OBVA Small Business Blog For online businesses

5 Reasons Why Market Research Is Very Important To Sell Something On eBay And Amazon By OBVA Virtual Assistants

Online Business Virtual Assistants suggest that Internet Market Research is a must for all sellers, who aspire to become a topseller in Amazon or eBay business.If you want to become a top seller, and get more eBay starts and sell stuff on Amazon it is important that you need to conduct a market research for your business. Virtual Assistants at OBVA share the 5 reasons why market research is very important to sell something in eBay and Amazon.

Reason 1 – You don’t want to depend on any guessing when you invest lot of time and money:

When you have products to sell on Amazon and eBay the first five things you need to know before selling is:

  • Who are your target customers?
  • What are your niche keywords to start your business?
  • What type of competition your products have in the online market?
  • Who are your competitors?
  • What is your target market?

This is a very important yet very time consuming process. This needs a complete marketing research analysis where you will need to filter out the keywords to get a final niche keyword which is the basement for your eBay/ Amazon business.

Reason 2 – You should know your product well:

When you come to know the demand for your products and sell stuff on Amazon and eBay you can easily increase the profit for that particular product. So, a comprehensive Internet Market Research will help you get the data you need and much demand it has in the target market, how to increase its price, where it has the demand etc. This would help you increase your selling by offering discounts or freebies and also have auctions for income.

Reason 3 – You cannot guess what price you will sell things for:

Fixing price for each and every product matters a lot to increase your sales and making huge profit as well and get more traffic to your webstore.  First thing you need to know is what price your competitors sell the product at.  So, you need to conduct a competitor research to fix the rates of your items. You need to check the overall sale though price in the whole online market to fix the profitable price. If you fail here then you may not see more profit in your business. Also, only experts can do completed perfect research to get a detailed yet accurate data. Research tools like Tarapeak, Bay Research Labs BayEstimator can help you to do this effectively. You can also Write a Winning eBay Ad to attract new customers to you.

Reason 4 – To sell cheap, you need to find good suppliers:

The first key factor in gaining profit in the market is finding the best supplier. It is very important that the voice of your store is the quality of your products. This can lead to a good  customer feedback. This can achieved only be achieved if you find a right supplier for your business. It is wise to deal with manufacturer’s authorized wholesaler so that we can be 100% certain over product’s quality. Also this would help increase our selling by reducing the product cost.  Here is a post on how to find products to sell on eBay and Amazon that might help you.

Reason 5 – You cannot ignore knowing your competitors:

In any business even it is online or offline, how can you attract more customers to your store? The answer is simple. When the quality of your product or service is better and the price you offer is less than your competitors then obviously you can get more customers. So it is important to know the competitors for each and every product so that you can out-sell your competitors. For this you need to a competitor research to find out the competitors of each and every product.

These reasons would insist the importance of market research. If you do not have time to do market research for your eBay/Amazon business, please contact us. We never work for your competitors! You can follow us on Twitter, Fanpage and G+. Grab our RSS feed for more updates.

5 Hottest eBay Selling Tips To Increase Your Selling This Festive Season

What buyers may look for this holiday season and which store do they expect to buy? As many stores target their customers by introducing more offers and discounts, how you as an eBay seller, are going to stand out of the crowd and increase your turnover? Here are the 5 hottest tips that we follow for our clients stores  to increase the selling.

Follow these tips to increase you selling this holiday season.

Tip 1# Find and Sell Hottest Items That People Are Looking For:

Few items will always have a huge demand in the holiday season.  Find those items and try to sell them in your store with great deals. For e.g., If you are toy shop owner, try to search for the most wished items that people are looking for. A recent research states that Video Barbie dolls are the best selling this year. So do a research and find out the items that people are crazily looking for this holiday season.

