How to Increase eBay Sales with Matt Leavell, Ep #19

Are you looking to increase eBay sales but don’t know where to start? Would your business benefit from building systems and processes? eBay is still a thriving platform that has a potential upside for making a profit. If you’re interested in growing your sales—listen to this episode of Maximizing Ecommerce with Matt Leavell, CEO of BuyLow Warehouse. You’ll hear Matt’s love for processes and procedures, hiring tips, and sales strategies to boost your business!

Check out the latest episode of #MaximizingEcommerce with guest Matt Leavell! Matt and Kevin cover increasing your sales on eBay—and all of Matt’s strategies for success. #Ecommerce #ProductSales #Entrepreneurship #eBaySales #eBay Click To Tweet

Outline of This Episode

[2:40] How Matt got started in the business
[10:00] Finding a process for everything
[13:40] What does buying truckloads of a product look like?
[17:00] How Matt sources remote team members
[22:25] Hiring virtual assistants – how do you find a good candidate?
[34:35] How to increase sales on eBay
[46:45] Use a product image that captures attention
[49:15] advice he wished he would’ve known

Developing systems and procedures will greatly benefit your business

When Matt started buying products by the truckload they come with a manifest. It would supposedly list everything that was included—but he’d often find the products didn’t match up with the manifest. They were accurate about 85% of the time. So Matt developed his own procedure for sorting the information and structuring it for bulk upload to eBay.

He’s learned that you can develop a process for just about everything.

To be efficient, he writes procedures for everything. His goal is to only run the process himself 3 times. The first time he’ll write instructions as he’s carrying out the process. Then he takes what he typed and follows it word-for-word, editing as he goes. Lastly, he gives it to an employee to test and report back to him. Keep listening as Matt shares how the system works for him and why it’s so important.

How to hire the right virtual assistant

All of Matt’s employees are remote. Why pay for office space when everything can be carried out remotely, from anywhere in the world? He’s sourced team members from Upwork, OnlineJobs.ph, Kuhustle, and more. The 1st person he hired was from Pakistan—and he paid him $0.50 a listing he posted. At first, he felt guilty about such a low pay rate. But the conversion of money from the US to Pakistan quickly assuaged his guilt.

In Pakistan, he was making three times as much money as a lawyer.

But how did Matt find the right person for the job? If you’re hiring someone in a different country, how do you assess their skill-set? Ask them questions that weren’t pulled from a template. If you’re assessing customer service ability, give them questions you’re asked often and analyze their answers. One of his favorite strategies to utilize is to pay his candidates $5 to carry out a task. Whoever delivers the best result is who he hires. For more tactics for hiring the right people, keep listening!

Do you know how to hire the right virtual assistant for your business? If it’s something you’re considering Matt Leavell and Kevin talk all about it in this episode of #MaximizingEcommerce. #Ecommerce #ProductSales #Entrepreneurship #eBay… Click To Tweet

Increase eBay sales with these simple strategies

Matt states you need to view eBay as one big search engine. Your item description needs to be specific and descriptive for it to show up in search results. When a customer is searching they choose from different categories—if you haven’t chosen that category for your item it will be excluded from the results.

So how do you get your product ranking?

One technique you can utilize is eBay’s promoted listings. For a percentage of the final sale, they bump you up in the results. If you do this for a certain length of time and—purchases are made—you can drop the promotion. The increase in sales will then help boost your product. Matt covers sale tactics, learning your maximum discount, inventory tips and MUCH MORE in the next section.

Product photos can make or break your listing

It’s not something we would typically think about, but having the right image associated with your listing makes a world of difference. Matt experimented with a product and the results were amazing:

The first product image was a crisp view of the front of the box, well-let, with a white background.

In the second image they shifted the box and shot the photo from a lower camera angle (same background, same lighting).

The second product image showed an increase in clicks—seven times higher than the original photo. Perception is everything. So make sure you test what works the best for your products and adjust your listings accordingly.

Listen to the rest of the episode for some advice Matt wished he had been given when he first launched his business.

When selling on eBay, product photos can make or break your listing. If you’re interested in learning about sales strategies, check out the latest episode of #MaximizingEcommerce with Matt Leavell from BuyLow Warehouse. #Ecommerce #ProductSales… Click To Tweet