You may have found this blog post because you are following WhatDoISell on Twitter.

• Twitter allows me to send out timely strategies and golden nuggets of information to accelerate the growth of Internet retail business owners.
• Because Twitter is a snap to use, when  I come across a hot tip or a great strategy, I can get the message out to many people in seconds flat.
• Click here to follow WhatDoISell for ecommerce coaching via Twitter.

What’s different about Twitter from many other Social Media Marketing Tools is that it is fast, easy and fun!  A combination which ensures that people will actually use it. 

==> A cool marketing tool does you no good if you don’t use it on a regular basis.

In the article directly below, you’ll learn 7 Creative Ways to Use Twitter to Market Your Ecommerce Business.

Twitter is so fast and easy to use, there is no reason not to integrate it into your marketing strategies!

* Remember, each Tweet can only be 140 characters long.

7 Creative Ways to Use to Market Your Ecommerce Business with Twitter

1. Talk about the product you’ve just sold:

For example:

Tweet #1: “Just sold our gorgeous set of Waterford Clarendon Emerald Green Wine Glasses”

Tweet #2: “There was a bidding war over this exquisite set with more than 27 BIDS”

Tweet #3: ” We have one set of Waterford Garnet Wine Goblets let in stock (include a link to your eBay listing)

2. Tweet about the customer you just helped.

Tweet#1: “I just finished helping a brand-new great grandma pick out the sweetest plush tiger for her granddaughter.”

Tweet #2: “Check him out!” (Link to your website.)

3. Tweet about new merchandise that’s on it’s way. 

“Just got off the phone with my favorite glove supplier!  New buttery leather gloves arriving mid-December.”

*Note:  Do not reveal the name of your supplier.

4. Tweet about a product or service that helps you run your business.

Inkfrog makes listing on eBay so much easier.  (include a link to Inkfrog) or even better…

WhatDoISell.com is THE ecommerce education center for online retailers.   :-)  (Ok, I had to throw that one in.)  ;-)    

5. Take a product sourcing poll. 

For example:

• “What’s your favorite hobby?”
• “What eco-friendly product do you buy the most?”
• Find out what people want to buy!

6. Advertise current sales.

“20% off all children’s holiday dresses through Sunday!” (Include a link to your website).

7. Let people know when products are sold out in other venues. 

“The LiveScribe pen just sold out at Target and Amazon.  We have four left in our eBay store!”  (Link to your eBay store)

More Twitter Tips

Keep in mind that you never know who will end up following you on Twitter and you never know when you will Tweet about exactly the product your Twitter followers need.

However!

==> Don’t make all your Tweets a sales pitch, make them informational as well:

• If you’re an expert in your niche, Tweet niche advice.
• Sell gardening products?  Tweet a gardening tip.
• Sell movie DVDs? Talk about the great movie you saw this weekend or your favorite movie of all time.

==> In some of the above examples as I have demonstrated, you’ll need to Tweet more than once to include a link to your eBay store.

Twitter will actually convert your URL link into a shorter “tiny URL” but your original link cannot have more than 140 characters to begin with.

Therefore if you want to link to an eBay listing (which has a URL much longer than 140 characters), you’ll need to use a service like Tiny Url to shorten your links.

Tiny URL takes those long, ugly, cumbersome links and makes them shorter.  And the service is free!

==> A note of caution!  When on Twitter you need to strike a balance between being verbose and Tweeting frequently enough to stay on your follower’s radar.  Don’t overdo your sequential Tweets.  And if you are using Twitter for business purposes, keep Tweets about your personal doings to an interesting minimum.

If you just came from the hot new Broadway play and loved it, that’s an interesting Tweet.

Telling people about everytime you eat a meal will be of interest only to your closest friends or your nutrionist. 

Twitter is the place to be transparent about who you are, but respect your follower’s time and make the MOST of each Tweet!

 ==> People like Twitter because the information is served up in snack sized quantities.  Too many “snacks” at once will give your Twitter followers a mega-sized “stomach ache”!

MEGA Twitter Tip

In order to make Twitter Ecommerice Marketing work for you, you MUST follow everyone who is following you.  Why?  If a potential customer has a question about your product or service they will Tweet it back to you.

You need to be able to receive the messages that your customers & followers send back to you!

Don’t wait to start marketing with Twitter!  Click here to get started today.

Get in-depth training on how to use Twitter to market your online retail business and increase your sales, with our exclusive 3 hour training WhatDoISell Business Builders’ training webinar “Social Media Marketing”.

They look. They get ideas. They even buy.

But on “Cyber Monday” - the Monday after Thanksgiving (11/30/08) they head back to work and online to SHOP.

