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 | Strategies for Selling High-End Pottery & Glass
| Provide your customers the confidence they need to invest in your high-dollar Pottery & Glass. Position your eBay business for the high-end using the following strategies.
- Independent Verification: Verify the authenticity of rare, highly valuable antique glass with the help of a professional, certified appraiser. Include a scan of your appraisal report in your listing.
- Visual Proof: Include a gallery of images in your listing with different views and close-ups. Photograph key manufacturer marks, as well as unique elements and imperfections.
- Prices Realized: Include a digest of historical prices for your item, realized at respected auction houses, such as Sotheby's, Christies, and Phillips.
- Provenance: Provide a history of ownership for the item, which can increase its value. Also, consider listing reference texts in your description, particularly those that have photos of your item or its pattern/color. Enable bidders to conduct their own research.
- Guarantee: Stand behind your sales. Offer a money-back guarantee, minus shipping and third-party fees.Suggest an escrow service for the safe transfer of funds and property.
- Marketing: Invest in promotion, particularly eBay listing upgrades. They work -- learn more.Build your credibility. List degrees, accreditations, professional affiliations, and honors on your About Me page. Then, link to it from your listings. Example: artantiques.
- Feedback: Maintain a high positive feedback rating. Offer PayPal and ship the day payment clears for increased feedback.
Develop trust and credibility with your high-end Pottery & Glass buyers from the start.
Have a suggestion for a future Pottery & Glass article -- let us know!
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Pottery & Glass Liquidation Tip
When is the best time to liquidate? This is a question business owners deal with frequently. If you are sitting on inventory that has been taking up important storage space, consider liquidating these slow movers to make room for new merchandise.
Consider the benefits:
- Reclaim Space: Make room in your warehouse or store for summer and fall inventory.
- Increase Capital: Boost cash flow for investment in holiday product.
- Generate Customers: Broaden your customer base with value-oriented shoppers.
- Enhance Brand: Reduce dated inventory that tarnishes your brand image.
- Improve Process: Introduce reliable seasonal sales and marketing strategies.
Use these eBay strategies to liquidate inventory quickly and economically:
- Open Low, No Reserve: Increase bids, turnover. Open at $1 without a reserve price.
- Buy It Now: Reduce overstock fast; get paid sooner. Let customers buy immediately.
- Fixed Price: Lower sale costs. Offer multiples of an item in a single listing at one price.
- Good 'Til Cancelled: Avoid relisting. List overstock in your Store as GTC items.
- Store Merchandising: Create a "Liquidation" category in your Store.
- Sale Titles: Build interest. Include "Special," "Blowout," "50% Off," in listing titles.
- Liquidation Listing: Protect new product. Create an off-price listing template. Compare the original value to your rebated price.
You bought it, but you're not stuck with it. Liquidate to move the old and make room for the new!
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An Inside Look at the Top-Performing Pottery & Glass Brands
The top names in Pottery & Glass stand for quality and style. They also sell extremely well in eBay's Pottery & Glass category.
Review this data on the top-performing brands to get the inside track on what lines you should be carrying.
Top 5 Selling Brands*
- Susie Cooper
- Catalina
- Caithness
- Hadley
- Abingdon
Top 5 Grossing Brands**
- Roseville
- Royal Doulton
- Lenox
- Warterford
- Staffordshire
Top 5 Searched Brands***
- McCoy
- Bauer
- Roseville
- Candlewick
- Red Wing
To see this month's most popular search terms, click here.
* Based on February 2003 Conversion Rates
** Based on February 2003 Gross Merchandise Sales
*** Based on February 2003 Search Data
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 | jo-delstainedglasssupplies (2606), Jo-Del Stained Glass Supply
Knowing Your Customers and Products
| Not only does PowerSeller Monique Bennett sell stained glass supplies—ring saws, bevels, molds, soldering irons, and grinders—to artists on eBay, she's a master craftswoman herself.
This combination of being a working artist as well as an online entrepreneur puts Bennett in a unique position, as she's able to cater to a clientele that she knows intimately, and whose needs she can anticipate and build a business around. Her professional expertise translates into not only greater sales, but also the creation of a customer base that has come to rely on her guidance.
"My approach is different," explains the West Greenwich, Rhode Island-based PowerSeller. "I'm an artist, too. So I know what my customers want...I sell what I know is best, not just what I can make a buck on."
For starters, Bennett's uses her well-crafted eBay Store to educate her buyers. Custom categories like "Saws, Grinders, Foilers, Irons" and "Books, Patterns" not only merchandise her products, but also teach hobbyists about the necessary tools and equipment.
Additionally, Bennett regularly evaluates the products she sells before she lists them on eBay. In essence, she performs the time-consuming task of filtering out lesser merchandise so her buyers don't have to by making trial-and-error purchases. Each auction, therefore, has what could be called Bennett's own personal seal of approval.
"Even when it comes down to a cleaner for stained glass," she says, "I will buy one of every kind—and there are 15 to 20 kinds—until I find the one that is perfect." Not surprisingly, the strategy earns her loyal, repeat customers, who return to take advantage of fixed-price deals in her store.
Her listings, too, reflect Bennett's knowledge and experience. They often educate buyers and include personalized comments and endorsements. A recent auction for a ring saw informed buyers that she uses the very same one for her work. "This tool changed the way I looked at my glass work," she wrote.
Besides knowing what kind of items will please her customers and drive bidding, Bennett also makes a concerted effort to continually seek out new products and refresh her inventory. She's always on the lookout for new patterns, in hopes of encouraging her buyers to be creative and experimental and not merely settle for the standard, generic designs.
In fact, Bennett perhaps gets her greatest satisfaction from assisting her customers in their creative endeavors.
"I want people's work to look as good as it can," she concludes.
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Must use Buy It Now and PayPal.