Tip 2# Promise To Ship On Time:

Though many sellers sell items with  great deals, it is known to anyone that packages could mess up due to this holiday season. Hence they would always look for a store that ship items within 24-48 hours. This is the second factor that customers would see after choosing which item to buy. So promise your buyers that you would ship items within the specific time. If you can’t manage shipping, you can delegate your routine shipping label printing to experienced Virtual Assistants to take care of your shipping so that you can ship items in 24/7 hours. Include this in your listing as it would entice your customers to choose your store.

Tip 3# Include Free Shipping Option:

Free shipping option is another hot tactic followed by many retailers. Some are also offering discounts in shipping or include coupons for expedited shipping. The NRF’s data says, that some 5% of merchants will offer such a deal for orders placed as late as the last day of season. Hence push your sales by offering free shipping for orders and discounts in shipping for multiple orders.

Tip 4# Have Your Customers Spread The Word For You:

As we know, word of mouth is the best form of marketing, why not encourage your customers to talk about your offers and deals on their Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, blogs, etc? For example, you can offer free coupons or gift vouchers to your customers who can tweet your offers. By this way you can promote your store and you can have more customers. This technique have been used by very big companies like Microsoft and Facebook.

Tip 5# Avoid Selling Poor Quality Goods:

Since manufacturers are selling goods directly to their customers there may be shortage of inventory due to peak season. You must be prepared with inventory. Do not sell poor quality fake items. Because, any customer who loves your product will never go to other sellers. In this peak season, any new customer may come to store and purchase items. If they love your items, then there’s a chance that they may turn into long term returning customers. So make use of this by selling the goods directly from manufacturer. For this, you can take an inventory report daily and find out the best selling items and have them in extra stock so that you may not suffer.

With the above said tips I hope that you would be able to increase you sales this holiday season. For every sales do a market research and find out the hot trend and hottest items that sell in market. You can use effective eBay marketing tools to find the best selling items. If you find any difficult in doing it delegate it to professionals. We at OBVA do research for our clients and get them more sales and profit during holiday seasons. You can join our community by liking our Fanpage or following us in Twitter.


Last-Minute Tips To Generate More Leads To Sell More In Amazon/eBay This Holiday Season!

It’s exactly just few days left for Holiday season.  Still many of the eBay and Amazon sellers or other small business owners are striving hard to drive more sales According to the Ponemon Institute, a full third of holiday shoppers plan to spend more money online than in-store in 2011. Therefore you need to spend more time in promoting your business online to attract your local and global audience.

We at OBVA would like to share Last-Minute Tips how to sell something on eBay/Amazon  this holiday season:

Spread Your Offers In Social Media:

Promote your ads/offers using paid advertising campaigns in Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ to entice more visitors. Attractive offers like Buy two get one free, bonus gifts for every purchase etc..can boost more sales. Also, Flash news about one time offers like “Barbie dolls with gift wrapped for free shipping only today”, Foundation creams with Free shipping for first 20 international customers”  will turn you customers to click the buy buttons. You may not have time to involve in such creative and attractive offers to your customers. Delegate such tasks to Virtual Assistants quickly to end your deals.

Word Of Mouth Spreading Through Referral Marketing:

Once you come with attractive offers, encourage your customers to be your walking advertisements. This with no doubt can increase your sales.  Implementing this will not only increase your sales but would maintain a high volume selling in the coming year 2011.  “Refer your friends and get 20% discount on your next purchase can increase your sales” or ” Share it to your friends and get a free gift coupon today!” can get you high ending sales volume. Here are  Top 3 Tips To Convert Your New Customers To Repeat Customers  that might help you.

Mobile And Email Marketing:

According to a recent research it has  been estimated that more than 420 million smart phones will be selling in this year 2011. Hence make use of this effectively, by sending message alerts with special offers and discounts to your customers may change their buying mood to your store. Email marketing is another best way to promote your business with great offers. More than one-third of online shoppers say they would not make a purchase without a free shipping offer. Hence make this is a subject to increase your selling. Here are few Tips To Encourage Your Customers Share Your Amazon/Ebay Business .

