Brand-Spankin New Store Needs Help!!

[cosmolicious]

Hi there! I'm a new user of eCrater, but have been selling online for years. I would love any help/advice you could give me on marketing, templates, and what on earth to put in the weight matrix???

Thanks so much, all!

[MoonwishesStore]

Welcome!

First off, be sure to Fill out the About Us page. You can mention that you used to sell elsewhere, but focus on selling yourselves and why you sell, etc. Also fill out your terms page which spells out your shipping policies and your refund policies, etc. I don't know where you have been selling, but here you CAN set your refund policies and ecrater doesn't get into it unless the buyer gets really upset about something and writes them. Keep track of all correspondence concerning sales, feedback, complaints etc. as ecrater is good about taking down negative feedback if it is unwarranted, but you do have to prove your case.

Just a reminder that you are allowed 100 characters in a title, unlimited listing text and 10 free photos. So you would want to take at minimum a front and back shot of your items for sale. Write your listing as if there is no picture and have your pictures show what you are listing as if you don't have words to tell.

In my opinion, I think your titles and descriptions are too short and lacking enough information. I personally includes everything I put into my titles back into the first line or so of my descriptions. As you may already know, buyers are terrible aobut reading and they read things into a listing, seeing that even if you didn't say so, they will be getting something that is only in their head. So be sure the descriptions has all the facts needed. I have never played a video game in my life, so I can't say what those facts need to be and perhaps those that do will disagree with me on this point. That is okay. But if you were looking at your listings as if you were a buyer, does it give you all the info you need and expect as a video game player. Don't assume anything about the item.

[MoonwishesStore]

My computer froze up before I could mention the matrix. I use the matrix exclusively. I don't look at it as weights, I use it for number of items sold. Most of what I sell are sewing patterns and craft booklets/leaflets pretty much all in the same weight ranges so rather than set things up by weight I do it by count and that takes care of the individual flucuation in the weight of items. In all the years I have sold here, never ended up wrong that I remember. Now that first class packet mail is one price $2.60 (or it will be starting at the end of the month) up through 8 ounces, it is even easier to set up the matrix, at least for me it is. At 15.9 ounces, it costs $3.65 to ship (I think that may be for those that use e/postage). So not nearly so picky about weights as we had to be before when they changed every ounce.

Don't forget that it is best to have tracking on all items, again free when using e/postage. Not only can you be aware of whether the customer got their package or not, but in cases where a buyer says it took 3 weeks for it to arrive when the tracking showed it took 3 whole days, the ecrater team will take away negatives generally in those sorts of situations, at least they did for my one and only negative here!

Anyhow I have written a lot about the matrix in other threads so I'm not going to repeat myself, but if you do a search for matrix and my selling name, you might be able to find some of the more extensive things that I have written aobut it. I have arthritis and while I don't mind helping and doing some writing I do try to preserve my fingers when needed.

[dccollectibles]

I would add that although officially you can use up to the 100, most search engines stop around 70. It's not been proven conclusively, but longer titles don't really "help" unless you're searching only from the ecrater marketplace. I don't know many people who do that, although it would be an interesting subject for a poll. Most people I've asked haven't even heard of eCrater as opposed to eBay or Amz, so it would have to be a highly passionate and devoted small following of direct market shoppers to make any significant impact. Although I do hope this will change someday, it hasn't yet.

The matrix...well...there is no spoon. You have to get your hands dirty and prepare to think outside the box. It's flexible but not for the faint of heart. A few brave souls have dared to chase the rabbit and succeeded. Most have failed, and now use a flat rate or usps calculated.

[MoonwishesStore]

Using all 100 characters or as many as you can help in more ways than just SEO. When someone writes and questions me about say a wedding gown pattern. I can go into my store and do a search for wedding gown and then can use that url to give to the potential customer so that they can input it and see what you have for sale in the way of wedding gowns. Or if someone wants girls leggings, they can do a search for girls leggings and will get all those results. Now depending on how many garments a pattern might have in it, sometimes leggings might be the very last word. If it isn't in the title, I don't believe that it will show up when searching on eCRATER. All that shows in searches is what is in the titles. With only being able to put our items into one category, by filling the title you are actually giving yourself a few more categories.

For instance I have some patterns that includes pajamas for dad, mom, boy, girl AND the family dog! Now which category do I put it in? I can put it in my parent/child category so pajamas for 'people' will show up, but the fur kid won't show up unless dog is in the title. When pinning the pattern I will pin it to my misses, category, men's category, as well as the boys and girls categories and I also have a pet category. So the day I pin it, some of my followers may see it a lot, but those that only follow my pet category will always find it.

As a final thought, I don't know about you, but I don't want to waste my time counting characters. I fill in my title as full as I can and eCRATER will kick it back if over 100 characters. I usually am right on the button these days with all the practice I get. I also like seeing titles that tell you what you are going to see! I've seen pattern titles that don't even put the sizes in which means to see if it is your size you have to click on it and have it load. Waste of time and as a customer I wouldn't want that.