The National Retail Federation states that Cyber Monday is the one day of the year that people are most likely to violate company policies and do their shopping online while at work.

This means that you and your listings need to be ready for eager buyers on that day. Especially, given the current economic climate. This year’s sa;es will will go to the online retailers who are prepared and responsive to Cyber Monday shoppers!

What is Cyber Monday?

Every year about this time, emails start flying around the Internet debating the existence of Cyber Monday. Does Cyber Monday really exist or is it just an urban myth? In fact, last year, and “urban myth buster site” and a couple of online “gurus” declared that Cyber Monday was an urban myth.

But Cyber Monday does exist ? and as an online retailer, you need to know why.

The term Cyber Monday was coined in 2005 by Shop.org, the online retail division of the National Retail Federation (NRF).

Looking for a way to kick off the online holiday selling season, and noticing that many online retailers were seeing an uptick in sales on the Monday after Thanksgiving, the NRF decided to brand the Monday after Thanksgiving as Cyber Monday.

Immediately more online retailers decided to coordinate sales and promotions to occur on Cyber Monday. This lead to an increase in customers coming to the Web to Shop on Cyber Monday.

In 2007, Cyber Monday ecommerce sales topped $700 million dollars!

Today Cyber Monday is recognized as the kickoff to the online holiday selling season.

And while WhatDoISell Business Builder Members know that holiday buyers have been shopping online in earnest since September, with numbers like these, you can’t afford not to be a part of this of Cyber Monday sales.

5 Cyber Monday Sales Conversion Tactics

This 5 point conversion tactics checklist will prepare you for this all important shopping day. 1. End a sampling of your most popular holiday products on Cyber Monday. Buyers still use the “Time: ending soonest” sort to shop for products on eBay. Auctions are weighted in Best Match to those that are ending soonest.

And eBay’s latest sales tests have shown that even Fixed Priced listings are snapped up with more frequency right before they end. By ending your listings throughout the day on Cyber Monday, you’ll ensure that your buyers will find you when they do a “Time: ending soonest” search and that you’ll get increased visibility in Best Match.

2. Use Free Shipping in the listings that you end on Cyber Monday. eBay is heavily promoting listings that offer Free Shipping. Cyber Monday shoppers are going to be looking for listings with Free Shipping. Even if you are not offering Free Shipping througout the holiday season, run a limited time “Cyber Monday” Free Shipping special.

This tactic will attract more buyers and get you better visibility in eBay’s search.

3. For website owners: Use the prime real estate on your website to advertise your holiday products. WhatDoISell Premium Coaching Mastermind member Wai Hong Fong, owner of Oz Scopes recently made this change to his website (below) after one of our Wednesday coaching calls. He immediately saw an increase in sales of over a $1000 on his website!

4. Use the Get It Fast option on all your eBay listings. The #1 thing that buyers “purchase” during the holiday when they come to your eBay listing or website is confidence in speedy delivery.

By using the “Get It Fast” option on all your eBay listings, using your sub-title to promoting your quick delivery policies, and stating your fast delivery time on your website - you will increase your sales dramatically

5. Make the “unexpected” routine. If you want to delight your customers and gain a repeat buyer for the rest of the year, do the unexpected.

What “something extra” can you do for your holiday customers? A special touch as gift wrapping or gift delivery will help you win the sale every time.

Think this is too much trouble to implement?

Listen to Melissa’s 2007 holiday success story…

Lisa, I just listened to the SKYROCKET Your Holiday Sales 2007 Audio Training Class. I was intrigued by the section on providing “unexpected” customer service/

I wasn’t convinced that I had the time to do this, but I decided to give it a try.

I included a simple “thank you note” with my holiday package and tossed in a cute little baby rattle (some surplus inventory) with the crib set that I sold to a new grandma for her “Christmas present” ? her new grandson.

A few days later I received an email from a VERY delighted grandma!

She said she had never been treated so well by anyone on eBay and proceed to order another $179 of holiday products from me

Because she was buying products for her first grandchild… I know I have made a customer for life

“Unexpected” customer service definitely works!

Thank you for providing me with an inspired selling strategy!

- Melissa Clark

Madison, Wisconsin

The holidays are a fun and exciting time to sell online. And even though we are in a tough economic climate, Christmas will come this year.

Make it your mission this holiday to take the business building steps you need to increase both your Cyber Monday and your holiday sales conversion.

We left no stone unturned! I grilled Mark for a full 90 minutes on EVERYTHING Bonanzle.

The philosophy behind Bonanzle and why it’s destined for success.

Every single feature of the site and how it works.