Though many store owners may be enticing their customer with more offers, stand out of the crowd by making your offers clear, focused and easy to understand.  Your offers should be clean, brief, to the point and should turn any customer to click on buy buttons. If you do have time to write such exclusive offers, you can hire experts to quickly generate more leads. Here are few “ Holiday Selling Tips That No Seller Will Share With You” which you can use to increase your sales. No matter if it is too late to choose your Virtual Assistant, delegating to experts always help. Happy Selling!

2 Great Offers Rolled Out By eBay For Powersellers– Sell More On eBay This Holiday Season!

If you are looking for information on How To Sell Something On eBay, then you are at the right blog!

Discount offer #1 announced by eBay:

On Dec 1st eBay announced  that “All PowerSellers: Save up to 32% on USPS shipping this holiday season” This program offers Commercial Plus™ Pricing—savings of up to 32% off of retail pricing—when you pay for postage and print labels from eBay Labels. If you haven’t signed up yet, enrollment is easy—you can do so the next time you use eBay Labels.  eBay Top-rated sellers and Platinum or Titanium PowerSellers qualify for this discount year-round.

Who are Powersellers? eBay’s “Powersellers” are a group of sellers who are distinguished by the amount of volume they produce in online sales. These Powersellers are the very small group of eBay sellers that do at least $2,000 per month in sales on eBay and maintain a 99% positive feedback rating. If you want to know more about how to become one, here is a post on “Top 10 Secrets That You Should Know To Become A Powerseller.”

Discount offer #2 announced by eBay:

Another discount that eBay announced for the holidays is the 20% Final Value Fee discount, which is just one more way to save!

During holidays everyone is willing to do more business and get more profit.  Apart from making the most of each offer, a seller should also concentrate on how to write effective listing, take good care of customers, maintain positive feedback and claims, etc. You may need to do huge volume of listing, packing and shipping each month, you may consider delegating the tasks to eBay virtual assistants who can help you do the tasks for in time. You can then concentrate more on important aspects of your business and monitor the whole show.

During holiday season, one aspect that needs utmost attention from eBay sellers is feedback. Try to avoid these “7 customer service mistakes that can result in a negative feedback.” Always try to resolve the issue by contacting the buyer on time. Here is “eBay Feedback Revision Tip” that can help you get your feedback revised.

Once the shipping labels are printed, eBay sends automated emails to your customers. You can add wishes like “Merry Christmas” or “Happy New Year” to add to the customer experience.

We will certainly keep you posted with more news and offers from eBay and Amazon. You can subscribe to our blog RSS here, like us on Facebook,+1 on Google and friend us on Twitter, and we would love to interact with you more often. If you are thinking of delegating your store, check out our performance reports from eBay/Amazon clients here. We offer completely customized eBay store and Amazon store services.

One More Solid Reason To Add More Listings This November – By OBVA eBay Experts

Like every year, eBay holiday offers are being rolled out. The offers are innovative, and focused at helping sellers encash more sales during the holidays. It is upto you how much you can make best use of the offers.

Recently, there was an announcement by Todd Lutwak, Vice President of Seller Experience recently  One day only! On November 29, list up to 1,000 items Auction-style for free. Add Buy It Now for free, too!  This one-day only promotion applies to all sellers. If you have missed out this offer, you missed out something, but remember to stay tuned for more upcoming offers. If you really want to make the most of this holiday season , you have to stay tuned to the latest news and updates so that you can make the most out of this holiday offers. Here are some useful  Holiday Selling Tips That No Seller Will Share With You!

 

To start with, you should be prepared for more offers to come. How to get started?

Track your listing time:

You can create your listings at your convenience and control the time they start and end. eBay gives sellers the option of listing items for 1,3 or other days as per your choice. Any auction listing will end the same time the day it is supposed to end. When you list your items,  remember to apply the best listing ending time as per visitors traffic.

