eBid Widgets

Posts tagged ebid widgets

A blog is a virtual journal, a personal route to sharing thoughts, talking to an unknown and changing audience, and getting your stuff “out there”. How can this be useful to eBidders?

Why Blog?

Why should eBidders consider blogging? To promote sales, ultimately of course. There are a number of ways blogging can help you do this.

Share expertise.

By sharing your expertise on any subject you help your fellow fans, and in the process (if you do it right!) get yourself a reputation as knowledgeable on some subject or other. Know a lot about what you sell? Then share some of that experience and when somebody thinks “postcards” or “china” or whatever your chosen area is, there’s a good chance they’ll think of you. You can also, of course, use a blog to directly promote a particular listing or range by giving a link and talking about the product, but if your blog is just a series of adverts there’s little motivation for others to read it. However…

Promote items

There is, of course, the option to post about new items, new ranges, particularly interesting offers, and people already interested in your products will find such information useful and interesting. Corgi fans will want to know if you’ve unearthed a rich seam of vintage vans in a recent auction, so they can watch your listings for items they’re interested in. If you list a piece of rare Murano glass, your glass blog will need an update. 

Add value

Make your blog an interesting read, don’t just repeat your advertisements (listings) straight from eBid, add value - tell a story about how you found the item, a bit of history about the location featured, anything that makes it worth reading and holds the attention of your audience for a few moments. Give your readers a reason to follow your blog.

Where to blog

There are a number of blogging sites, large and small. Some of the better known names are Tumblr, Wordpress, Blogspot, Blogger and LiveJournal. Different sites suit different ways of writing; some blogs have a more visual aspect (Tumblr), some are more geared to the written word (WordPress), each has its strengths and weaknesses and you might find you need to experiment with several sites before finding the one that suits you best. Many blogging sites will allow you to embed your blog in your own site, useful if you wish to keep everything under your own domain address. There are also specialist blog sites where a theme is favoured, such as food, crafts etc. Google is your friend - explore! Find a blog you like and that matches your own aims, and that hosting site is probably as good a place as any to try first.

How to blog

The mechanics are going to vary from site to site, but most will allow a variety of update methods: you can type into a web page (as I’m doing here), email updates, send from mobile phones, whatever suits the way you live and work. I find composing via the blogging site’s own web interface works best for me. You may prefer to work offline and build your thoughts elsewhere, then copy and paste in. The process remains the same: think of something you want to say, write it down, publish it to your blog (more of which, later). 

How it looks will depend to a large extent on the theme you select for your blog. It is possible to tailor your own layout and presentation, but unless you get into serious blogging (well beyond needing my help!) you’re unlikely to want to go that route. Most blogging sites offer a selection of themes/templates (free or at a modest price) in which you can present your blog. This blog, for example, uses a free Tumblr blog theme, the credits for which are at the foot of the page. Even as an experienced web designer, I’ve never yet felt the need to make my own, there are so many excellent free resources available. 

Three steps to a blog post

Think of something you want to say

Sometimes easier said than done! If you feel pressured to blog regularly, it can sometimes be daunting to come up with something fresh to add. If you’re just posting adverts, as I said, that can get a little stale - where’s the interest for your readers? So it’s important to have some sort of message; a story to tell, advice to give, even a question to ask. For this blog, for example, the trigger is often a conversation on the eBid forums that makes a little ping! go off in my head - exactly has happened here, and which I made transparent to all so you could follow the process through. Somebody asks about blogging, I clarified that there was an interest/need, decided to write a blog post; write, post, publish. Bingo. In your own area it could be a question about how a certain craft project can be undertaken, where a particular type of ornament is made, the history of a building featured in a painting… anything can be a trigger to a blog post. A trip to the shops, a flat-tyre, wet weather, anything that sends your brain off down an interesting path can produce a blog post. Or, as has been said, it can simply be a “look what I just offered for sale” notice. Your blog is your oyster, so to speak!

Write it down

Whether you compose on the site, on paper, in your head, whatever you choose, the blog post has got to be written somehow. Depending on how you feel about that, it can be huge fun or hard work. It can also be short, long, funny, sad, informative, angry, gripping or dull. In my experience the last one’s the easiest to achieve, and the only one you really want to try to avoid.  Normal rules of composition apply, so try to have a beginning, a middle and an end (unless it’s a simple one-liner), and aim for the best spelling and grammar you can manage. Perfection isn’t necessary (thank heavens!) but you want to make it as readable as possible, and that means clear writing, well laid out.  Break long text into paragraphs, use headings where appropriate, add pictures if possible; imagine you’re writing a magazine page and you want your readers to stop flicking past and stop to read. 

