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Posts Tagged ‘eBay Pulse’

Following a recent article, posted on here, about eBay pulling the eBay Pulse pages after all these years. I received an email about a potential replacement service from Jake and the team at WatchCount.com. This is a service that promises to offer you all you may require for your marketing requirements.

Here is some of what Jake had to say in his email to me;

Hi, Paul:
I saw your post recently at Wise-Life.com about how eBay dropped their Pulse pages a couple months ago. After all these years!
Just a heads up that we launched a free replacement last week over at WatchCount.com — Top-Searched in most any eBay category.
And we’ve also been showing how many watchers there are on top-watched items for several years now too.

I have to confess, I didn’t really know anything about this site, largely because I don’t do a great deal of selling on eBay myself, so I had no real reason to go look for it. Just recently though, I decided to take a quick look around the site to see just what it could offer. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised, and I think you guys who used eBay Pulse pages on a regular basis for your marketing, will be pleasantly surprised too.

The team at WatchCount.com claim that they have unique search capabilities, and that they are able to offer tools to use that are an improvement on the former eBay Pulse pages. They have recently introduced their “Most Popular eBay Searches Tool.” Combine that with their “Most Watched” search tool, and I think you have a couple of marketing tools that will pretty much live up to what the eBay Pulse pages offered, if they don’t actually beat it.

I’m happy to pass you eBayers on to the replacement you need to make up for the loss of eBay Pulse pages. Once you get to know your way around the site, I feel you will probably no longer miss eBay Pulse. Take a look at the site here. http://www.watchcount.com/ I’ll leave the final decision up to you, but I think you guys have a replacement.

Until the next time, keep your chin up, and be wise!

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I have only just discovered, via an email newsletter, that in the last week or so, eBay have pulled the eBay Pulse pages from their site. Apparantly, all members had been alerted to this prior to the event happening. Sorry, but I certainly don’t recall receiving such a notification, and the same goes for the author of the eletter I received.

I’m not saying they didn’t send out notification, but there’s a lot of folk out there who will also have no recollection of receiving the said notice!

The eBay Pulse pages were an essential tool for tens of thousands of small businesses who sold on eBay. It gave these people access to a level of FREE research, comparable or even better, than research tools that cost a $20 or more per month subscription. In fact, I recommended its use as an essential tool in a recent article, which you can read here.

In all honesty, this makes no real difference to me personally, as I am the type of person who uses eBay occassionally, just to “sell stuff”. However, this service was a lifeline to many small e-retailers, and eBay Pulse would no doubt have contributed greatly to their monthly profits.

Somehow, I just get the nagging feeling that we will see the return of eBay Pulse, possibly with a different name, but as a paid for, rather than a free service. Sadly, I feel that the corporate greed bug has bitten eBay a long time ago. They could get away with it at first because there was no competition. It would appear that they feel they can still get away with it.

However, Amazon have started to provide them with that element of competition. As sellers, we need at least another couple of players to step up to the plate and provide eBay with some stiffer competition. Hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later. I personally feel that eBay need their wings well and truly clipping!

You can all play your part in persuading eBay to bring eBay Pulse back as a free tool. Bombard eBay with requests to do so via their “contact us” link. I’ll be playing my part, will you?

Until the next time, keep your chin up, and be wise.

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Follow @1wiseowl

Building an on-line business is no easy task, it can be hard work! It’s no different to building an off-line business. In both cases you need to put time, effort and dedication in. There are other articles on this site that will help you on the road to building a successful on-line business. Take a look here.

There does seem to be a common misconception amongst many people, that building an eBay business (or any auction business), is the easy way out of their misery, and that it will put them on the path to success. There is no doubt that it could do that for you, but it can also lead to shattered dreams and heartache. However, people who do their homework and research prior to setting out, will succeed. People who don’t put the ground work in, will just be selling stuff!

I thought I would list some tools that are available for you to use, to give your new eBay business a worthy boost. Use them wisely, and you will give your on-line retail business a chance of success. Some are available free, but there are some services you will need to pay for.

1 eBay Pulse.

Using this really goes without saying if you want to keep up with the latest trends on eBay. This is perfect for research purposes because using eBay Pulse is a very easy way to discover those hot items which you can then source from wholesalers and resell on eBay yourself.

By using eBay Pulse you can find a very handy daily snapshot of current trends, the largest eBay shops and the most watched items, all in the category of your choice – simply use the drop down list to drill down as far as you need to through the categories and sub-categories, and you should find your niche in there. It is well worth checking eBay Pulse out on a regular basis as trends do change on a daily basis.

You can get to eBay Pulse from the site itself. Just click on ‘Site Map’ in the bottom right hand corner of any page and then look under ‘More Ways To Find Items’. Next click on eBay Pulse in the list. Take a peek here.

2 Selling Manager Pro.

Not a “freebie” I’m afraid, but it is not expensive. You also get a free 30 day trial (at time of writing). Many regular eBayers use it and find this an invaluable tool. As your eBay business grows, this system will help you to track and manage your sales.

It’s perfect for helping you to stay on top of all your regular admin tasks. There are too many other useful functions to go into here, why not take a look for yourself.

3 Auctiva.

This site offers similar useful functions to SMP. However, in addition at Auctiva, you get access to a whole load of excellent, professional looking listing templates.

Also available here is the excellent, and quite popular Scrolling Gallery. This enables you to show off other products you have for sale within your listings.

This is also a paid for service, but they too also offer a free trial (at time of writing). Costs are on a sliding scale and will depend on what level of service you opt for. Have a look around here.

4 Bay Estimator.

I think this is a tool you will get to love, and not just because it’s free! It will help you to attract more views and sales to your listings.

Remember, your title is the most important part of your eBay listing because if you don’t get your keywords right, how is your listing going to be found? It’s not! Especially now with eBay‘s Best Match algorithms, it’s extremely important to get your title absolutely right first time and this is where Bay Estimator comes in.

This is one of eBay’s little-known tools which will look at the relative popularity of your title keywords and then estimate how well it will work.

Simply input your keywords and Bay Estimator will calculate how successful your chosen keywords will be in your listing title. An easy way to optimize your listings. Bay Estimator.

5 Terapeak.

Yet another tool you need to pay for, but it is extremely useful. eBay used to provide a tool that was known as ‘Marketplace Research’ but this was retired and in its place we now have Terapeak.

This is a must in my opinion for any serious eBay seller because the amount of information you can find through Terapeak is phenomenal.

What’s selling, who’s selling it, who’s making the most profit – it’s all there and it is simple to use and will ultimately help you with your product choices and to run a better eBay business. There is a free 7 day trial (at time of writing), after which there is a monthly subscription, or you can pay an annual fee up front to save money. Check this one out here.

6 Photobucket.

Yayyy! a free service, and a good one too! Simply host your product photo’s here and link them to eBay. The site is easy to use and to navigate. You can easily upload thousands of photo’s here.

This will save you quite a lot on eBay fees if you need to show more than 1 product photo for your listings. Find out more here.

7 Google Trends.

Last but not least, and only because I already have an article on Google Trends posted. Take a look at that item here.

There you go. I hope that these tools will help you on your way to building your own successful eBay business.

Until the next time, keep your chin up, and be wise!

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