Optimize your listing endings smartly:

Your BIN listings and auction listings must end during a time when there are more visitors at eBay.  There is a general assumption that auctions that end on Sunday will have more bids. You can read “How to make your ebay auctions more effective” to know more on auction timings. Also, if your auction listings live for longer, you will get more bids. So, more chances of getting a good selling price for your product.

Your listing must be properly optimized for look, feel and SEO:

Start thinking as a potential customer and try and figure out how they are going to be searching for your item or your store. If you want your store or listing to show up when the customers search for it, make it keyword optimized. The right keyword can earn you first page in search and if you want it to be done in a professional way give the task to internet research experts who can give you good results. eBay tool  “eBay Research Labs BayEstimator” can be used here or the perfectly optimized eBay title. Here is a post  by eBay virtual assistants which gives “The Steps To Get High Search Engine Ranking Optimization For Your eBay Listings“.

Distribute the listing well using Social Media:

Recently Facebook introduced Tagging of photos for Fanpage. This means that you can create a listing, add your product image on your fan page and then tag those pictures with your fan page. You can use social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin to promote your listings. Here are some of posts that can guide you. ‘Use of Facebook for eBay/Amazon’, ‘Use of LinkedIn for eBay/Amazon, and ‘Use of Twitter for eBay/Amazon.’ And also there are some of the applications that can be used to promote your eBay business such as 6 Facebook Applications Which Can Be Used for eBay/Amazon Business and 5 Twitter Applications That Can Be Used for eBay/Amazon Business. If you choose to automate your listings, then “Turbo Lister – Top eBay Marketing Tool “is a good tool to start with. However, it is always wise to have a person look through the listings done automatically, to review any errors, etc.

To create an effective listing you may need professionals help so delegate it to eBay virtual assistants who are experts in creating it for you. You should  have a team in place for all regular activities so that customers are taken care of in the busy season. A few negative feedbacks may spoil your chances of faring well during holiday season. So, why take a chance? Delegate your routine store tasks to professionals who can work with minimum supervision, so that you can focus on more sales this year end. Happy Holiday Selling to you!

 

5 Top Reasons Why You Must Outsource Your Amazon And eBay Store – By OBVA Virtual Assistants

Starting an Amazon or eBay business not only needs you to invest lot of time and energy, but also needs some skills.. Every seller puts his best effort to succeed in online business, then why most of them fail? Common reasons are, more unwanted feedbacks, more irate customers and less business due to the negative feedback left by customers even when you have done your best to make them happy. It is just that they had to wait a bit longer, than they expected, as you were busy doing other stuff, like listing, research, etc. After all, every task is important and it is equally important that each task is done on time. Therefore, it is smart to delegate your responsibilities to dedicated experts. Virtual Assistants at OBVAshare the 5 Top Reasons Why You Must Outsource Your Amazon And eBay Store to experts-

Reason #1 : You May Not Have Time To Do Regular Market Research On Your Own – And Market Research Is Unavoidable

Market research is the base for any successful online business. It is required both during the initial planning phase and also for ongoing learning. Once you come with the products to sell, you need to know what would be the niche keywords for your business, who are your competitors, your target customers and how is the competitionfor your product. This is a detailed process and the result will highly impact your business either positively or negatively. If you find the right keywords then with no doubt you can rank high in the competition. On the adversary if the keywords you choose are not right then your business will be a complete loss. What if your business turns out to be a failure due to wrong marketing? The best way is to delegate your product research to Internet research professionals who can find out niche keywords for your products, their competitors, sale through prices etc. so that you have facts and figures at your finger tips, that help you take right decisions.

Reason #2 – A Professional Can Write SEO Optimized Listings Faster And Better

This is the second phase. SEO plays a prominent role in making your listings visible to the target market. Writing search engine optimized listing will certainly increase your site traffic. So when you sell hundreds or thousands of products then you need to write effective keyword rich item title, description that should be clear, concise, informative and self explanatory. If you are not an experienced SEO expert, then it’s wise to delegate the product listing writing to SEO experts who can write SEO listings for your products to get more business for you.