Publish it

Having sweated over your mini-masterpiece, the time will come to publish it. This means make it public on your blog page (it will be hidden from view during composition). Publication will be a built-in function of your blog host, a button to press more than likely. But there will be certain extra functions you’ll want to employ. Most blogs will have “tag” options. Tags are keywords that identify the subject-matter of your post, and should be added to every entry. You can see my examples on any eBid Widgets blog post here. Blog readers can search by tags for subjects that particularly interest them, so make sure you tailor your tags to suit your audience and there’s no reason you should soon be picking up new readers from around the blogosphere. 

Your blog will probably also have options for integrating with your social networking sites (in any) so make sure you set-up your Facebook and Twitter links on your blog and your new posts will be automatically promoted to your friends and followers out there. 

So there you are. Blogging in a nutshell. Think of something to say, write it down, publish it to a blog. What’s keeping you? 

• Personal blog: http://bykimbo.tumblr.com/
• Food blog: http://vegancupboard.tumblr.com/
• Favourite blog by somebody else: http://crispian-jago.blogspot.com/

Views on what the forums are there for, how to use them for maximum effect or maximum fun are bound to vary wildly. So this is just my take… 

The basics & background.

eBid provides the forums for three reasons that I can see. 1. To take the strain off the support team. 2. To create a friendly community. 3. To promote the site. 

In many areas the advantages to the users of the forums will coincide nicely with eBid’s reasons for supplying them, but there will be clashes and the first thing it’s important to recognise is that eBid’s wishes will always rule.

Why do eBid’s customers use the forums? For a different set of reasons. 1. To get help. 2. For fun and company. 3. To promote their own stuff. 4. To help the site. 5. To vent anger. 

Those lists aren’t, as you see, a perfect match - which explains why moderation is sometimes called for. The eBid forums aren’t actively moderated, but there is a report function and if somebody objects to another poster’s comments they will be checked, and may be removed.  Posts most likely to be removed are those promoting sales elsewhere, containing personal attacks, or insulting the eBid site generally. This will disappear quite quickly, as you would expect; they don’t comply with eBid’s reasons for providing the forums in the first place. 

Removal of posts will often create a certain amount of hot air, with those who’ve been moderated speaking of “freedom of speech” and “censorship”. While the latter is undoubtedly true, censorship does exist, this is because the concept of “freedom of speech” on a privately-owned, business oriented, publicly viewable site is a fallacy. A total nonsense, in fact. eBid has no requirement to provide a platform for freedom of speech. It is selling a service, and its obligation is to itself and its customers, the buyers and sellers who are trying to make deals on the site. Allowing complete freedom of speech on any subject, from religion and politics to “this site sucks” would make no sense. If you’re looking for freedom of speech, head for Central Park, or Hyde Park Corner; you’ll never find it on a service website.

The approach

So, given the background above, how do you make the most of the forums? For a start, make your own posts and your own behaviour match the requirement of eBid as closely as possible. Since a clash of aims will always be settled in eBid’s favour, fit with them as best you can for better use of the site.

eBid wants the forums to be friendly, and helpful. So for a start, try being friendly and helpful. You might think you don’t know enough to start offering advice to those looking for help, but you’ll be surprised how quickly you pick it up - and there’s nothing like answering somebody else’s newbie question to make you realise you’re not a newbie any more! If you can’t answer a specific query, you can still be welcoming and encouraging. If a puzzled newcomer has been asking for help, and none has arrived, bump the thread for a new audience to see. Make suggestions of where users can find more help - maybe a better forum to ask in than the one they’ve chosen, or an external site they can look at (you’re welcome to use any of mine, of course, but there are other excellent resources out there such as Astral’s Knowledge Base and Jeweleffect’s great Guide to Setting up Google Checkout. Just knowing where the instructions are puts you ahead in the game.

Often people will only turn to the forums when they’re failing - this can make them angry and frustrated, and their “cry for help” might not always be a positive thing. It can often start with insults and sarcasm. Try to remember they aren’t personally angry with you. If you can offer positive advice, and you think it might be listened to, then great. If you’ve nothing positive to say, try saying nothing. Walk away and let others deal with it. If you think the post is really aggressive or unpleasant, or you see it promoting angry responses in return, report the thread.  Sure, some people will talk about “snitches” and “button-pushers” when they see that advice, but we’re not in the schoolroom or the prison yard now, we’re talking about a professional business where people are trying to make a living - not just the users like you and me, but the guys who own it too - and we’re allowed to be the adults when we see bad behaviour that needs addressing. The report button (small exclamation mark) is there for a reason, and will be acted upon. If you can help keep the forums clean and friendly, then you’ve helped the whole eBid community.