How the design of Bonanzle effects a seller’s business (Search Engines LOVE this site and are indexing it like crazy!

Why Bonanzle is different than eBay and why you finally have the power to SELL…

To learn about what Mark and I talked about and find out how you can start selling on Bonanzle today, click here.

What do you DO with those visitors to turn them into sales!

On Tuesday, November 4th, I was a guest on eBay Radio’s “The PowerSeller Hour” with Griff.

In this radio segment I shared 5 conversion boosting tactics that will turn your visitors into sales!

You can listen to the replay of this radio segment here and learn some top strategies that you can implement TODAY and start getting results with this week.

It doesn’t matter if you’re just getting started selling on eBay or if you’re an experienced PowerSeller.

These 5 Conversion Boosting Tactics will work for you!

We’ve tested these techniques over and over again at WhatDoISell and they work. In fact not only can you use them for your eBay business, you can use these same tactics in any of the ecommerce platforms.

… Whether you sell from your own website, on Amazon, on the hot new marketplace Bonazle, in the explodingly popular hand-crafted (and some vintage) marketplace Etsy and of course, eBay!

Don’t waste all that good traffic that comes to your eBay listings. It doesn’t do you any good to work hard to drive throngs of buyers to your product pages if they don’t convert to sales when they get there!

The formula for selling success online that we teach at WhatDoISell is “PPWTCI” ==>

Products People Want + Traffic + Conversion = Income.

Start converting more of your holiday browsers to buyers today by listening to this 10 minute conversion boosting audio!

Are you ready for holiday sales?

Last holiday season, WhatDoISell.com Community Members sold thousands of products on eBay, Amazon, eCrater, Etsy, and from their independent websites.

How did they do it? 

With strategies they learned in the WhatDoISell.com Holiday Selling Center!

As an online retailer, the holidays are your most IMPORTANT selling season of the year!

And with only three months to make those holiday sales - time is of the essence.

That’s why each year we open the WhatDoISell Holiday Selling Center with one mission in mind - to SkyRocket Your Holiday Sales!!!

Right now you can have immediate access to the Holiday Selling Center and WhatDoISell.com.

• Access to the WDIS Holiday Selling Center
• Access to our 17 Business Building Modules
• Access to more than 400 hours of audio and video training
• Access to our Private Members Only Discussion Forum!  With a top group of highly active community members and over 12,000+ business posts, the WDIS Discussion Forum is a goldmine in and of itself.

This is an opportunity for you to do three things:

1. Start making some money this holiday season.

2. Learn how to sell things the right way!

3. Take a look at how WhatDoISell.com can improve your business and your life.

Click here to take advantage of your opportunity to make money this holiday season.

Postioned firmly at the top?

#1 Amazon

#2 eBay

The report shows that even though shoppers have grown cautious about their spending in the last year, online retail sales remain a bright spot.

Forrester Research retail analyst Sucharita Mulpuru reported that e-commerce sales totaled $174.5 billion in 2007, up almost 21 percent from the year before.

What does this mean for you as a home based online retailer?

Five Important Things-

1. While brick and mortar sales are slowing, online sales are GROWING!  A fact that we’ve been talking about all year at WhatDoISell.com.

People are still shopping.  And they like to shop online.   With only about 6% of all retail sales happening online, there is tremendous growth still to come for Internet retailers.

2. Amazon & eBay are STILL the place to sell.  Amazon has been growing like CRAZY this year.  And eBay, even though it’s certainly had it’s problems in 2008- is still heavily favored by buyers.

BTW, eBay used to rank #1 in this survey.  But don’t let the slip in ranking get you down. 

A #2 ranking is still MASSIVE.  And if you have a product line that translates well to the Amazon marketplace, you can now sell on the #1 AND #2 selling sites on the Internet.

3. No matter what the state of the economy is, people will still continue to shop.  There will always be birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, new seasons, wants and needs.

Don’t let the economy become your excuse for not starting or growing your business.  You have to decide if you are in the game?  If you’re in the game, then stay focused on doing what you need to do to make it work.

4. If you don’t want to be in the game - then that’s another story.

But know this - if you get out of the game, someone else who wants to be in the game will take your place on the in Internet retail.   And they will become the one who become the next success story in your category!

Not because you couldn’t do it.  But because you didn’t persist during these economic times.

5. IF you do stick with it, YOU will be the one that others see as the success story in the coming years.  The one that others strive to be like.  The one who inspires others to start.

There is opportunity in Internet retail here.  Now.  On Amazon.  On eBay.  There are buyers.  They are shopping.

Are you in the game?

Now they are all but non-existent in Yahoo and Live (MSN) search!