Reason #3- Dedicated Professionals For Customer Service Which Avoids Late Reply And Negative Feedback

Many new eBay/Amazon businesses rise up or rank well soon in the competition.  The question is “Does it maintain its consistency?” When you see many successful Amazon sellers or eBay power sellers they work very hard to strive in the competition. How do they finally succeed? They always work hard to maintain their DSR rating and feedback.  Their target is to keep their customers happy. So if their customers are not satisfied they would soon work on a better solution to keep them happy which is the best tactic for any successful business. Also, when any customer comes to your store, only your store feedback will help them decide to become a buyer or just a visitor. What you want them to be? Just a visitor or a lead? If you have less experience in maintaining 100% positive feedback, delegate your store customer service to customer service professionals who can promptly solve your customer’s concerns and keep them happy and satisfied because in online business, feedback makes all the difference.

Reason #4 – Better Marketing Because Marketing Needs Time Commitment And Experience

Marketing helps you considerably boost your sales. You need to create your business profile in major social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc.. Your customers should be informed about regular product updates, new products and offers, etc. Therefore, you need to commit yourself in spending part of your time daily in marketing your site. Do you have the time to do this? The best way is to delegate your site marketing to social media virtual assistants. for promoting the listings on social media, and they can help you with other forms of marketing too.

Reason #5- You can balance life better!

We all earn to make our life better!. But when you put all the burden on yourself to make your business a successful one, then you will find no peace even though you may be  making good money.  If you see any successful business owner, they  spend their time only in developing the core areas of their business. What about their other tasks? They simply delegate routine tasks to professional virtual assistants. If you never tried out delegating before, drop us an email  to schedule a call on how we can help you.

Part II – Holiday Selling Tips That No Seller Will Share With You! Sell All The More Stuff On Amazon This Holiday Season

In my previous post Holiday Selling Tips That No Seller Will Share With You, I discussed on how we can attract more customers to the store during holiday season.  In this post we will discuss on  how to keep your customers happy this busy season with great customer service, how to handle post order problems and also how to keep your seller account secure.

Keep your customers smiling by great customer service

You have a attractive offer for your product listing that makes a potential buyer click on your listing. Good. But then, the buyer  checks your feedback and immediately leaves your store. All your hard work is gone for a toss now. As you know, customer feedback is very important for any business, and all the more important for online stores like Amazon where it is transparent for anyone to see. While we can work on getting the feedbacks removed , it is best to follow the rules to avoid feedback at the first place. Therefore, it is critical for sellers to pay close attention to their ratings everyday.  .  .

Amazon does automatically send buyers a feedback request after 30 days . Still, you can use creative ways to attract more positive feedback. For example, you can add a note with shipped products thanking customers for their purchases and requesting a feedback. This simple trick can boost seller feedback ratings. You can avoid 7 customer mistakes that can get you a negative feedback. Speedy shipping during busy season is very important for buyers as they purchase for gifts and they want the gifts to show up on time. Offering expedited shipping on your orders shows you care about customer satisfaction. Also, late shipping will impact your performance metrics in Amazon. Always try to ship the item as soon as you receive the payment so that you do your best to ensure the product reaches quick. When we print labels for our clients during our day, which is USA night, the products are shipped within 12-24 hours, as we make use of time difference. Most of our feedback says, ‘Fast Shipping’, ‘reached earlier than expected, and so on.’

Take care of your customers all through – post order  customer service

There is a higher probability of lost rate during holiday season due to large amount of volume the shipping companies get. In order to avoid any negative or neutral feedback after shipping the item make sure that you follow certain rules so that you keep your customers happy and make them your long term buyer.