So now we’ve addressed making your approach to the forums match eBid’s wishes,
what about looking at our own? The three main issues for regular users are: getting help, promoting stuff, and having fun. Getting help is easy on the forums, just ask. If you’re fairly new, I’ll remind you now that the people you’re asking are just other users like you. So be nice. It’s easy to come across as surly or demanding in print. A simple “how do I do that” can be worded in real life, with an enquiring tone, a smile, and look of pleading, or even just a raised eyebrow and a tone of chirpy interest. In text you have to substitute all that, or it can look like a demand. How you choose to make those substitutes is up to you - I favour emoticons (little smiley faces) but lots of people don’t like them. You can use extra wording “please, how do I do that, I’m totally lost!?” or you can use friendly looking fonts and colours to dress up your request. 

Having fun is trickier to address on your behalf… I’ve no idea what your idea of fun is! So while we’re talking about approaches rather than details, some things to bear in mind are: not everybody has the same sense of humour, the forums are all public so anything you say could be read (out of context!) on Google, anything rude is likely to be removed, even if it’s meant harmlessly.  There are a number of ways to have fun via the forums, including chatting to your fellow eBidders about anything you like (or don’t like) in the Kitchen Table area. Jokes and funny pictures are often posted.  People share stories about their families, pets and their neighbourhood (again, remember what you say is viewable worldwide by members and  non-members alike) and once a month the charity auctions produce a lot of very silly fun with eBidders running around “nicking ticks” (out-bidding) from each other and threatening dire punishments for anybody who wins their favourite item.

It can sometimes be tempting, in the friendly atmosphere of the forums, to diverge wildly on somebody else’s thread asking for help, if an opportunity for a leg-pull or vicious pun is spotted - remember to check that the poor old eBidder asking for help has got their answer before you start making fish puns, okay? 

Dos and Don’ts.

Again, let me repeat my initial statement, this is just my take. If you’re new to the forums some detailed dos and don’ts might be helpful. If you find you disagree and end up wanting to behave in a different way, that’s your choice and just between you and eBid. I hope you’ll find these guidelines useful, whether as a starting place or a set of rules to behave by; but it’s your choice. So, here are my dos and don’ts, in no particular order:

Do remember please and thank you, it’s easy to forget the basics in the hurly burly of a rapid exchange.

Do make sure you respond back to any thread where you ask for help, so that people know their time isn’t wasted even if you don’t necessarily agree with what they’ve said.

Do remember that the people you’re talking to are your fellow buyers and sellers, potential customers, probably competitors - they don’t owe you anything, they don’t have to help, they’re just being kind.

Don’t ask the same question in more than one place, unless you’ve given it sufficient time to prove the first location hasn’t been noticed or attracted the right attention (we’re talking days, not minutes here).

Do remember that if you ask for opinions there’s a chance you won’t get back the answers you expected. If you don’t want to hear the answers, don’t ask.

Do make sure you put your questions in the right forum. It’s not always easy to know which one that is, so give it you best shot and be prepared to move the thread if advised to do so.

Don’t worry if you don’t get an answer instantly, it might be a matter of timing (there’s nobody who knows around) or people could be sitting thinking about your problem prior to answering.

Do check if a subject has been covered previously before asking; repetition of a question, however reasonable it is individually, can be annoying for the people who’ve been around a while.

Don’t swear, make personal comments, post contact details, link to e-commerce sites, talk about other selling venues in detail, advertise your stuff outside the proper forum… or in any other way break the rules.

Do offer help to others where you can; what goes around, comes around. 

Do set-up your signature to promote your shops and/or items each time you post, but…

Don’t post pointless threads just to give you signature an airing (we’ve all seen it a million times, and nobody’s fooled). 

Don’t be upset when you post your genius idea and nobody’s thrilled. Chances are, we’ve seen it all a million times, don’t take it personally.

Do post your genius idea though, maybe it will be a real first and everybody will be thrilled!

And finally… do join in. What’s the worst that can happen? :o)

Oh, and finally, finally… those are my theories on using the forums; I wish I could claim I always live up to them!

