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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You
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Last Post Sep 17, 2007 1:06 PM by: deirdre@ebay.com
Replies: 36
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deirdre@ebay.com
Posts: 3,846

Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Aug 31, 2007 12:29 PM
Topic: Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Host: aswas
Date: Monday 09/17
Time: 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. Pacific time
Location: Workshop Board

Description: In this workshop, Debbie Levitt from As Was, eBay's first Certified Service Provider, discusses ways to keep your happy buyers thinking about you, coming back for repeat purchases, and telling their friends how great you are. Come and ask your questions about retaining your customers and getting them to promote you!

Cheers,

Deirdre
eBay Community Development
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deirdre@ebay.com
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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Sep 17, 2007 11:53 AM
Welcome and thanks for joining us today!

We love workshops to be interactive, so please feel free to ask your questions that directly relate to this topic.

Added note: If you click on the "Watch this discussion" link, you will receive an email each time someone posts to the workshop.

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A from our Legal Department: The statements and opinions made in this discussion board are those of the workshop host only and do not reflect eBay policy or eBay's opinion with respect to such statements.


Cheers,

Deirdre
eBay Community Development
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aswas
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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Sep 17, 2007 11:53 AM
Hi! I'm Debbie Levitt, President of As Was, eBay's first Certified Service Provider. Today, I'll discuss ways to keep your happy buyers thinking about you, coming back for repeat purchases, and telling their friends how great you are.

Step 1 to buyer loyalty and getting them to tell friends is having a brand that is memorable. Do your eBay user ID, eBay Store name, and dot com (or dot net) all match? Is that name easy to understand? Is it spelled the way it sounds? Will people who hear it know how to spell it, or will they be confused? Start by making these names consistent.

Step 2 is to make your whole eBay listing (your item for sale) completely memorable in a good way. If your listings are very plain, or if they have been laid out to look like other sellers, what will shoppers remember? Will they remember you? Will they think of the seller you copied? What are you doing in your listing to make sure people remember your business?



Debbie Levitt, CEO of As Was
Unique template design, marketing, and strategy consulting from As Was®.
Start, market, & improve your eBay sales.
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aswas
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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Sep 17, 2007 11:54 AM
Step 3 is to make your buyers happy! Great product, great price, great reputation, and great policies are a start. Don't forget great, clear photos that really make people understand what they're buying. When it comes to wording your description and policies, think about an economy of words. Give people the information they need in a clear, well-written, and to the point way. Cut out text that may not be important since eBay shoppers usually don't like to read paragraphs and paragraphs.

Pack it well, ship it fast, and make sure you help anybody who needs help. Leave positive feedback where it's due. And don't spam anybody who didn't agree to be on your mailing list.



Debbie Levitt, CEO of As Was
Unique template design, marketing, and strategy consulting from As Was®.
Start, market, & improve your eBay sales.
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aswas
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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Sep 17, 2007 11:54 AM
Now let's think about how we can get people to come back and buy from us again.
  1. Fine tune your eBay listing strategies so that if your shopper is looking for items like yours again, you are going to show up at or towards the top of the search results.
  2. Put a link in your listings to be added to Favorite Sellers. The link looks like this: Link Just change "aswas" to your eBay user ID, and get that into some HTML so that the link takes people there.
  3. Get people to sign up for your mailing list. You can use the eBay mailing list that comes with your eBay Store subscription. eBay's mailing list has some limitations, so you may want to consider an outside company like Constant Contact, which is what we use for our mailing list. Either way, start using a mailing list so that you can keep happy buyers thinking about you and the new things you have to offer.
  4. Try MyStoreRewards from eBay Certified Provider MyStoreCredit, Inc. This program is designed to give your buyers small discounts during their checkout the next time they buy from you.
  5. Join eBay's Affiliate Program. Link Use their links and cool tools to drive people to your eBay sales (and make a bit of money off that!). You can drop affiliate-coded things into your emails or place them on your blog or other off-eBay website.



Debbie Levitt, CEO of As Was
Unique template design, marketing, and strategy consulting from As Was®.
Start, market, & improve your eBay sales.
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aswas
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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Sep 17, 2007 11:54 AM
Another program to try is our new system, Shop And Buzz [Link. S&B combines the idea of social networking (friends getting each other involved in website communities) with getting happy eBay buyers to buy from you again and tell friends. Here's how it works.