Customer Serivce tips for Holiday selling on Amazon

a) Cancellations-

If a buyer has made a mistake with an order and wants to fix it by cancelling then you can cancel the order at your end and refund to the customer and make sure that the order is not shipped again which will cause unnecessary feedback. If the order is already shipped then ask the customer to send back the item and you can inform the customer that you will refund once you receive the item. This will make the buyer think that you are reasonable and are trying to help him and this will make him a happy customer.

b) Product not received-

As I mentioned earlier the lost rate during holiday season is high. And if a customer sends you an email that he has not received it give them full detail of shipment and also try to track the item at your end. If the item is not received by the buyer in the stipulated time then send a replacement or refund depending upon the customer’s choice.

There are cases when the tracking shows delivered but the customer did not receive the item. In those cases try to make communicate to the buyer in a polite way look for the item  and if still not received you can send a replacement to keep him/her as a repeat customer. In case of returning the item make sure to write your own return policy. Read these “5 tips on how to write return policy” to make sure that you write effective and transparent policy. The point is don’t keep the buyer in dark .

c) Item reached damaged –

It helps to have a clearly defined return policy which states under which cases, you will offer full refund, or part refund and which cases won’t be covered for refund. When your customer gets back to you for a return request, try to be reasonable. While answering customer emails, we try to put ourselves in customers’ shoes so that we can offer a best possible solution.

Keeping your seller account secure

During this holiday season there is will be higher volume which can make any account disrupt. Many internet software spammy mails and phishes can disrupt your computer or seller account. You need to avoid these in order to keep your account secure. Start updating your software which you use for security on a regular basis. Since internet hackers can get your password and other security questions keep your malware scanning programs on your computer up to date.

You can also restrict your internet usage to only those sites you know and trust so that any unknown person or kids cannot use your computer. Update whatever software or operating system you are using and also download their security patches.  Be careful in opening email which do not end with “@amazon.com”. And also make sure go directly to the Amazon.com website to make any changes to your seller account. You do not want to be stuck with a fraud and loose money when your goal is to make more money on Amazon.

I hope my previous post and this one would have given you some ideas on how to sell stuff on Amazon in coming holiday season. If you do not have time to manage these tasks, delegate to dedicated professionals who would keep your customers happy and satisfied. I would really appreciate if you comment and grab our RSS feed. You can also like our Facebook fan page and follow us on Twitter.

Professional Virtual Assistants Share Few Safest Payment Options In eBay

eBay is one of the hottest online business transaction platforms. There are many strategies that sellers should follow in order to become a powerseller. Professional virtual Assistants share the most important strategy that most sellers in ebay business are unaware of- offering safest payment options in eBay.

Generally buyers feel a bit worried about payment security during online shopping. As a seller you should satisfy your customer by offering payment methods that are safe, easy to use, reliable, and flexible and offer high levels of protection. This in turn would increase more traffic to your eBay store as buyers would always look on their convenient and safer method of buying.

eBay Business Assistants Share Few Safest Payment Options For eBay Sellers.

ProPay:

Benefits of Using ProPay:

o Payment is traceable.

o Payment is immediate and safe.

o Payment is convenient.

o This is the best payment option eBay is following as it involves higher protection and faster transaction

PayPal:

Pros of PayPal

o Payment is traceable.

o Payment is quick, convenient and safe.

o Payment is directly deposited to your account.

o Customers can track the status of their payment

o Confirmation is sent to you before you ship the item to your customer

o The best and pretty way to be used for online selling.

Cons

o Per-transaction and percentage fees apply

o Some buyers less inclined to trust PayPal than credit card merchant

Credit/Debit Card:

Pros of Credit/Debit Card

o Payment is traceable.

o Payment is convenient, Immediate and safe.

o Customers can track the status of their payment

Cons

o Per-transaction and percentage fees may apply

o Some initial fees/start-up costs

o Extra paperwork/overhead hassles

o Best for medium-to-large sized companies.

Moneybookers:

Pros of Moneybookers

o Payment is traceable

o Payment is immediate and safe

o Payment is convenient

Cons

o Difficult to track sales when you sell more number of items in eBay

o Bad customer service during transaction enquiries.

Paymate:

Pros of Paymate

o Payment is traceable.

o Payment is safe.

o Payment is convenient.

