Delegating Your Online Store Can Do Wonders – Here are the Proofs – Performance Reports From eBay and Amazon – Proudly Shared By OBVA Virtual Assistant Team!

OBVA team is very excited to share the performance scores for all our client stores on eBay and Amazon. We would like to scream out the positive feedback  that we get from our clients every now and then, but since we are committed to client privacy, we never share client store ids, contact information, etc. Online market is very competitive and what differentiates one store from another is the feedback score, and then come other factors like pricing, return policy, etc. As we all know, feedback score depends completely on the quality of customer service we offer to online customers. Virtual store Assistants who help clients achieve wonderful store performance are certainly their assets, which they are not very comfortable to share with other competitors. We also respect this aspect, and we are committed to work for only one client in any particular product segment, so that we do not work for competitors.

OBVA eBay and Amazon Virtual Assistants take over all routine online business tasks like shipping label printing, customer service, managing refunds, replacements, feedbacks, claims, Internet Research, Keyword Research, Social Media Marketing, Blogging, and so on. We offer timely, dependable and reliable services for all our client stores and these service qualities help us retain clients for long term ongoing support.

After so much of efforts put in, performance scores and metrics is the pay-back. Online businesses are so transparent that everything is crystal clear. Any delays are clearly visible not only in feedbacks, but also in customer metrics. And it’s a challenge to keep negative and neutral feedback away while we work our way to 100% feedback and total client satisfaction.

We are excited to share performance reports for a few of our clients, as sharing all won’t be possible.We do not share store ids to ensure privacy for our valuable clients. However, we are happy to share the screenshots of the customer metrics scores and feedback scores achieved for a few of our clients.

This is feedback score of one of the Amazon UK Clients of OBVA Virtual assistants. We work for his feedback, claims, customer service, printing shipping labels, refunds and replacements. We work hard to maintain feedback rating for them to be 100%. Do you want your store’s rating to be the same way, contact us. www.obvainc.com.

Customer service efficiency for first quarter to a eBay client who is being helped by OBVA Online Virtual Assistants.

Can you see this response time for Amazon seller. Great isn’t it? This shows the commitment OBVA Virtual assistants towards their clients performances.

This is feedback score of one of the Amazon UK Clients of OBVA Virtual assistants. We work for his feedback, claims, customer service, printing shipping labels, refunds and replacements. We work hard to maintain feedback rating for them to be 100%. Do you want your store’s rating to be the same way, contact us. www.obvainc.com

If you want your store statistics to look like our clients’, contact us today to know how we can help you manage your store better. You can connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and email.

7 Cardinal Rules To Improve Your eBay Business This Year

Last year would have been a successful year for some eBay business owners and a year of failure for others. We also gave some Holiday Selling Tips which you might have explored. Hence, the first thought for any eBay business owners who entered this year would be finding out the best ways to develop the business to the next level and become a Powerseller. So how you as a business owner prepared for this year to grow your business?

Here are the 7 cardinal rules you can follow to make your business achieve the next level.

1. Be focused:

It doesn’t mean that you are not focused these years about your store. Though working hard these years hadn’t helped you achieve any goals, stepping up in to a new year will always give you a boost up to and a positive attitude to turn your business a successful one. Always be more focused about your goals to be achieved and plan accordingly. Follow these Top 7 EBay Selling tips to know more on how to sell something on eBay.

2. Hire right assistants for your business:

What would make your business a successful one? A good team is the basement for any successful business. Though you may be the business owner, you need to have people who can help you in suggesting business improvements to grow your business. So make sure you have right people at your hand. If not hire eBay Virtual assistants today.

3. Build a best team:

As you all know, success always lies in best team work. So it’s time for you to organize a superior team who can well co-operate with each other to leverage your business in a better way.  You will also need to analyze the skills of your team members so that you can come to know who can do what work and delegate them accordingly.

4. Add more value to your products and services:

This is the heart of your business. Proper planning would always help solve half the problem. So find out the products that doesn’t gives more profit to your company and make a list of them. Do a complete analysis of its competitors, sale through prices etc. Now you need to find out the best way of how to sell them with good profit.

You may include attractive packages for wrapping, offer discounts or reduce the costs, or include freebies with them. Though this seems to be a common tactic, yet discounts and freebies always entice a customer to choose your store than your competitors. For eg, many customers always look for free shipping. Why don’t you offer the same when customers look for this particular product?