This problem was first reported to me by several of our WhatDoISell.com members who saw a drop in their Google search traffic (some up to 70%) in mid-Sept.

Now, upon further investigation - I’m finding eBay listings almost non-existent in YAHOO and LIVE (Microsoft Search) natural search results.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been doing searches every day for eBay listings on Google, Yahoo, Live - and they are almost non-existent.

I search both popular keywords and niche specific keywords.  And the results are the same every time…

 
Two months ago if you did a Google search for a product, there would be several search results on the front page of Google.  Now, you are lucky if you find one eBay listing buried on page six.  

For example:

I did a search in Google for Nintendo Wii.  A hot product yes?  No eBay listings AT ALL in Google natural search results.  Nothing!  I quit looking after page 6.

There aren’t even any PPC ads in GOOGLE for eBay.com under those keywords.

Yet an eBay.com search returns 38,000+ products with the keywords Nintendo Wii.

Do the same search in Yahoo.  There is an eBay PPC ad in the TOP sponsored search box.

But no natural search results.

Until page SIX:

“eBay Store - Thumbmonkey Video Games: Nintendo Wii: Need For Speed … Thumbmonkey Video Games: Nintendo Wii - Need For Speed Carbon, Super”

Now do the same search at http://live.com

The FIRST sponsored AD is an eBay ad.

But no natural search results for eBay stores, eBay listings etc. until page EIGHT:

Nintendo Wii - Game console: items on eBay.com

Find Nintendo Wii - Game console and a huge selection of other items on eBay.com. About Nintendo Wii - Game console: Featuring a compact design that makes it a natural addition to … product.ebay.com/Nintendo-Wii-Game-console_W0QQfvcsZ1452QQsoprZ56833153 ·

You can try this with other keywords too - American Girl Doll, Coach Handbag, I’ve even tested products that are listed on eBay’s home page - but they are nowhere to be found in the search engines.

So this begs the question - where have all the eBay listings gone in the search engine’s natural search results?

Is it Google, MSN & Yahoo?  Or is it eBay?

Do eBay pages no longer meet the search engine algorithms for all THREE major search engines?  I doubt it. 

Are eBay listings being disadvantaged in the Search Engines?

Why does eBay have more sponsored Ads on Yahoo & MSN but not Google?
Competition, cheaper ad costs?

 
Has eBay been “slapped” by the search engines?

I DID find that eBay HAS ramped up their PPC ads for some keywords on Google in the past week or so.

 
And they are currently running a special with Microsoft Live Search Cashback program.

Two months ago, eBay listings and eBay stores dominated the search engines.

Now they are barely visible in those all important first pages.

How about your listings?  Have you noticed a drop in search engine traffic from Google, Yahoo, Live Search (Please Microsoft change the name!).

Check your eBay Store Traffic Reports compared to last month - and let me know if your traffic is down.

eBay listings seem to be missing from Google.

Now mind you, I have no hard data on this from either eBay or Google.

But I do have two weeks of late nights spent at my computer searching for eBay listings on Google. 

And answering questions from people who are no longer finding their eBay listings in Google.  And talking to our WhatDoISell.com members about this issue in our Discussion Forum.

Something’s amiss.

Ever since our members started reporting a loss of visibility in Google search results (around Sept 16th) I’ve been checking random product listings every day.

It used to be that the first several listings on Google(in natural search) for any given product were all eBay search results.

They are virtually gone now.  We’re seeing people’s Google traffic to their eBay store drop from 70% to 10% overall.

Tonight, I went through some of the products that eBay has featured in the eBay.com home page and only found a few related eBay sponsored ads on Google.

Even the shopping results that Google displays with multiple shopping sites are frequently not including eBay products.

Even newcomer Bonanzle is getting more air time!

It’s very odd - at first I thought it might be some sort of re-indexing issue due to the 9/16 eBay Search changes - but it shouldn’t be taking this long.

Something is going on… I’ve never seen anything like this.  Even when eBay & Google were fighting in Boston at eBay Live ‘07 - there was not a significant drop in search visibility for eBay listings.

I’m having to dig to page 3 to find some eBay listings.

Google is like the Bermuda triangle for eBay listings these days.

Or is it just that eBay listings aren’t being allowed to show up to the party?

Are your eBay listings being displayed in Google search?  Is this disappearance category specific?

Share your feedback in the comments below and let’s see if we can’t unravel this mystery!

And in it’s place was… well… a not useful new version of eBay Pulse.  Generic.  “Internet driven”.  No ability to drill down in product categories.  A shell of it’s former self.

