anyeays. Again, you should *definitely* have a web site.
You offered a nice price for this answer and I want to be sure you are
satisifed. If you need further clarification, please ask before rating
this answer. I will be happy to answer any further questions you have.
Thank you,
shiva777 |
Clarification of Answer by
shiva777-ga
on
28 Oct 2003 21:26 PST
I apologize for my typos at the end there. It's pretty late here and I
am getting tired. Again, please use the 'clarify answer' if you have
any further questions. I will help you all I can.
thanks,
-shiva777
|
Request for Answer Clarification by
yasasha-ga
on
28 Oct 2003 22:38 PST
Hello Shiva777.
Thank you for so speedy answer. Of course I understand the importance
of having my own website and having a lot of good quality pictures.
But doing right website takes some time and I decided to start to sell
on eBay while my site is building. These auctions were just first try.
I liked very much your description of the desk. Unfortunately English
is my second language and it is pretty hard for me to describe
anything so freely as you do... but I will look for somebody who may
help me with this issue... I hope I'll find right person (is it
possible to hire you on contract basis for such kind a work? :) )
By the way, there is some interesting statistic - my previous selling
experience shows that 0.5% to 1% of people who've seen the
advertisement buying the product. But in this case I had over 1000
clicks on my auction and nobody bought anything. So, I believe, you
are right - this is because of all that disadvantages of my auction
descriptions, pictures, lack of store information, etc. that you wrote
in your answer.
I also understood your suggestions about Yahoo and etc., I'll check
all these, but I still would like you to investigate eBay Stores a
little bit deeper. One of the eBay Store programs costs $499 per
month. My understanding of this program is that they GUARANTEE 1
million impressions (by the way, how the impressions different from
the views?) of my store during one month and that logo of my store
will be appearing (sometime?) on a front page of eBay. If this is
true, don't you think it may worth to use this plan instead of paying
per click anywhere else? I mean it could be cheaper for me to pay $499
per month and have a lot of visitors in my store...
In addition, what is your opinion about selling kids furniture - don't
you think it may bring more potential buyers then, let say, office
sets? My personal experience shows that it is quite hard to find good
furniture for children.
|
Clarification of Answer by
shiva777-ga
on
29 Oct 2003 12:24 PST
Hello again Yasasha. Let's start out by looking at the pros and cons
of an eBay store.
On the positive side, it is fairly easy to set up and start getting
advertising impressions.To answer your question about what an
impression is, it would be a listing in a page of other listings. It
does *not* mean visitors looking specifically at your auction or in
your store. So if you get a 1% click through rate on your impressions,
that is 10,000 visitors actually viewing your
auctions. With a .5% visitor to buyer conversion rate that would be 50
customers per month. This is respectable, but it is assuming that you
get these kind of click through and conversion rates.
I think that the most serious argument against an ebay store was
reiterated by Tehuti in the comments below and that seems like it
might not be the right venue for your product. Ebay has a reputation
for bargain hunters and is more akin to an Internet flea market than
an upscale furniture store. I could not confirm whether or not
furniture in your price range is selling a lot on eBay as most of them
were in the 'buy it now' category. My guess would be that they are
relatively slow movers there.
Another argument against the ebay stores is that they are ugly. This
doesn't really matter if you are selling vitamins or action figures,
but what you are selling is beauty, class and good taste. Sure you're
selling furniture, but at the heart of it, you are selling these more
intangible things. Having pictures and descriptions of your furniture
in a classy, professional looking web site will give you a much higher
sales conversion rate.
As an example would you want to buy a $1,095 office desk from here:
http://www.furniturebuzz.com/
or here:
http://www.stores.ebay.com/id=103855928&ssPageName=L2
I think Furniture Buzz wins hands down. The kind of person who is
willing to spend that much money on furniture is probably not going to
be bargain hunting. This is a broad statement I realize, but I think
it applies to a lot of your potential clientele. These are people with
money and they don't want to go to the bargain basement 'discount
furniture store'. They want to go to 'furniturebuzz.com' or whatever.
I also don't believe that you need to lowball your prices too much,
You may want to look around to see what others are selling your pieces
for and maybe slighly undercut them, but I don't think you'll see huge
increases in sales by deep discounting. It's just not that much of a
difference to people who can afford this kind of furniture.
If you want to put up a non-ebay store quickly I recommend
http://www.ecommercetemplates.com.
These are store templates that are very easily set up (I believe they
will even do it for you for a small fee). They look good and they cost
around $115 depending on the template chosen. All products are put in
the store using an easy web-form interface and it looks really well
set up and easy to run. It also interfaces with all of the most
popular internet merchant account services. Yahoo offers a similar
store template service with its stores although the lowest monthly fee
is $39.95 as opposed to $8.95 at a regular web hoster. Note that you
do not get special preference in the yahoo shopping search engine just
because you host with them. That used to be the case but no more.
With either Yahoo store or Ecommercetemplates, you could have online
store up in a few hours with a minumum cash outlay.
Now let's compare advertising in ebay vs pay per click advertising for
your own site. What will pay-per-click advertising buy you for $500?
Costs per click varies a lot depending on the competition, but lets
say you're paying an average of $.15 per click through. That buys you
about 3700 click throughs. But is likely that many of these will be
much more specifically targetted and not just people browsing through
ebay. I also believe you will get a substantially higher
visitor-to-conversion ration on your own classy looking site. It just
looks more like you are a legitimate dealer if you have your own site
with your own URL. There are also the free visitors to consider that
you will get if you work on optimizing your pages to get high search
engine rankings.
If you still think you want to try ebay I would say this. Modify your
listings and see if you can improve your conversion ratio and get
customers. If you cannot, then opening a store won't help you. Even if
you get a million impressions, 0% of a million is still 0. I would
definitely prove to yourself that you can sell on ebay before you
start laying out that kind of cash. You may also want to consider
getting a good ebay store going *and* a yahoo or independent store
going as well. Try a lower cost ebay store and see how it does. If
you're getting a good buyer conversion ratio, move up to the expensive
plan.
As far as kids furniture I think that is an excellent idea. It seems
to me that there would be much less competition. On ebay a search for
'office desk' came up with 290 items. A search for 'children's bed'
came up with 12 items. A substantial difference! Of course there is
probably less searches for childrens beds....Again, the best thing is
to try it out, record your results and adjust your sales strategy
accordingly.
I'm glad that you liked the description I wrote. As Cynthia-ga
mentions below, if you would like me to write more descriptions, you
are welcome to ask more questions on Google Answers and in the subject
line put something like "for shiva777 only - product descriptions" or
something like that. I would also be happy to help you find a good
domain name for a web site, answer specific questions about setting up
and/or internet marketing, develop keyword lists for pay-per-click
advertising or anything else you need. Just ask for me by name in the
subject line. Unfortunately, Google Answers prohibits me from giving
personal contact information so you would need to work with me through
this system.
Again, if you need further clarifcation on anything I have talked
about don't hesitate to ask.
Thank you,
-shiva777
|
Clarification of Answer by
shiva777-ga
on
29 Oct 2003 18:01 PST
Thanks for the kind comments and the tip.
I'm glad that I could help you out.
-shiva777
|
