Sellers who have been on TM for a few years report the need to have a lot more stock than in the “old days” and more listings live on Trade Me at all times to be noticed and to get sales.
Using Categories to Your Advantage
Listings spread over many categories (within TM rules) and closing at a variety of times keeps sales ticking over. Vary auction titles on the same product and categories to keeps product listings fresh and interesting. Invest time looking through the 2000+ categories available on Trade Me.
As they can change often, it’s important to keep up with the latest category trends. Auctionitis publish an update of category changes under ‘Utilities – View Category Read Me’. The category selector in the auction input screen is a fast way to browse through categories.
Browsing Vs Searching & The Auction Title
Don’t assume buyers are already in the category your listing is in when writing a title. If you are listing in the ‘outdoor tent’ category, it’s still important to put ‘outdoor tent’ in the title. Buyers searching for your product will have more chance of finding it and buyers browsing categories will get more information about the product immediately.
There are two ways that buyers find stuff on TradeMe – by browsing categories or typing words into the search engine. Searching is becoming more popular as the number of listings on Trade Me and in each category increases making browsing anything less than gallery listings arduous.
Trade Me say browsing vs. searching is approximately a 50/50 split – making proper use of your auction title space is time well spent.
What to include
Consider including brand name, model number, colours, sizes etc. Imagine that you are looking to buy your product or browse for products in that area – what words would YOU type into the search engine to find the product
Don’t use irrelevant keywords – in your title or description. If you are selling a non-branded MP3 Player don’t put “IPod style” or “not an IPod nano” in your listing – you could find the listings removed for irrelevant keyword spamming.
did you know….
Advertising Industry research tells us that one headline can outperform another by up to 18 times. Imagine improving your sales 18x just by finding that golden auction title!
Regularly Review Auction Titles
Invest time critically looking at your auction titles and review them regularly, especially if items aren’t selling, are slow moving or if you sell the same items repeatedly.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of listing items over and over automatically without reviewing the content.
An example to ponder
Let’s pretend we are selling tents (might not be too hard for some of you!) Here is an example auction title: “Tent” seen recently on Trade Me.
Why not use the remaining title space on words that will be useful in search results? Or to describe your item more for people may not be familiar with your product?
A more descriptive auction title could be “Tent Katmandu & Groundsheet 6 Person 2 Room 2 Vent” – A Perfect fit.
Making sense?
Don’t worry if your auction title doesn’t make perfect English conversational sense – it’s the words and the information that matter on auction sites.
With the first title “tent” your product will only appear near the top of the search results if buyers search the term “tent” but if they were searching “6 person tent” or “Katmandu tent” your product will appear further up the top in the results – but you won’t with the first one. Even if this additional information is in the item description – it won’t fare as well in search results as if it was also in the title.
An informative title also gives a prospective buyer more information and incentive to look at your auction. Gallery costs 55 cents – an auction title is free – don’t waste it!
Auction Titles are the most important part of a listing used in conjunction with careful category placement sales will improve instantly.
Filed under: Tips, Tricks & Strategies