I couldn’t believe it!  eBay Pulse has long been a great tool for sellers who are investigating niche markets to sell in.

eBay Pulse is one of the many trending tools use at WhatDoISell.com to help people get niche and product ideas by drilling down into specific product categories. Imagine my disappointment to see that this useful product trends tool was gone.

Well, I wasn’t the only one!  The public outcry about the replacement about this “new and improved” version of eBay Pulse was loud!  Many people relied on this useful, free tool to aid them in their business.

That’s why I’m happy to announce that Dennis Goedegebuure, eBay marketing tools program manager has just posted a new announcment to let everyone know that he’s heard their feedback about the new version of eBay Pulse and is making the both the new version and the original version of eBay Pulse available!

Apparenly a hybrid version of the two will be rolled out in 2009, but for now the old eBay Pulse is beating again and sellers can continue to use this valuable tool to build their business.

Want to know the top product trends for 2008 and beyond?  Click here for our FREE 44-page special report “Product Trends for 2008″.  Learn what trends are driving product sales this year!

Then it’s time to STOP chasing eBay’s Best Match and START focusing ON becoming GOOGLE friendly.

There’s no doubt about it - Best Match is important to the sell-through rate of your products on eBay. 

So why forgo the pursuit of a  good Best Match ranking right now?

For three IMPORTANT reasons -

1. Best Match is not returning consistent results right now.

eBay is been continually tweaking and adjusting the Best Match algorhythm to achieve optimal performance.

And that’s resulted in unpredictable search results over the past several weeks.  It’s not likely to change anytime soon.

If you’re one of the many people who have been watching their Best Match search results like a hawk and  then adjusting your strategies to get good position on the first page only to get inconsistent results - it’s time to stop tearing your hair out over this- because the inconsistent results you’re getting TODAY are not a good representation of what you will see over the long haul.

There’s more tweaking ahead and that means that your Best Match rankings will change DESPITE your best efforts.

(PS:  This is not a post about what eBay should or shouldn’t do/have done/be doing etc.  This about YOUR business, what’s happening with Best Match and how you can fix it.)

SO it’s time to focus on other methods of getting traffic to your listings.

In addition…

2. You NEVER want to depend on one traffic source to get buyers to your products.

The more pathways that you have to your eBay store, the more qualified buyers will find your products on eBay.
3. A recent Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Report revealed that Google accounted for more than 71% of all online searches within the US last month.
Your buyers are NOT only coming to eBay.com to find potential products on eBay.

They are using GOOGLE to find eBay products!

So rather than spending a lot of time trying to optimize for a Best Match that is largely out of your control right now, when you can instead, spend your time and energy getting your listings on the first page of Google?

(And then deal with Best Match again down the road.)

Now does this mean you shouldn’t optimize your listings AT ALL for eBay’s Best Match?

No — you should always do basic search engine optimization for every page you put on the web.

–> Listing titles packed with relevant keywords

–> The top 3rd of your listing description packed with keywords relevant to your product

–> A keyword rich eBay store description

Etc. 

(Find out more about how to optimize your eBay listings for SEO in the Member’s area of WhatDoISell.com)

You always want to employ best practices and use optimization strategies to get your listings on eBay’s first page of search results.

But if you’re obsessing over why your Best Match ranking has suddenly fallen or risen and you can’t figure out why, it’s best to put that quest on the back burner for near future.

So how do you get the GOOGLE search engine spiders to sit up and take notice of your listings and put THEM on Google’s first page - so that 71% of Internet searchers will find your products?

There are several ways you can get your eBay listings on the first page of Google search results — and we
talk about these in the Marketing Module at WhatDoISell.com.

And one of the BEST ways (and something you can do today) is to get your eBay listings into a site called  Google Base.

In fact, Google Base is one of the secret weapons used by WhatDoISell.com e-tailers.

You can submit your store listings (fixed price only, not auction format) to Google Base by using the Google Store Connector found in My eBay.  You’ll find it under Manage Store > Marketing Tools > Listing Feeds.

You’ll also find other strategies for getting your products listed in Google Base in our Google Base strategy.

When you stop thinking solely about the prospect of people finding your listings through eBay’s “front door” (eBay.com) you’ll START finding all the traffic that’s coming to  eBay via a MAMMOTH side door…  GOOGLE!

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Feel like you’re going round and round trying to figure out how to market your products on eBay.   For just $1 you can have immediate access to the most current strategies for building your eBay business.

Click here for 7 FULL days of immediate access to WhatDoISell.com INCLUDING the Marketing Module which will show you how to get your products listed in Google — for only $1.

Stop your dependancy on Best Match and start diversifying your eBay store traffic today!