To begin at the beginning, a very good place to start. Let’s look at two fundamentals of your eBay Shop: what it’s called and what it looks like.
eBay Shop Name
Rather like an eBay User ID, I suspect that many eBay sellers choose their eBay Shop name without being aware of why it’s important. It’s not just about constructing a friendly name, it’s a key part of your Shop’s search engine sexiness (of which much more on Monday). On the High Street a pun or something traditional makes sense. Calling a bakery ‘Wilson & Sons’ or a chippy, ‘The Codfather’ works offline. But online, where Google is God, you need to be thinking ‘keywords’ for maximum effect and the optimum chance of getting into search heaven.
For instance, ‘Car parts and Motor Accessories’ is much better than ‘Bob’s Bits and Bobs.’ Which keywords do you want to be associated with in search engine results? Your answer should determine your Shop name and, possibly, influence your User ID too.
eBay Shop Templates and Designs
What should your eBay Shop look like? It will have been obvious these past few weeks that I believe that much success on eBay derives from appealing to the lowest common denominator. I don’t think that whizzy Shops templates and designs contribute too much to an eBay Shop’s success. Indeed, I reckon that too much deviance from the norm can be detrimental for most sellers.
An eBay generated colour scheme and layout is just great, as well as free and easy. That said, in some cases, greater customisation could reap rewards, particularly if you are a big-time seller or have a very large catalogue. But certainly, if you’re just setting out, don’t splash out. And everyone should beware anything too flash in any case: it’s disconcerting.
What’s next?
Thanks for the input, I think we’ll look at SEO (search engine optimisation), eBay Shops Marketing Tools and Shops Selling Strategies with particular focus on format mix in the next few days.
Tomorrow: eBay Shops and Search Engine Optimisation.
5 Responses
“I reckon that too much deviance from the norm can be detrimental for most sellers.” Here here! As a buyer I know how an eBay shop works and I detest eBay shops that I have to relearn how they work. I tend to be short on time and simply go back to the search rather than plough through a shop that doesn’t look and feel like an eBay shop. 😯
For instance, ‘Car parts and Motor Accessories’ is much better than ‘Bob’s Bits and Bobs.’
But “Bob’s Motor Parts” might be better than both? At least it’s branded then, not just generic words, which however good they are in a search, have nothing that stands out about them. And fwiw I’d steer well clear of “accessories” as a word that even people who have it as part of their Shop name can’t necessarily spell (same goes for “jewellery/jewlry/jooooolrie”).
i find that if your user name and shope name are similar then its a great bonus. as i believe in strengthing my brand name and by having a user name and shop name on the same lines can only reinforce the brand itself.
i agree with sue. its better to personailse your shop name rather then just having generic words. generic words are good for search engines, but as dan said in recent posts, using video in listings or about me page can help sellers let buyers know how they are etc…well i feel a shop name needs to read of the same hym sheet as this!!!
Ok, fair points re the personalisation of a shop name. Was perhaps being too doctrinaire. ;O)
ProBlogger has an interesting take on brandable versus keyword-rich; it’s about blog domain names but I think much of it still applies to eBay shops, and more generally.
The comments are also worth a read – they largely come down in favour of brandable, with “shopping.com” an example of “lame” 😀