Red Ink Diary

Anyone can upload their product to Google. Doing it correctly and getting it found is the trick, followed by getting it seen before your competition’s items. So, as a small or micro-seller what can you do to improve your ranking?

First, the obvious

• Title - use key phrases, this is organic search. “Suggested maximum length of 70 characters”. For example the angel Christmas ornament shown below was listed for a long time as “Repro Victorian Die Cut Embossed Christmas Angel Ornament” all of which are good accurate describing words, but many do not rank high on searched words. I am hoping that using “Christmas Ornament Swedish Angel Tree Candle” will do better.
• Price - lower ranks higher among comparables
• Description - 150 characters and spaces will be your ‘hook’, what appears in the Google Shopping search. Use the key words and phrases you couldn’t get into your title, do not repeat within the first 100 characters and spaces. Bullets seem to gain brownie points. As an example here are the first 150 characters and spaces in my ad. “Large angel or Saint Lucia carrying a lighted candle and a Christmas tree This is a beautiful old fashioned paper ornament reproduced from an antique” note that I have eliminated commas and periods to be able to get in the word “antique”. Rules for Google Checkout Buy Now buttons are a little different, you put your 100 character description into the button maker so what you write next to the picture has very little weight.

No duplication: this is a new Google rule. You may list the same product on many venues, your website etc. but Google will reject the listing, even with different price, description, title etc. The policy is very clear.

“We do not permit duplicate products in the same account or between multiple accounts. If products are available on multiple sites under the same ownership, one site must be chosen to exclusively submit those products. For example, if you own two websites that sell the same product, you may not submit that product for both sites, regardless of pricing or promotional differences.”

Attributes!

Attributes are simply data written in a form Google can access and translate.

Here is where it gets tricky. Google has very strict rules and they are (oddly) not very good at making them easy to find. Here is a complete list of all attributes defined by Google Product Search in the new Merchant Center.

Some attributes are required, leave them out and your product is out. If you are selling on a Marketplace venue that submits feeds to Google they should, if they know what they are doing, submit the information you have included in your listing.

• condition - choose from new, used or refurbished
• description - Google says “Text, up to a maximum length of 10,000 characters. Ideally greater than 15 characters and 3 words. Do not include promotional or boilerplate text, such as “Free shipping!” or “Click here now!”
• id - A unique alphanumeric identifier for the item i.e your SKU If you sell on Bonanzle the site allocates an identifier if you do not.
• link - The URL of the web page associated with the item. This should not forward to another URL; it must point directly to the target page.
• price - fixed price only, use this format  4.95 or 20.00, free items do not appear in Google Product Search.
• title - Google does not like all CAPS, non relevant symbols like exclamation points, asterisks, more information is found in Editorial Guidelines

The not so secret search boosters

1. Offer Google Checkout; this should not come as a surprise. The argument that you only offer PayPal because it is required on eBay will cost you ranking on your website items.
2. Use the optional payment_accepted and payment_notes attributes in your website feed. On Bonanzle, which does xml feeds, add this at the bottom of your listing. [[ payment_accepted:Visa payment_accepted:Cash payment_accepted:Mastercard payment_notes:Google Checkout]] Be sure to leave no space on either side between the colon and the attribute but do leave a space between multiple attributes, which (on Bonanzle) must all be enclosed in the one set of brackets.
3. Reviews - Think of Google Checkout Reviews as Google Feedback. As Bonanzle sellers we all need to get into the habit of completing Google Checkout reviews on our eligible purchases on the site. They carry an incredible amount of ranking weight. The more sellers with positive reviews we have on Bonanzle the better we will all do.

To enable reviews on purchases check off the review box when you make a payment. Google will email you a review form after you have had time to receive the purchased item. To make reviews on past Google Checkout purchases and learn more about the Google seller review process click here.

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Christmas Ornament Swedish Angel with Tree and Candle $5.00
Large angel or Saint Lucia carrying a lighted candle and a Christmas tree This is a beautiful old fashioned paper ornament reproduced from an antique. A complex die cut (with interior cuts, not just around the outside) she is printed on both sides, embossed, and has a gold hanging cord.

Shipping to anywhere in the USA is included in the price.

Size approximately 5-3/4′ tall and 4″ across

eBay tailors it’s message to the audience. There is nothing particularly unethical or even unusual about that. If you want to learn more than the standard cheery pap you will have to open your eyes and look for it because they are not going to spoon-feed it to you.