5. Set your goals for this year:

Without setting any target one cannot reach top, both officially and personally. Set your plans today. It is good to make a complete eBay business plan for the whole year and the split it accordingly for every quarter. Build a team that would report on business level for every week so that you can make a call accordingly to fix the issues. If you find it difficult, allocate these work to Professional virtual assistants who are good at doing it.

6. Build trust:

How power sellers rock? It is because of the trust their customers have on them. This was achieved by brand awareness and quality of the products and service they provide. Don’t worry if you have very less customers following. Try to satisfy those few and they will become your walking advertisements to get tens or hundreds of customers to your company. So always be loyal to your existing customers by having a personal touch with them.

7.  Be a smart worker and hard worker as well:

Smart work is very important but you need to strive hard to accomplish all your goals. Successful entrepreneurs never quit even if they fail but they keep on moving with new goals and achievements.  You may be smart in making a good business plan but you always need to commit yourself in learning new ideas and techniques to make your business grow higher.

If you are ready with all these things including right business plan, right people then this year would be your year of success! If you need assistance in eBay selling please contact us.  Follow us on Twitter, like our Fanpage and +1 in Google plus to get more updates on eBay selling tips. Grab our RSS feed  to increase your selling in eBay and Amazon Happy selling!!

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 1^st 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.

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.

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

As you know, all malls are overcrowded during these months for Thanksgiving and then Christmas shopping. The big online mall, Amazon is no exception to this. Do you want to learn tips on how to sell all the more this holiday season? If yes, read on while we discuss what works! You can trust our tips because Amazon Virtual Assistants at OBVA have been working on client Amazon stores for years and we love to share what we learn while doing what we love to do, managing online stores.

Attract Customers By Offering Great Deals

Why should customers choose you over your competition? This is the question that should pop up in your head every time you plan to write a new listing this holiday season.. Offering your customers  freebies (like a free sample or a free gift coupon, etc.) is a great way to make them open your listing page and then press the BUY Button. Also, if you can publish your best offers on Social Media sites, you can make the offer spread through the network. If you are not using Social Media for promoting your listings, then you may read “ List Of 7 Killer Posts – ‘eBay And Amazon Social Media Marketing“. Also, I am adding a whole list of posts on Social Media Marketing for eBay  at the bottom of this post. Do not forget to read through them before you market your next listings.

Before you market, make sure that your offer is very attractive for prospective buyers. Apart from Social Media, you can also get the word out through e-mails, blog posts, and tweets. If you have a Fanpage for your store, you can post your offer listings on the wall.  You can post updates on your fan page that create anticipation for an upcoming offer. If you follow Facebook announcements recently for free advertisement for small businesses in 2012. Here is a post from Under30CEO  “ Will Free Facebook Ads Help Your Business?” which analyzes the free ads of Facebook. You will notice how effectively they have created anticipation already.

You can also make use of One Day, One Deal sites like Woot which  has been acquired by Amazon. This sites offer a new item offer every single day. So make use of sites like these to attract more customers

Read the recent announcements(if any) from Amazon

Okay. You have a great product to sell. You are ready with the price and everything and then suddenly you get a bad surprise. Amazon doesn’t allow you sell that product. After all the hard work and preparation, this news won’t be pleasant for you, I guarantee and then you would so much wish you read the recent announcements before putting in so much of efforts and hardwork. For example, if you are a toy seller, it will be wise to read through “Holiday Selling Guidelines in Toys & Games” before anything else. There are some categories requiring approval. So it is wise to do a good quality Internet Amazon Market Research before diving into the market.

Focus on writing an attractive yet genuine ad

The most important step in writing an ad is to get reader’s attention with a strong opening which should make your customers read the entire ad and get to know about the offers which you are going to give them.  You have to create desire for your product by stating a problem and showing your product to be the solution. You can work on the images and write your offer in an attractive way to encourage visitors click on your listings. For example, FREE SHIPPING,BUY 1 GET 1, and so on. Nowadays, listings consist of demo videos where the product features are nicely showcased. A simple video too can make your listing more useful for the buyers. You can create a few images and listings for the same product and experiment. Stick with the ones that do the best. Daily deals and lightning deals are game-changers during this period because they create a sense of urgency and everyone is particularly price sensitive during the holidays. So make sure you offer a great price for the items and attract as many customers to your webstore as possible. Give them value for money and they will leave you a positive feedback for sure.

