For some time now I noticed the increase of complaining from various eBay users. There are indeed various seller that have always made powerful businesses. Until now. But where does the crisis - that many eBay sellers complains about - come from? Read below.

(Premises) Without analysing the single causes of any specific reality (causes that can be related with markets, supply, competitors, etc.), I would like to write about the problems that the eBay sellers are facing in general, according to the type of product or size of the company, etc.

In my experience with many companies, big and small companies that were not able to increase the turnover on eBay and, in general, selling on e-commerce websites,  I understood that there is only one problem: the organization.

The organization of an online seller, in general terms should be the same that every company has. To take care of the processes, of how the company is structured and who dominates, creates or models them: these are all important elements for a working team.  

Some of the “best solutions” are very common, but others are not.

One for all, where various sellers fail, is the storage of the information. A catalogue of products, for example, should include:

• a univocal item code. The codification was launched at the moment when the human had the need to store loads of contents and to catch up the information rapidly.

The codification of books, for example, is standardized by the librarianship. It is important to get used to store (digitally and physically) your products according to a standard in order to catch up immediately the information you need. You can, for example, use mnemonic codes that offer the opportunity to get - by reading the code itself - information that you think are important. An example can be: AS100T41, where AS is the code for a purchaser, 100 the generic progressive, T represent the type of product and 41 the shelf where the item is located.

if you are a seller and you do not have a well-structured catalogue, by opening a shop in various marketplaces (e.g. publish on Amazon the items you have on eBay) you will face a great challenge.

The same issue can be said for the need to keep updated the amount you have in your stock on different “channels”. If you do not have well structured information, this can be a very hard challenge.

• attributes of organized products in a “normalized” database. The information managing in a database is a subject studied at the university (there is a lot of science but less craftsmanship): it is not a mystery that needs to be solved anymore  :)

The fact that you can store “scientifically” the products’ information offers various business chances. If you sell on eBay you will surely know that it is important, in order to obtain visibility, specify what eBay calls “items specifics”. On Amazon, on the other hand, some attributes, that are generally considered as less important, are compulsory (one for all the EAN code, compulsory also on eBay after the launch of Amazon).

The fact that you have a product storage organized rationally, for example, allows you to use the information through different channels. Let’s take as an example a seller of spare parts for motorbike (a category where more work needs to be done): to specify for a product “brake lever” an attribute “application” (which indicates the type of motorbike suitable) offers the possibility to find that specific product starting from the simples information the client has: the name of his motorbike.

• images storage, structured and coherent with the items codification. In many occasion I confronted with clients that neglected this aspect. A storage of codified images in a coherent way can save time and energies but also increase the productivity of the seller. If you have different version for a same image (e.g. different resolution, watermark, details etc.) it can be useful to have a mnemonic code related to the code of the item. Using the same example of mnemonic code used before: AS100T41_f, could label an image of the item AS100T41 but took in front of the camera AS100T41_b could be the back. Having a well organized storage of images allows to use it appropriately and in different ways according to the type of marketplace: for example Amazon wants images without watermark, but on your website you can use them.
• separation between content and presentation of the content. The eBay seller in particular, got used to publish very detailed listings from the graphic point of view by using a “template” in the eBay listing. If you use this option by writing the html code directly in the body of the listing, you decided to combine the content (the description of the item) with the presentation of the content itself. If you need, at this point, to use the same description that you have on eBay (or on your ecommerce website) on Amazon, you cannot do that as Amazon do not allow to use html in the field “description” (only lists are allowed). The correct routine is that to have, in a well organized database, the description of the item in  a “plain text” and have a separate description with a template .

Conclusion

In my experience, the lack of organization in the team of an online seller can be a serious problem.

The organization allows to the entire company to optimize the processes and increase the commercial activity without having high costs. With the same number of orders, products or requests from the client, the number of operators is lower if the company is organized.

At the end, a good organisational  structure contributes to smooth the work environment and to increase the commercial possibilities.