The 7 Essential Steps to Successful Ebay Marketing

by Janelle Elms, Amy Balsbaugh, Phil Dunn

Book Overview

In this must-have book for eBay entreprenuers, eBay experts reveal how to reach the more than 100 million registered users and catapult your sales. Learn how to make listings stand out, inspire buyer... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0072260912
• ISBN13: 9780072260915
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Length: 228 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

And I thought I knew a lot about Ebay..

I have been selling on Ebay for over 2 years. But after reading this book I realize how little I knew about marketing my product. This little gem contains very valuable information about making the most out of Ebay's competitive marketplace. This book is interesting to read and gives clear step by step instructions for changes you can make to Market your Ebay items. Like I said, I thought I knew a lot about Ebay but I was surprised by how much I learned from this book!

A Great Find

The information on shipping, visual design, and customer retention was excellent. I was also blown away by all the secrets that advertisers use to get business going. This book uncovers a lot of the mystery that surrounds marketing and persuasion. It's full of very practical tips that I would have never thought of on my own. It's also a bargain when compared to some of the other books on eBay. I bought it for $11.53 (with free shipping when combined with some other books I needed).

Strategic planning for eBay businesses

I sell professionally on ebay, and when I tell people what I do for a living, many times they'll laugh or think that I'm not serious. But this book "gets" that there are lots of us out there who are serious about selling on ebay - we run legitimate businesses with real inventory, real employees, and real profit and loss - we aren't just cleaning out granny's attic for some extra cash. This resource is a true asset for people like us. It addresses some serious issues about selling on ebay and earning a living doing so. It's about so much more than what people usually consider "marketing" - it includes tangible plans for building a comprehensive small business plan and strategic planning for the future success of the business. The tools chapter is also fantastic - they've done a really comprehensive review of all the tools available. The chapter on writing good item descriptions is also great. I've always struggled with description writing, but the authors disclose the secrets that advertising pros use to write good ads, and I'll be darned, it works great for ebay too!

Beyond the Basics

I like this book a lot -- as you can tell by the stars. Most of the eBay books out there are kind of offensive, in that they show you how to do some basic things that are pretty much second nature to most of us. You have to wade through pages and pages of kindergarten lessons to get to any meat. Anyone with a few months of selling on eBay doesn't need a eBay "how-to" book. This one, however, takes you much further - into the areas and concepts that advertisers have been using for decades to get us to buy all kinds of stuff. It covers visual design and advertising writing techniques that help you actually get more $ out of bids. There's discussion of the psychology behind the tips. The tools chapter alone is probably worth the price of admission. The customer retention advice and strategies are really helpful - I'll bet very few sellers employ even a fraction of the ideas they offer. All good stuff. The best eBay book I've read so far. And I've read a lot.

7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing - Review

The title of this book makes it sound like a white-paper or a report, but it is really 200+ pages of conceptual, well-written marketing advice. Each "step" is actually a high-level concept and each forms a different section of the book. Each "step" is then broken down into many significant concepts and terrific bits of advice. I think the people who will gain the most value from this book are those (like me) who have had some experience selling on eBay, but maybe have had to wing it a bit and maybe have not been doing things as effectively as they could. This book approaches eBay selling from a marketing perspective and doesn't deal very much with the actual mechanics or "Nuts and Bolts" of selling. This alone makes it worth its weight in gold for anyone who is running web-based businesses without the benefit of formal marketing training. Having said that, this book is also very accessible to those who have not yet sold on eBay (but you might need supplemental material). Often when you have a collaborative work written by 3 different authors, you end up with 3 different writing styles intermingled and that can create a 'bumpy' reading experience. But this books flows amazingly well and reads very smoothly. This book is very current! There are a lot of books out there on the subject of eBay, but unless the book is reasonably current, it may not provide up-to-date information. This is because eBay has undergone a lot of changes in the past few years. But this book is hot off the presses; it just became available earlier this month. Perhaps the best part of this book is that you can take the information and apply it elsewhere. While it is written with the eBay seller in mind, the concepts are global and can be used in just about any business. One of the authors (Phil Dunn) maintains a blog centered around this book where you can read excerpts from the book. At a price that is barely more than a few eBay listings, this is an amazing value.