On each of your listings, lurking at the bottom of various options in the “Meet the Seller” box is Add to my Favourite Sellers. You can find the same thing at the top of your “All About Me” page. As you can see right here, you can recreate this link wherever you wish to use it, on listings, your about me page, or even on your blog. It’s easy to do, and an effective way of making a useful link far more visible to your buyers. 

Visit your about me page, or any one of your listings and find the option where it’s displayed. Now right click on the link - whatever browser you’re using you should get a bunch of options, one of which will be “copy link address” (the wording may vary slightly). This stores the URL for adding your seller ID to anybody’s favourites in your PC clipboard.

Now go to the place you want to use the link and type in some appropriate text, such as “Add me to your favourites list”. If you’re not using the Advanced WYSIWYG at this stage you’ll want to swap to it for ease. Now highlight the text and click on the editor icon for making a link (a little globe with a chain link on it). Paste (control-V or right click to get the paste option up) the stored address into the URL target box, and press OK.

Hey presto, one favourites link!

p.s. be aware, your link knows where it originally came from and “go back” will go back to that place, so it’s better to use your “All About Me” link for longevity.

eBid plus sellers are allowed up to 5 free shops, and more if they pay a subscription. Because they’re mostly free, setting up shop is a very popular option. For small numbers of items a single shop of the “general store” variety is fine, for larger numbers specialisation makes sense. But whether it’s one, or many one of the toughest parts of setting up shop is choosing a name. You want to get it right, it’s going to be around a while you hope. So what are the things to consider?

Don’t use the default.

If you don’t choose a name yourself, your shop will be called userid-new-store-1, userid-new-store-2 etc. Not only is it ugly, it’s instantly out-of-date since nothing stays new over time, and it flags you to your buyers as an eBid numpty who hasn’t worked out how half the system works - not an encouragement to buy! ;o)

Keep it short.

Your shop name is also your shop address (URL). You’re going to want to promote the name and the address to bring in buyers, and you might want to print it on paperwork. So short is definitely sweet. “Kimbo’s Amazing Bazaar of Wonderful Delights” might look snazzy over a seaside shop facade, but the business cards would be hefty and kimbos-amazing-bazaar-of-wonderful-delights.ebid.net is quite a mouthful when somebody asks for your web address. 

Avoid punctuation.

As you can see in that example, punctuation doesn’t translate into web addresses. There’s a reason why many years ago when I first started putting things on the web I used the construct “… by Kimbo” which ended up as the user id “bykimbo” on so many sites; “Kimbo’s” necessarily would become kimbos which isn’t the same at all. You can, of course, omit the punctuation in the name, but include it in the banner or logo to show people you know how to use an apostrophe. However, if you include punctuation in the name, and present it that way, you’re adding an extra element that people can get wrong when trying to guess or pass on your URL.  Keep it simple. 

Reinforce your brand.

If you’re planning several shops, try for a point of consistency that either reinforces or even becomes your brand. If your general style is zany, and you sell books, DVDs and clothing, for example, go with Zany Books, Zany DVDs and Zany Clothes. They’ll work well together on your All About Me page, and people who know one shop will be able to guess at the others.

Give buyers a clue.

If you have a general store, or are selling an eclectic mix of clutter clearance, then a name that says nothing about what’s in the shop is probably fine. But if your shop is a specialist one, such as in the Zany example above, then let your buyers know what they can expect to find. And equally importantly, know which shop to choose if they’re looking for a specific item. There’s little point in announcing brightly that you have “lots of romances in my book shop”, if you have five shops all called things like “Gloria’s Delight”, “Gloria’s Great Prices” and “Gloria’s Peace and Tranquility”; call it “Gloria’s Books” and everybody will know what to expect and where to look. And that your name is Gloria.

Give the right impression.

It’s a nice touch to use your own name, or a nickname, when selling online - it gives a personal feel and is reassuring to buyers who can’t see the person they’re dealing with and like to be sure they’re trustworthy and honest. But do consider if your [nick]name gives the right impression, and if it works well with the items you’re selling. If your name’s Rusty, and you sell bikes, you might want to use something like “Big Bike Shop” rather than the more obvious but worrying “Rusty Bikes”.

Don’t rely on capitalisation.

If you use capitalisation to give your shop name meaning, do think carefully about how it will look turned into a lower case web address. The Pen Island shop name is a famous example of how these things can go wrong when converted. At least eBid will put hyphens in for you to preserve spaces, but if you choose to call your record shop “Bob’s Hits” and write the name as “BobsHits” to give a short, snappy URL there’s nothing they can do to stop the inevitable. 