In this post, we discussed on listing part, in my upcoming posts, I will share with you more on next post will discuss on how to keep  your seller account secure, how to do great customer service during holidays, and how to handle post order problems. Grab our RSS feed for more information on Holiday Sales. Follow us on Twitter and Like us on our Fanpage to get more updates regarding Amazon business.

As per per promise, here is a list of Social Media Marketing related training posts:-

Post 1 – How eBay and Amazon Businesses can use Facebook for promoting their online stores.

Post 2 – How Linkedin can be effectively used for eBay and Amazon Businesses

Post 3 – How eBay and Amazon Businesses can use Twitter for promoting eBay and Amazon Businesses

Post 4 – 6 Facebook applications that can be used for eBay and Amazon Businesses

Post 5 – Avoid these 7 Customer mistakes that can result in negative feedback

Post 6 – Top 5 Effective Twitter applications that can be used for eBay and Amazon Businesses

Post 7 – 5 Linkedin Applications that can be used for eBay and Amazon Businesses

Do not forget to share your comments.

Part 2: Little Known Smart Ways To Revise Negative/Neutral Feedback – eBay Feedback Revision Tip Series By EBay Virtual Assistants

If you notice common selling tactics of  top eBay sellers or power sellers, you will  notice that they have a flawless feedback score.  How do they manage to get 100% feedback or 99% feedback? Their customers never face issues? Packages don’t get delayed? They never come across customer emails who are unhappy with their product/service?  Well, as you know, it is impossible to answer all questions as YES.

The truth is  even the best sellers have to face unhappy customers once in a while, like other newbies. But what they do differently is, they work on the feedback left by their dissatisfied customers immediately and work to offer them a feasible solution. So, if you want to become a successful seller on eBay with a 100% feedback, you will have to simply follow the eBay feedback revision tips shared by eBay expert Virtual Assistants at OBVA Inc. We have experience in helping many eBay client stores maintain a successful track record all the way to 100% feedback ratings and high sales month after month. In our last post, we wrote about the most common reasons “Why Customers Leave Negative Feedback Or Neutral Feedback on eBay.” Now we are going to write how to get them removed to get back to your 100% feedback score.

eBay Feedback Revision Tip 1 – Work On A Solution Immediately – Preferably Within 24 hours

Whenever your customer leaves negative or neutral feedback, respond to them immediately saying that you are working on their feedback to solve their issue. This would make them feel confident about your store that you are there to take care of their issues. Try to offer them immediate solution. Let us take an example of item not received in time. In this situation request your customer to wait for stipulated time frame to receive the item.  After the time frame is over, do email them asking if they have received their item. They will surely respond you to let you know the fact. If they didn’t receive it, confirm their mailing address once again which may be reason for lost and promptly send the replacement.

Now if you request them to remove the feedback, they will surely revise the feedback. Work out on a solution that is feasible for both the parties. Customers are nice to you if you are nice to them. After all, they are very much like you and me, humans!

 eBay Feedback Revision Tip 2 -Send Regular Reminders

In this busy world, your customers are busy with their day to day life, just like you and me. Therefore, they may not have the time to bother about the ebay feedback revision. So, it is important that you send regular reminders.

Send friendly reminder emails to your customers for the feedback to be revised. Do not harass them by sending too many emails. Good customer service will half way solve the problem of unwanted feedbacks. So make sure you avoid 7 customer service mistakes that can result in a negative feedback. You can also follow the 4 Rules That OBVA eBay Virtual Assistants Follow To Maintain Positive Feedback.

eBay Revision Tip 3 – Deliver What You Promised

Once your customer has revised the feedback, do deliver what you promised them. If they left a feedback commenting that they did not receive the product and then you promised a replacement, send that replacement immediately. However, in cases where feedback was revised by a simple humble request, do not forget to sincerely thank the customer for being nice to you. In simple words, acknowledge their help!

We all know the saying “Prevention is better than Cure”. Hence it is wise to avoid unwanted feedback that may arise due to poor customer service, over exaggerating the item quality when it is not actually met, delay in product delivery, unclear return policy, unclear item description etc.. Make sure you do your best to be transparent while writing your listings, title, description and also have clearly arranged return policy, refund/replacement policy, shipping policy to ensure that customers have access to information that matters. If you do not have time to do all that is required, then hire eBay virtual assistants who can work with dedication for your eBay store and help you make it a success!

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