Hi guys,
This article is a very good ‘deep dive’ into composition, (the structural elements of how you design a picture). I hope you’re all working hard on your photography skills.
Enjoy…
Click here to read the article
Tag: Jason’s Articles
Drawing a crowd for your auction, make it a top priority…
the larger the crowd of honestly interested potential bidders, the more bid action you’ll see and the higher final bid price you’ll achieve.
Why is this always true? The single most important reason to have a crowd is going to sound like a cliché, but it’s not. Here it is: There is safety in numbers!
As the auctioneer you’re nervously waiting to see how it’s all going to play out, right? And if you’ve believed my ‘low opening bid rant’, and you’ve set your opening bid price extremely low, you are taking a risk, right?
And the best way to mitigate that risk is to have a large number of people attend the event, and have them be armed with enough facts about your product to know when it’s selling for too low a price. The wisdom of the crowd will help protect you.
If you’ve followed my advice about creating comfort, and done a good job making people feel comfortable, especially by using quality pictures, then Ebay will deliver enough prospective buyers to generate some type of bidding war. Probably. But that doesn’t make you feel safe does it! Don’t depend just on Ebay. Your single biggest task to ensure success is to get a large crowd to watch your auction. Here are a few ways to do just that,
- Be very consistant in your ending times, (always set your auctions to end at around the same time so your loyal followers know when to show up).
- Collect names and send out a newsletter 4 or 5 hours before the end of your most important auctions.
- Use social media to gather fans and inform them on your auctions.
- Consider paying for greater exposure via Ebay. This can make sense depending on the price of the item you’re selling and the types of Ebay exposure tools (and their prices).
The digital touch, longer versus shorter descriptions, and why it matters
Physically touching an item is the single most important component of buying according to shopping expert Paco Underhill. (author of “Why We Buy”). When marketing goods online, your pictures and written descriptions become a proxy for the physical act of touching the item. Think about it.
Your bidders and/or buyers ‘touch’ of your item will be nice and amazing and fun to the extent your pictures and words (and templates) are nice and amazing and fun.
Use blinding Neon Yellow text and see how well you do. Use blurry pictures and no written description and see how well you do. If you do those things, don’t expect your bidder to have a a good experience, it’s impossible. Expect their ‘good touch’ to result in comfort with your listing. Expect their ‘bad touch‘ to result in them quickly leaving and never coming back.
So if your words and photos are a proxy for physically touching the item, then as David Ogilvy, the master of Direct Response Marketing, makes it clear, long-form copywriting clearly work better than short-form writing. You want to give them as much information as they can possibly want. They’ve stopped, looked, and are now seriously considering buying or bidding. They won’t mind if you have an extra paragraph about why your fabric is better than your competitors.
Paco Underhill goes on to suggest that the single most important factor in determining whether a customer is going to buy something, (in a physical retail environment), is the length of time they stay in your store. Repeat – How long they stay in your store.
Does this translate to the internet selling environment? Is time ‘on your listing’ an indicator of their likelihood to bid or buy? Ever wonder why most online guru‘s trying to sell you an information product have their sales pages go on and on and on forever? Maybe they understand this principle and have tested it’s value.
You have a choice in your item description, enter substantial details, say a little, or say nothing. If you choose to say little or nothing, you are absolutely choosing to make your buyers, or bidders less comfortable than you otherwise could have by adding substantial facts and details. That’s a mistake. Your wisest approach is to ensure you consider, then answer every question your buyers might have.
Who are you really writing for anyway? It’s really the people who are very interested right? And the people who are really interested and serious about bidding or buying, want as much information as you can possibly include. They will read it all. The people who aren’t really that interested won’t read anything anyway, so long-form descriptions are the only sensible approach. Make it a fun and memorable digital touch.
The 4 Pricing Paths
Let’s talk about your options for pricing!
Look at any seller in eBay or Etsy, (go ahead, go pick a seller), and observe whether they are listing a lot of things or just a few things, and whether they’re selling their items for a high price or a low price compared to their peers.
Over time every seller chooses one of these 4 paths, there are just four. What are the 4 paths sellers can choose from?
It’s like the sign on that old country road,
‘pick your rut carefully, you’ll be in it for the next 20 miles’
If you start your business selling a little for a low price, guess what you’ll probably grow into? Selling a lot for a low price. Is that where you want to position yourself? And if you start your business selling a little for a high price, guess what you may (or may not) grow into? Selling a lot for a high price! But here’s the hard part of your ‘journey’ to become a high volume high price seller. You’ll encounter several temptations that will try to thwart your efforts. They are,
1. Competitors that match your offerings and lower prices forcing you to compete on price or fail.
2. A strong temptation to lower prices to increase volume.
One of these is an external threat, the other an internal temptation. Both must be avoided if you’re going to become a high volume, high price seller. But even if you never become a high price, high volume seller, it’s often times better, in economic terms, to remain a high price, low volume seller, and just manage your brand and customer base carefully, (think Rolls Royce). How many high volume low-price stores can you think of that have horrible brands, and eventually go out of business? That happens more often than anything else.
It’s obvious that the best place to start is by selling at a high price. And of course, I’m not talking about absolute price, (like selling items over $10,000), I’m talking about relative price, (like 10 times your cost of goods). I’m talking about ensuring you start with a high margin item. And that you find a way to offer your goods at a premium price in your market. If there is tons of undifferentiated competition in your category, you won’t be able to do this, but if you’re niche is small enough to dominate, then you can position yourself as the premium brand.
Of course, you might be thinking, ‘how does running auctions fit into all of this? – because then I’m not setting my prices, the marketplace is doing that for me!’ Good point. In some ways, running an auction is like a democratic way of setting your pricing path. You let ‘the market’ help you find your way. If your designs, photography, and brand identity are all spot on, then the market will catapult you to the top of your niche. You’ll be a high priced seller. If something is off, then the market will penalize you for it. The great part is – once the ‘market’ has placed you into a high selling spot, then you can legitimately own that spot. It’s the strongest of all brand positions – a market reinforced statement of your pricing legitimacy.
Remember your pricing strategy is a reflection of your brand strategy. Price wisely.