Simplx Blog

Last week we talked about some of the ways eBay can benefit an established web store simply by adding to your sales without having to dramatically change your marketing efforts. Selling on eBay doesn’t just have to be about increasing short-term sales, however. If done properly, it can also be a tool for leading customers to your website.

A note of caution before we go on, though: eBay has very specific policies about how sellers conduct their auctions. All of the suggestions that we give you here are fair and legal according to those policies, but if you want to adjust these techniques in any way we strongly advise you to review the Rules and Policies section on the eBay website beforehand. Getting an eBay account suspended, even temporarily, is a huge hassle.

Do Not Include Links from your Auction to your Web Store
You might be tempted to simply put a link to your online store in your auction listing. “Like what you see? Visit my store here!” YOU CAN NOT DO THIS. Such a link is a violation of eBay seller’s policies, and will probably get your account a warning or suspension. However, there are a couple of things you can do:

Informational Link
eBay allows sellers to link to outside websites that provide more information about the product they are selling. That can be an information page on your web store, as long as there aren’t any purchasing links on it. The page must provide additional information (like pictures or text) about the product.

About Me Link
Every auction you run will have a link to your eBay “About Me” page. You can use your About Me page freely to promote your online business and the products you specialize in. An upcoming snippet will be addressing how to create a good About Me page.

After-Sale Contacting
Once someone has won an auction from you, you have the opportunity to gently steer your new customer toward your web store for future purchases as long as you follow two simple rules. First: you cannot initiate contact with an eBay buyer unless they have either won an auction from you or contacted you first for some other reason. Second: When you do contact them, it can not be with an attempt to sell then any other products directly. The purpose of an after-auction contact is to thank them and verify information for shipping. There are two things that you CAN do however….

Thank You Notes
Sending a Thank You note to someone who has won an auction from you is just plain classy. A customer who feels appreciated will always be more likely to come back than one who doesn’t, especially if the note includes a small, courteous invitation to your web store.

Coupons
In the same thank you note, you could include a coupon that emphasizes what a valuable customer they are to you. This will encourage your eBay customer to not only visit your store, but also to buy from you again in the future.

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Why Sell on eBay? (Part 1)
We talk a lot about new web-based businesses using eBay to springboard them into early success, but what about more mature businesses? If your website is already bringing you sales, is there really any sense diverting time and effort to auctioning things on eBay?

To answer that question fairly, we can start by looking at what the largest advantages are that eBay offers to a new business. Do those advantages carry over to an established one?

Advantage #1: eBay is a Huge Marketplace
One of the nicest things about the eBay marketplace is that it doesn’t care whether a seller represents a multi-million dollar company with divisions all over the world, or a single person selling something out of their garage. Whether big or small, everyone selling products on eBay starts on an even footing. This means that every eBay seller has a fair shot at one of the largest markets in the world.

And what a market it is! eBay’s Third Quarter Financial Report for 2007 indicates that there are over 257 million registered users on eBay and that sellers on eBay made more than 14.3 billion dollars in the third quarter of 2007 alone. That’s a lot of commerce by any standard, but it’s even more impressive when you consider how easy it is to participate in. Selling on eBay is as easy as creating an account and posting an auction, and it’s easy for new businesses as well as more seasoned ones.

Advantage #2: eBay brings Its Own Customers
Marketing is the biggest challenge of any online entrepreneur. Competition is fierce, and getting potential customers to even know about your online store takes skill and hard work. No matter how good your product is, how competitive your prices are, or how well your website is put together, no one will ever buy from you if they don’t find your store.

With eBay, a lot of this problem is avoided up front. eBay is the most recognized name in the world of online shopping; it’s the first (and last) stop for literally millions of shoppers. If you create your eBay auction properly, potential customers will come straight to you, already looking for the product you are selling.

Advantage #3: Sales through eBay Can Help Point Potential Customers Toward your Online Store
Selling a product on eBay doesn’t have to just be about a single auction. Although eBay does have specific rules about how you can advertise your web store, it is still possible to point your eBay customers to your store and comply with all of the regulations. Although we’ll discuss the specifics of this more next week, it’s important to realize now that many successful online entrepreneurs find customers through eBay sales they are conducting at the same time they are running their web store.

Mature Online Businesses and the eBay Potential
All three of these advantages can be applicable to online entrepreneurs, whether their web store is three weeks old or three years old. Selling on eBay can increase your sales without a huge investment of time and energy and without altering your web store’s marketing strategy. Next week we’ll talk more specifically about ways to magnify these advantages by also using your eBay sales to direct additional traffic to your web store.

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Simplx.com launched an affiliate program last week that pays a 75% commission to affiliate partners for referring new Simplx applicants via the Simplx Broker Application page. As this is a new marketing initiative we are very interested in receiving feedback from affiliate partners to increase the value and appeal of the offering for affiliates. Please send feedback regarding this program to feedback@simplx.com.

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Welcome to the new Simplx Blog. It is somewhat curious when I think about Simplx as a high tech company on the leading edge in many ways of pioneering new technologies and concepts, yet, we just now are getting into the seasoned technology of blogging. I will be the first to admit when I see something of value in the high tech world, even if we are slow to fully harness its advantages within our own organization, but for now I will have to rely on the old refrain, “better late than never.” We are excited to utilize the new Simplx blog as a functional tool to help us make the Simplx product better.

Here is a short list of what we are hoping to accomplish with the new Simplx Blog:

• Introduce new ideas and concepts to our customers before we develop them
• Get feedback from our customers regarding newly launched features
• Provide an open forum for discussion of Simplx.com between customers and management
• Create more transparency for the public into the internal operations of Simplx
• Communicate to customers newly added and removed merchants and changes in merchant commissions
• Give Simplx management the opportunity to speak directly to Simplx clients, resolve concerns and highlight successes

We are planning on providing fresh content on a regular basis to the new Simplx blog so in effort to be concise and not completely bore you with our first post I conclude my remarks.

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