Cons

o Payment takes 3 business days to get cleared.

o It hard to process for refund claims

Payment options such as Cheques, Demand Drafts, and Cash on Delivery, Escrow, and Money Orders are risky payment options for both you and your customers. So make sure you avoid using such payment options in your listing. It is also important to know that the payment options you use should be accepted by eBay. Know more about accepted payment policies in eBay.

The above are some of the best and safest payment options suitable for both the buyer and seller which is one of significant factor to increase your sales.

These are some of the best and safest payment options suitable for the buyer and seller both. OBVA Virtual Office Assistants are trained Virtual Experts in managing your business by providing value added services such as quality customer service, effective feedback management, and taking over all routine task to add value to our client’s business. We also offer best service in finding the products, their wholesalers, competitive selling prices, and the margins on each sale. If you need more information on our internet research services for eBay, please contact us. We never work for your competitors!

Professional Virtual Assistants Give You The Tips To Become A Successful Seller

Online Business is becoming popular now-a-days, as it is a very good channel for reaching global customers. Most of the people prefer online businesses, as it is an easy and simple platform to make money. As Online businesses can be established with a minimum investment, competition in this field is relatively high.

A top seller is differentiated by the way he perceives things. Instead of hard working, he trusts on smart working. Amazon Business/Ebay Business Virtual Assistants shares few suggestions of how to become a top seller. A seller is recognized as a top seller based on the sales percentage and the customers’ feedback. These two aspects can be easily achieved by following the below guidelines:

Tips To Become A Successful Seller

 

Right Product:

Choosing the right product for sale is the important aspect. And it’s brilliant to choose highly consumable products like cosmetics, nutritional supplements, diet pills etc. For this you can do a market research for the best selling products in eBay and Amazon. Read our post on How you can use Amazon as tool for marketing research?

Perfect Description:

Describe your product with a quality picture. Mention the important features of the product and highlight the special offers and discounts. A perfect listing description would give you a high traffic to your web store. You can delegate such important and challenging tasks to Business Virtual Assistants who are experienced in writing effective listings descriptions to drive more traffic to your web store.

Structured Business:

1. Organize in such a way, that each and every aspect of your business is perfectly taken care of.

2. Pay special attention to inventory and shipping. Ensure that you have sufficient quantity in stock.

3. Make sure that all the orders are shipped within the Turnaround Time. Send auto generated emails after shipping the product.

4. Keep the customers informed about the delay in shipping the product and the holidays that you can’t ship.

5. Maintain a clear and self explanatory shipping chart, which consists of the various shipping careers you use, their corresponding charges and an approximate time for product delivery. Make sure you use the safest payment options in eBay as it helps both the seller and buyer to be mutually secured.

6. Prepare a clear document on your policies and procedures. It’s better idea to link the return policies with your listings.

7. Track the returns received from the customers and ensure the replacements or refunds has been processed promptly for every return.

8. Generate weekly, monthly reports on your performance, which would help you to recognize the areas to improve.

Customer Service:

1. Make sure that the customers’ queries are addressed and responded promptly.

2. Handle the customers in a kind, humble but in a professional manner.

3. Provide the exact details that the customer looks for.

4. Educate the customers about your policies and procedures clearly.

5. Feedback from the customers would improve your business. Therefore, insist the customer to give feedback on your products and services.

6. If you receive negative feedback, approach the customer politely. Try to make the customer, realize the fact and request to remove the negative feedback. Read our post on eBay feedback revision tips that shares the effective steps to be taken to solve the negative/neutral  feedback for your store. our You can provide shipping refund, free samples to make the customers happy.

7. Your approach should make the customer, to feel that you are to take care of their concerns.

8. Our blog about  7 customer service mistakes that can result in a negative feedback would help you better in managing good customer service.

A well trained virtual office assistant can help you in all the above aspects, so as to make you a top seller soon.

