Whether you are selling something in a store or online, the period between Black Friday and Christmas means big sales and majority of your early income. eBay sellers are no exception and the same rules apply to them if they want to make some serious money:
1. Start early
Black Friday and Christmas shopping seems to start earlier and earlier every year. It’s around November 1st now and trust us, you don’t want to be late on eBay either, so have your plan ready early. Think about it, if you have 10-day listings and put the first holiday items for sale in the middle of October, you only have 6-8 cycles, which is not that much, so don’t procrastinate.
2. Have your suppliers ready
Make sure you have the supply of products lined up and ready because you don’t want to oversell something that you can’t later deliver in time.
3. Pay extra attention to holiday relevant items
If you think that your item wouldn’t make a good gift, don’t even bother listing it. Let’s say you are selling beading supplies for jewelry making and made-to-wear bead jewelry. Come November and you should focus on bead necklaces only as they would make perfect gifts and leave the beads for later.
4. Have a huge stock on in-demand items
If there is a hot toy or gadget flying off shelves in stores, that same item will be flying off eBay too, so keep an eye on the market and add hot items to your list of products. eBay also offers tools to see what’s selling fast and what’s in demand. Try to be ahead of competition or at least with the front runners.
5. Use “Buy it Now” listings
Holiday season is not the best time for auction-style purchases, because people come for swift impulse buys and have no patience to wait, so consider more fixed price listings. You will have a better turnover too as your items won’t have to wait for 10 days to be sold.
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6. Free shipping
It seems that everybody is offering free shipping these days, and so should you. Combine free shipping and fixed price sales together and you will win at eBay. If not free, then at least offer combined shipping for multiple items and save money for your buyer.
7. Make payments convenient and fast
Consider offering PayPal for holidays even if you don’t normally like that. Such payments are instantaneous and help you speed up your shipping, hence more orders. Paypal also offers order tracking and shipping tools and will let you accept credit cards without having merchant’s account.
8. Be up front about your shipping policies
All gift shoppers want to know when the gifts will be arriving. If you are clear about your shipping, you will help your customers choose you. Otherwise they will have to send you an email with this question or just go to someone else, and you might not like either one of those options.
9. Be diligent with your dates
Mail deliveries slow down during holiday season, so make sure you can fulfill your shipping policies even if you have to pay a bit more. Inform your last minute shoppers that their orders might not arrive in time for Christmas.
10. Make your template festive
Everything helps when it comes to sales, right? So even though holiday-themed template won’t sell stuff on its own, having it decorated might help your shoppers feel the spirit of buying and giving, so do it.