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Time Management for Online Sellers!

KeywebcoJul 23, 2015, 5:32:43 AM

Make it or Break it Time!

Co-Authored by: Roger Keyserling & Mary Wilkinson

A serious online seller knows that true financial success comes with implementing proven time management techniques that makes the entire process run like a well-oiled machine. Like any online business, your online store is going to require a dedicated commitment to many different areas of ecommerce.

Finding the proper products to sell and auction is only one small facet of running a profitable eBay business. Top sellers also know that a certain amount of daily attention is spent on listing the products online, selecting the most engaging images, optimizing the advertisements with creative wording that will drive revenues, marketing your online store through social media, maintaining enough stock and inventory to meet a fluctuating consumer demand, and keeping track of all the accounting and bookkeeping involved with the sales and inventory.

Social media plays big part in online selling these days. Utilizing Facebook seller, selling-shopping groups & other virtual media sources like Blab or Youtube can be invaluable for education, item research and for marketing of your items. Spending time in them can result in many time saving tips, but it’s very easy to spend too much time. This is a frequent problem when you are also a group administrator. We are admins in some of the very useful groups listed below. Some are just for seller support, while others are shopping groups for network marketing the members items to many social media sites to improve shopper traffic. Both types can take a good amount of time to manage properly. Working on a schedule or doing the work spread out over time to keep it from building up is key to providing the best experience for the members as well as for efficiency.

Then there is the sometimes overwhelming process of tracking the shipping and delivery of all of your items to buyers from around the world. This is the one area that is very often completely out of your own control. Even in the best of circumstances, when you do everything right and click all the right buttons, the timely delivery of your product is still largely dependent on governmental and commercial postal delivery services. Your chosen method of delivery can be delayed by any number of unforeseen circumstances, from a snowstorm halfway around the world to unplanned employee layoffs. Recently, there has even been a rash of theft from the customers front porch by seedy opportunistic thieves, stalking & waiting as delivery services drop off packages. Any of these circumstances can be quite challenging & stressful to deal with. This is always something you have to work into your cost of doing business, because it takes time to get resolved and time is money.

Effective time management skills that include a certain amount of extra time in the delivery schedule for these types of unexpected issues may make a world of difference between a top ranking and a mediocre business. Make a business plan at the very beginning, outlining all of the various areas of time management that will require your attention. Then stick to it!

Footnote:
If you are interested in e-commerce topics and all things online selling related, check out the new #eComBlab. There is a new show each week, you can find the schedule on the eComBlab Facebook page. Please LIKE the page & click the “Book Now” button, to get the latest updates for the upcoming eComBlab events. The great thing about this is that you can watch them from anywhere either on the computer, tablet or smartphone. The atmosphere is casual and relaxed, you can drink your favorite beverage while chatting with our hosts, other sellers and guests. We discuss e-commerce topics that are important and happen on a regular basis to any level of seller, new or experienced.

Our eComBlab host is eBay-Amazon seller Melissa Paz, with myself Roger co-hosting, I sell on eBay and was formerly on Amazon. Mary, an eBay seller often joins us providing support as needed. We all belong to the TSUSPHQ Facebook Buy & Sell Shopping groups listed below, co-founded by myself & Mary. We have had great success working together using a method of social network marketing to drive traffic to our online stores, resulting in increased sales.

eComBlab on Facebook