We are a team of vibrant yet experienced, creative yet professional, energetic yet insightful and highly creative yet accountable virtual assistants based in India. We excel at managing your online business virtually. We are great at what we do – help your small business and online store grow. Whether you need part time, full time or project based services, we will design the program that best fits your needs. Our services include complete online eBay Business and Amazon Business Store Outsourcing and customized services to online entrepreneurs and small businesses. We maintain your online presence(website,blog), Social Presence (Social Media Marketing Services), Internet Research to create database/reports, MS Office projects and customized small business solutions for your unique business. Contact us today for free consultation.

Professional Virtual Assistants Share 5 Tips To Make Money on eBay

eBay is a powerful online business platform to make more money. Not all the eBay sellers succeed; only very few rise to the top. Our OBVA eBay Professional Virtual Assistants share some proven tips to help you make more money on eBay.

Follow these 5 simple tips to increase your sales and income:

Tip 1 – Choose the best day to end your auction

The best day to end your auctions in bidding sites like eBay is Sunday. The reason is almost everyone will be at home bidding on eBay. This strategy helps get more bids on your auctions. On the other hand, Friday is not a good day to end an auction, because your bidders may be busy with work to complete their weekly job tasks. Similarly, Monday is not a day to start an auction, because workers will be in startup mode at their office, with tasks and meetings. One more strategy that successful eBay sellers follow is holding their auctions for longer time frames.

Tip 2 – Start with low bidding cost

eBay Store Virtual Assistants from OBVA say that buyers won’t pay more attention to shipping costs when placing bids on items with low starting price. It has been proven that item with low starting cost with high shipping charge are being sold more than the items that are priced with average charge and no shipping cost. What draws your customers is low opening bid. So set your opening bid low to win your sale.

Tip 3 – Pricing strategies can make or break a sale

Money making tips on ebay, Selling tips on eBay

Do a complete price research so that you  will come know the pricing strategies for each of your products.  You can use effective marketing tools like Terapeak to find out the competitive prices of the products you are going to sell. When you offer some discount, you need to highlight it in your title description. For e.g.: “Sturdy Jeans now at 190”. Encourage your customers by offering a low introductory price, discount or free shipping. Excite your customers by offering free bonus, coupons, gift boxes or special premium offers.

If you are selling inexpensive items, offer your customers a group or collection of them, one of each color, or a set of three. You might have less profit on each item, but you’ll make it up with the extra volume. The goal is to make more money from each sale online.

Fewer than half of all eBay listings will sell the first time they are listed, even for experienced sellers. You can take advantage of eBay’s easy relisting option. Otherwise you may rotate your items and then relist the unsold items later. If you are a big seller, then make use of eBay marketing tools that can ease your work.

Tip 4 – Choose best item title and description

Writing effective title and description will get more attention from your prospective customers. Our post on How top sellers write Listing Descriptions that Sell? gives you tip to write effective listing description for your eBay store items. This is the most important way of advertising your item, which in turn helps you in gaining more profit. We at OBVA have well trained virtual assistants who are skillful in creating effective item titles and descriptions.

Post testimonials and endorsements from your customers, with their permission. eBay uses the feedback system for customer comments, but not every bidder will take the time to read all of the relevant feedbacks.  So provide them in the listing itself.

5. Here are some products that help you in making more money on eBay

  • Digital Cameras & Photo
  • eBay motors
  • Consumer Electronics
  • Computers & Networking
  • Clothing, Shoes & Accessories
  • DVDs & CD’s
  • Sporting Goods
  • Home & Garden
  • Collectibles Toys & Hobbies
  • Jewelry & Watches
  • Mobile Phones and accessories
  • Printers, MP3 players and accessories.
  • E-books regarding health and beauty, career and personality development, money making and saving, being happier etc..

These are some proven tips in making more money on eBay. If you think you need professional help in a budget to make your life easy while your store grows, simply contact Online Business Virtual Assistant Company. Our services are affordable, reliable and professional. We do not work for your competitor stores.