Selling Jewelry On Ebay – 7 Essential Tips

In this article:

1. Business Rules
2. Sourcing
3. Research
4. Efficiency and Economies of Scale
5. Listing Strategies
6. Shipping & Handling
7. Would you like fries with that order?

How do you survive, even thrive during a global recession? According to research, starting (or expanding) your own business can be part of the solution. I was listening to NPR yesterday and they were doing a piece on Mary Kay – apparently the Mary Kay business is booming. Same for Avon. And I bet the same is true for eBay. A big reason for this was people losing their jobs knew they would never find anything as good as what they had in the near future.

Avon has what they refer to as a “lipstick” index. They can tell the state of the economy by the quantity of lipstick they sell! I think there is an inverse relationship. Sliding economy means better lipstick sales. The theory (based on what I heard, I am not professing to be an expert on this topic) is that when times are bad women still buy makeup but buy the lower price points.

I think this principle can be applied across a swath of industries. Starting your own business, or growing it can make sense but offering the right product or service, in the right marketplace, is key. In these times offer things people need – second-hand clothes or appliances, find ways to save them money. Or offer things people want at a better value than they ever expected. I am sort of buying into the “lipstick” theory because my sales have come back up over the past month. I have over 2000 customers worldwide, so this is a pretty good bellweather. The jewelry that are selling are the lower price point pieces – small pendants, earrings and rings, mostly.

So back to eBay. Before starting the wholesale website 3-4 years ago I sold almost exclusively on eBay for about 5 years and was a high volume power-seller.  Here are 6 proven strategies that helped me become a full time ebay seller. Most relate to efficiency and automation.

Business Rules!

Just because it is easy to open an ebay sellers account, does not mean it is easy to successfully maintain an ebay business. The same fundamental rules that apply to any other business apply to an ebay business. And this is probably the number one reason people quit prematurely — their expectations are way too high and they don’t build a good foundation.

Sourcing & Research - Before sourcing a new product that you are sure will be a hit take a look at the” Completed Listings” for the items you are thinking to sell to see what they are really going for. When identifying a source, #1 be sure you can trust the company! Speak to someone on the phone – you can gain a lot of insight that way. Check the quality before placing a large order and learn about the supply-chain. Ask about production times and availability. Be sure that the products you order will be uniform! You don’t want to have to take a million pictures of the same design because each is different.

Research

Before you go out a procure a ton of junk from www.wholesalecentral.com, www.liquidation.com or some other supplier of crap, do some product research – there are a lot of good books. Here are a few on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ebay . Its often best to stick to something you know about. If you have been selling jewellery for a while, try that first especially if you already have some stock. If you are an expert on dolls, look into that area. A great research tool is to search Ebay’s Completed Listings to see what stuff is going for. For advanced sellers, try http://www.hammertap.com/. I used this tool a few times and met some of their developers and they have a very good research tool.

Efficiency & Economies of Scale

Stage 2, after you establish your market niche and have a lot of product to sell, you want to move to the next level. To do this you need to be efficient, because ebay is VERY VERY competitive! The power sellers all do well because they are efficient, maybe they have low margins, but they have high volume but much time conserved. Some essential tools include: Listing Tool, Order-Processing Tool and good inventory system. Visit www.auctiva.com and www.andale.com. They both offer some comprehensive solutions for listing, communicating with buyers and reconciling/ archving orders. I used auctiva exclusively and I know andale is very well respected. Another one is www.auctionworks.com.

Listing Strategies

Here is a dirty little secret I learned – 3 day jewelry auctions perform better than 7 days auctions and the 3-dayers will allow you to sell higher volume without your price falling. The nitty-gritty: example: Yyou have 15 designs with 10 pieces per design. If you are using a listing tool, even Mr. Lister, setup 3 “batches” with 5 different designs in each batch. Day 1 list the items in batch 1, Day 2 te items in batch 2, day 3… Be sure you make all 3 day auctions. The advantages of this are: 1) Potential buyers will NEVER see the same item in your ebay listings twice (if they did it would drive price way down – people would always wait til the last second to bid because they know another is available). 2) You need to take only 15 pictures even though you will be listiing 150 auctions. 3) You create your listings just once! Then each day you just upload your batches. When I figured this out I literally went from spending 1-2 hours/ day creating and uploading my listings to about 30 seconds. This is huge.

Shipping & Handling – “Do you want fries with that?”

Fact: eBay buyers factor the price of shipping and handling into their order. Fact: eBay does not charge fees on shipping and handling fees. 3) Fact: Sellers of low cost items often make a substantial part of their profits on the “handling fee”. There is nothing slimy about this. I used to charge $4.99 for the first item and $1.99 for each additional item. This in many cases is the difference between making a profit and breaking even.  There is very little buyer loyalty on ebay – so be sure to look out for yourself and charge appropriate fees. Everyone else does it.

Another strategy is to sell the buyer something else that they did not know they needed when they checkout. Benefits: 1) No ebay fees! 2) This is gravy. About 25% of my ‘ebay’ income was from the “fries”. You know when you go to McDonald’s (well, being a vegeterian its been a while so I speak from conjecture on this topic) after you place your order they say, would like “fries” with that? Or a drink? Think about it. You can get a big mac for $.99 or whatever, the fries cost like $1.89! Many of the automated checkout tools I outlined above integrate this option into the checking out process. What kind of fries should you sell? Well just as an example, I used to sell gemchip bracelets and gemstone stud-earrings for $2-3/ pair. They sold like crazy. Towards the end, I used to have 30-50 items on the checkout page! Try this.  It works big time. Put your bargains on this page and keep a lot in stock.

Inventory management

Is key – be very organized – get appropriate storage containers and here is the biggie – try to get 20-30 pieces of each item you are listing, exactly the same. Why? Reduces a TON the time listing each item and also fulfilling orders. Jewellery is great because its so small. Get your packing suppliers from www.fetpak.com or www.shippingsupplies.com. So much more to share, but limited fingers! If you want some personalized advice give me a call and I can take a few minutes on the phone with ya.

Important Ebay Rules

Ebay can be a hassle and they have no problems canceling your listings if you violate their policies:

• Never link to your website from your listings
• Don’t use spam words in your listings
• Don’t be misleading in your titles or descriptions (they can tell!)
• Whatever you write in your listing and terms is binding contract. Keep that in mind because if there is a dispute they will go with your stated terms in listing.

Wholesalegemshop.com Products on Ebay

How does eBay relate to wholesalegemshop.com? You can now use our photos on ebay – but ONLY for items you have purchased. Over the summer I banned a customer because she “stole” our images and placed almost all our products on ebay. Not cool. Not only is it unethical, but it hurts everyone – its simple supply and demand. If everyone is showing the same stuff in their ebay store it hurts everyone. I have many customers that sell the jewellery on ebay. But margins are much lower than you would get from a store/ marketplace, home party, etc. Just keep that in mind. The plus side is the audience is literally limitless.

Tags: eBay, selling jewelry on ebay

Posted in eBay