New Member

[BretBuy]

Hello Everyone!

I'm new to the Ecrater website, and new to online selling in general. As a newbie, I want to find ways to promote my store. It seems that sometimes my items fail to come up in a Google search even several days beyond the time I post them, and I'm not sure why. I don't have a lot of items posted yet, but I'm in the process and already have a decent variety with the little that I have. Any honest discussion would be to my interest.

[MoonwishesStore]

Hello and welcome to eCRATER and to online selling. Also welcome neighbor I live fairly close to your area as compared to the whole USA. I would recommend to you to read the forum of the eCRATER sellers only threads, the help threads as well. Don't be afraid to ask questions.

If you don't mind, I have a few suggestions. Be sure to fill in your about us message.

Before your store gets out of hand completely, establish categories for each item that you are listing. Such as Books, China, videos, clothing, etc. For all these things, you should check to see how other sellers handle these things in their stores, same as their about us and terms page and whatever.

Remember that you are allowed 100 characters for your title. This is your most valuable real estate when selling so you want your most info there. Several of your items say lot of two books. No one (I'm pretty sure) is ever going to do a search for 'a lot of two books' when they really want a cheap copy of Moby Dick and or Huckleberry Finn. So start out with what you are selling Names of books, authors, that sort of thing.

Perhaps it is my monitor, but a lot of your photos lot yellow/orange tinged. Not sure why, but you might want to retake the ones of the different china items so that the colors/china are better seen for their quality.

I notice that you are offering free shipping. Are you aware of the deductions that will be taken out of any sale you make? PP takes 30 cents plus 2.9%, if your item sells via the eCRATER marketplace, then you lose at least 2.9% or higher depending on what you have chosen. For instance I don't know how heavy your lot of two books for $5 depending on your Marketplace (MP) amount if the item sells through the MP and the PP fees, and your shipping cost as well as shipping supplies, you may end up with barely making $1.00 to $1.80. This is something that trips up newbies - not counting the full cost of selling. This doesn't even count the cost if you bought the items for resale. There is no shame in charging reasonable shipping.

You asked about specifically about promoting your store. Be sure that you are doing your google attributes as needed which will help with google shopping. Next you need to have a Pinterest page that you can pin all your items to, sign up for G+ and post all your items to G+, Also you can use Facebook as well and not only post your goods to FB but also post to the different eCRATER FB pages. I also suggest that you make sure if you are on any digests and forums that your signature contains your eCRATER store url. Also make sure your email signature has your store url as well. These are easy and free ways to promote. It is what I do as I don't really have the money to pay for any promoting.

Hope some of this helps.

[BretBuy]

I haven't gone back and retaken photos of already listed items, but I've tried to do a better job of the new items I've listed since reading your post. Also, I've tried to be more descriptive in the titles. Still haven't started promoting to any large degree beyond plugging in the google attributes...in time I hope to do more in that direction. Been spending most of my time just getting things listed.