You sign up as a seller at S&B, and you decide what commissions you're offering to happy buyers who come back AND to the new buyers those original buyers refer to your eBay sales. Use our widgets to promote your S&B commissions so that your buyers join and then invite their friends to join. S&B pays your commissions and 1099s your buyers, so once you set your self up in the sytsem, there's nearly no work for you to do ever again.

You can join as a commission-making buyer as well as a commission-paying seller. :)



Debbie Levitt, CEO of As Was
Unique template design, marketing, and strategy consulting from As Was®.
Start, market, & improve your eBay sales.
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aswas
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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Sep 17, 2007 11:54 AM
Mailing lists are great for letting people know about new items, specials, clearance, and other deals you want to offer them. What we think is even beter is to start using a blog. You can use the eBay Blog, or you can use an outside company like Typepad, which we've been using for years. What are teh benefits and features of a blog?
  • Easily post whatever you want to say, whenever you want to say it. Post it to go up immediately, or schedule it to go up another time.
  • Google and other search engines grab blog posts. This means that you'll want to get a lot of great keywords into your posts so that search people will find you.
  • Set up your blog layout and your posts to have links back to your eBay Store and eBay items for sale.
  • Blogs allow people to "subscribe" by saving the feed in a "feed reader." This means that every time you post something new, anybody who subscribes will automatically see your new post. They don't have to go to your blog since the feed bring the post to them!
  • There are tools out there that will turn your blog feed into emails. People can subscribe, and like a mailing list, every time you post something new, they'll get it in their email.
  • Widgets! There are lots of "widgets" out there to add to your blog's design and layout. These can do things like bringing content from other sites to you, incorporating live chat, helping people subscribe to your feed, or showing them what you have for sale on eBay. Widgets can make blogs more interesting, exciting, and interactive.
How can eBay sellers use a blog? Check out one we set up for one of our clients, who sells scrapbooking supplies. Link



Debbie Levitt, CEO of As Was
Unique template design, marketing, and strategy consulting from As Was®.
Start, market, & improve your eBay sales.
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aswas
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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Sep 17, 2007 11:54 AM
These are some ways to get shoppers to become happy buyers, keep thinking about you, stay in touch, and tell friends! Now please ask any questions you have on these topics. :)



Debbie Levitt, CEO of As Was
Unique template design, marketing, and strategy consulting from As Was®.
Start, market, & improve your eBay sales.
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sadiegirl_2
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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Sep 17, 2007 12:01 PM
I am looking back at strategy #1 that says that you should have a user-id that matches your store name.

Can I change my eBay userid without losing my feedback score?
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aswas
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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Sep 17, 2007 12:03 PM
Yes, you can. You'll keep all of your feedback score and comments.



Debbie Levitt, CEO of As Was
Unique template design, marketing, and strategy consulting from As Was®.
Start, market, & improve your eBay sales.
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deirdre@ebay.com
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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Sep 17, 2007 12:04 PM
Hi sadiegirl_2:

Adding to post #9 - there is some great information on how to change your User ID, etc. on the following help page:

Link

Thanks,

Deirdre
eBay Community Development
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aswas
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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Sep 17, 2007 12:05 PM
And for more tips, we have this page about name changes that we suggest: Link



Debbie Levitt, CEO of As Was
Unique template design, marketing, and strategy consulting from As Was®.
Start, market, & improve your eBay sales.
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sadiegirl_2
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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Sep 17, 2007 12:09 PM
Thanks for the info, Deirdre.

I was also wondering~ Do you have any suggestions on how to get people to sign up for my mailing list? I have only 2 people right now - out of my 200 or so customers.

I really don't want to spam them to get them to join, because that might drive them further away.

Is there a way to get them to sign up more readily during the checkout process or anything like that?

Sandy
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aswas
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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Sep 17, 2007 12:11 PM
I don't think eBay pushes them on the checkout, but you can:

1) Include a link in your listings.
2) Include a link in your Store to your eBay Stores mailing list.
3) Get a link on your About Me.
4) Put a link into the emails that you send people after they bought or once you ship.



Debbie Levitt, CEO of As Was
Unique template design, marketing, and strategy consulting from As Was®.
Start, market, & improve your eBay sales.
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econsignmentoflorence
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Member Workshop: Inspire Buyers to Buy Again and Tell Friends About You

Sep 17, 2007 12:13 PM
Since I've never blogged before I'm not familiar with this type of "marketing" but I am with newsletters. My question is, how often should a newsletter be sent to buyers who sign up to receive info from a seller? Is once a week too much and once a month a better approch? Have studies been done that determined how often potential buyers like to be contacted via email?
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