Think Internationally.

Finally, do bear in mind that eBid is a globally viewable site and your customers could be browsing from anywhere in the world. What works as a title in your own location might read very poorly somewhere else. ;o)

If there’s one listing feature that gets eBidders hot under the collar, it’s Run Until Sold (RUS). 

Many forum users blame RUS for the scourge of the “dump and run” sellers. Without it, goes the argument, even if a seller left, their auctions would expire and the problem of unattended listings would vanish. Undoubtedly, this is true. But… it would be simple enough to check the presence or absence of the seller in a dozen other ways that would not involve removing an option that some sellers find useful.

So why do some sellers like to use RUS?

Low maintenance.

The big winner for RUS is the lack of maintenance required to keep them running. Reposting everything you wish to sell might not seem a major task for a small/hobby seller, but when your listings reach into the thousands it can be a major task. Sure, many big sellers still prefer to use the manual relist (with 10 automatic reposts inbetween, as a rule), but that’s not an option that suits everybody.

A question of visibility

The major reason given by regulars advising new eBid sellers to avoid RUS is the lack of visibility. RUS listings are bottom of the pile in the default search sort order of “time remaining”.  If you’re selling a popular (in selling terms) item that can certainly be a drawback, and sure - if you’ve got a handful of something that’s listed in thousands - you want to do everything you can to get your turn at the top of that search list. But how much of a problem is that really? How do buyers really search, and what’s the scale of the returned search list? Let’s take a few typical examples at random and see how they shape up:

On the UK site a search for the following terms returned the number shown.

• Denby plate 36
• Sony battery 236
• Pink blouse 47
• Souvenir ashtray 7
• Wine glass 187
• Paddington bear 46
• Black gloves 129
• Vauxhall Cavalier exhaust 0
• Blue glass beads 1,079

As you see, that’s quite a range of results. I chose the items purely at random (or at least, off the top of my head - which probably says terribly things about my subconscious) and included everything I thought of and tried, regardless of results. I think that’s a pretty fair test.

The results show that what you are selling strongly affects whether or not you should use RUS.  If you’re one of many sellers of blue glass beads, then for sure you will want your turn at the top of the timed list. But if you’ve got the first and only Vauxhall Cavalier to sell - then any format you like will be fine and dandy. But excluding those extremes, the results are far less clear cut and a choice has to be made. If I had a Denby plate to sell I certainly wouldn’t fret unduly about being at the end of such a short list, especially if I was confident about the quality of my item and competitiveness of the price. Equally thirty, forty or even fifty items does not seem overly threatening. On many items the first phrase put in might be a general term to see the scale of eBid’s offering, with the buyer being able to narrow down the list returned further if necessary: what design of Denby plate; what colour wine glass? 

Ring the changes

Even where lists are longer, does every item you sell need to be the same format? For example, I sell templates and shop logos by the hundred. Must I force each of them to the top of the list? Why not half, or a third? Then the others can sit as RUS waiting to be found by buyers drawn in by their more visible counterparts. I don’t then need to be constantly relisting all of my items, just a selection - in effect I’m dressing my shop window, while leaving the rest of the stock waiting patiently inside on my shelves.  Not, perhaps, a technique you want to use if your items are hugely varied, but for those of use who have large numbers of similar items RUS can be a helpful feature. 

How about that search order?

Sure, time remaining low to high is the default order. But do buyers necessarily leave it at that? It’s fairly well accepted, at least by eBid forum users, that many sales on eBid are BuyNow rather than auction. That being the case, the amount of time remaining on the listing is an irrelevance. Buyers using the site to make instant purchases (apparently most of them) are going to be rather more concerned about price than time. I know when I search for an item the first thing I do with the list returned is re-sort into price low to high. Unless I find a bargain price offered at auction, at which point I’ll check the individual timing, I really don’t care how long it’s got left to run. Even auctions tend to be reposted automatically, so I know that in most cases the time left is a “fake jeopardy” much beloved of reality TV. To paraphrase Jerry Maguire, “show me the price”.  So there’s no need to worry about getting to the top of the timing list if your price is competitive, you’ll be right in your buyers face as soon as they sort by a more useful order. Not so?

So no, I don’t think RUS is the spawn of Satan. Like many things in life, it needs to be used with care and intelligence; not something I believe eBidders are short of.  If I did, I’d be listing it by the bucket. On Run Until Sold, of course!