On July 27th Stephanie Tilenius, Senior Vice President & General Manager, eBay North America announced the second bucket of platform and policy changes for 2009.

There are some beautiful ’smoochie spin’ phrases in this announcement. (bolding is mine)

“We’re well aware that sellers of all sizes deliver the deals and quality experiences that bring buyers to eBay and keep them coming back. That’s why we’re taking new steps to reward great service, bring you more sales, increase your profitability, and help you succeed.”

Immediately below is some touchy-feely sugar aimed directly at small sellers, who have been feeling unappreciated for over a year. Key motivation words: invite, reward, exclusive, quality, benefits.

PowerSeller program update: rewarding quality over quantity

• Starting in October, a new eBay top-rated seller status will be added to the PowerSeller program to recognize and reward sellers providing great buyer experiences based on the new way to look at DSRs (very few 1s and 2s). eBay Top-rated sellers will receive the highest PowerSeller Final Value Fee discounts (20%), increased visibility in search results for Fixed Price listings, exclusive access to purchase Featured First and a prominent Top-rated seller badge on item pages. The Top-rated seller badge will be tested in search results pages this summer. The current PowerSeller icon will no longer be displayed on buyer-facing pages including item pages.

• All sellers with 100 or more annual transactions and at least $3,000 annual sales who meet the requirements for Top-rated seller status will be invited into the PowerSeller program and can start receiving Top-rated seller benefits in October.

A great big carrot!
The announcement was very well received by small sellers. I have been reading commentary everywhere celebrating eBay finally coming to it’s senses. Hope is the dominating theme. Small sellers have always prided themselves on the quality of their service, and eBay has noticed.

Let us pause for a brief moment to feel the emotion, Etta James powerful 1961 Rhythm & Blues hit “At Last”

“At last, my love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song
Oh, yeah, at last
The skies above are blue
My heart was wrapped up in clovers
The night I looked at you
I found a dream that I could speak to
A dream that I can call my own . . .”

Looking at the carrot

Quoting directly from eBay:
The current 4.3 minimum average DSR requirements will be replaced with new requirements based on a seller’s incidence of low DSRs (1s and 2s) on transactions with U.S. buyers:

• In October, all eBay sellers will need to have 1s or 2s for item as described on no more than of 3.00% of transactions, and on no more than 4.00% for communication, 4.00% for shipping time, and 4.00% for shipping and handling charges.
• In April 2010, the standards will be stricter. All eBay sellers will need to have low DSRs (1s or 2s) on no more than 1.00% of transactions for item as described, and no more than 2.00% for communication, 2.00% for shipping time, and 2.00% for shipping and handling charges.
• To ensure lower volume sellers are not penalized as a result of one or two transactions, it will take at least four instances of 1s or 2s before consequences based on low DSRs are enforced.

The same day, in a press release eBay said it expects to immediately qualify 150,000 eBay Top-Rated Sellers in the U.S. when the program goes live in October 2009.
This figure raises a red credibility flag for me because according to Sellerdome’s statistics PowerSeller status tends to tail off at about the 150,000 ranking level. To clarify US ranked seller #150,001 is a PowerSeller but many of the sellers preceding him (higher ranked) are not, either because they are inactive, NARU or below feedback requirements. US ranked seller #150,001 has 30 transactions in the last 60 days with an ASP $170 and should qualify.

At the April 20, 2009 Southern California Business Growth Conference, keynote speaker Meg Whitman, former President and CEO of eBay, had some interesting statistics, there are 300 million eBay users worldwide, 12 million in California alone. Last year she said 1.3 million sellers make a living from eBay in the USA. The qualifier “making a living from eBay” would lead to the reasonable assumption that adding micro-sellers and those who do not make a living from eBay would result in a considerably higher total number of eBay sellers.

Using the 1.3 million number, 150,000 Top Rated Sellers represent 0.05% of the population. One half of one percent. eBay does not release many numbers, including numbers of active PowerSellers.

That carrot is hanging very high. How high can you jump little bunny?

It should be noted that Ms Tilenius said “immediately qualify”. Undoubtedly more will qualify for Top Seller Status between October 2009 when the program launches and April 2010 when the program ups the ante. At peak sales season, October through mid December, small and micro-sellers could reasonably anticipate generating the qualifying GMV.  There is a definite advantage for small sellers in that their volume is lower and service quality is generally higher.
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