Chapter 8 Using BigCommerce and eBay Integration for Cross-Channel Management
Using BigCommerce and eBay Integration for Cross-Channel Management
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The eBay marketplace has been changing; no longer is it an auction-only site for consumer-to-consumer trading. Here’s the new normal for eBay:
- 80% of all merchandise is new,
- Two-thirds of items arrive in three days, and
- Items typically ship for free in big markets.
In 2019, it’s a place for brands and retailers to expand their reach internationally and acquire more customers. With 182 million monthly active users, the potential is huge.
eBay provides merchants with options to provide a more complete offering, including features that increase brand recognition and credibility.
This article will demonstrate how to utilize eBay to its fullest potential while simplifying the process, and how merchants can use a BigCommerce eBay integration to manage listings more efficiently.
I’m New to eBay: What Features Should I Know About?
eBay offers a variety of features for merchants — many of which exist to boost areas of your business, including offline and internationalization. By taking advantage of them, you’ll ensure your listings are performing optimally.
1. Product-Based Shopping Experience (PBSE).
Taking a page from Amazon’s book, eBay started offering product-based shopping options for a limited selection of brands in 2018.
Any retailer selling these products must match the eBay IDs to the eBay catalog, which will group all identical items under one page. Listings of the same products will be grouped together, making the customer journey faster and more convenient by enabling simpler comparison of prices, delivery options, and more.
This new selling requirement extended to more categories later in 2018.
2. Promoted listings.
A great way to extend your reach on eBay is to use Promoted Listings. Tamebay recently announced that they boost sell-through rate by 27%.
These ads appear all over eBay, with the tag “SPONSORED.”
If you’re selling on the U.S. site (ebay.com), you will be eligible for Promoted Listings if you are a Top-Rated Seller. You can also use them if you are a Store subscriber in Canada, the U.S., the UK, Australia, Germany, France, or Italy.
Again, having great product data is important in order to drive the visibility of your ads.
3. Item specifics.
Item specifics have become a great way to increase the visibility and performance of your eBay listings.
In general, the more information you provide in your data feed, the more helpful it will be for your customers.
They allow you to include commonly searched terms for your products, such as brand, material, or color. Consumers can then use these terms to filter, making it easier to find your products.
4. Online to offline.
With more and more retailers looking to keep their brick-and-mortar stores open and running well, channels like eBay are introducing ways to connect the online with the offline. One of the best ways is to give the power back to the customer, allowing them to choose when and where they purchase and receive their products.
Click and collect (in certain countries): In the UK and Australia, click and collect works well as a method to bring customers in-store. Instead of sending your items directly to the consumer, you will have to send them to a specific store closest to them. For example, in the UK, eBay works with the retailer, Argos.
Reach consumers locally: Participating U.S. retailers are now able to display branded collateral in physical stores to promote their eBay store.
5. eBay Global Shipping program.
International expansion for brands and retailers is a necessary step to growing a successful, profitable business. But it can be costly and time-consuming, requiring capital expenditure on local staff, warehousing, website translation, and office space, to name a few.
Online marketplaces like eBay can help you determine how your brand will fare in different territories, without all the overhead.
eBay’s Global Shipping program makes selling internationally as simple as selling within your home country. All merchants need to do is send their items to eBay’s domestic shipping center and, from there, the marketplace will handle all fulfillment.
BigCommerce + eBay Integration
BigCommerce makes life a lot easier for its merchants with a BigCommerce eBay integration. This not only provides exposure to eBay’s vast audience but also simplifies management and eliminates the need to manage two interfaces, saving time while making your digital marketing efforts more profitable.
The BigCommerce eBay integration gives merchants access to three key features:
1. Centralized inventory management.
Sync stock levels and eBay orders with your online store. This removes the need to manually manage the process across multiple channels.
2. Rapid bulk listing and centralized management.
Create hundreds of eBay listings in a matter of minutes with customizable templates. Merchants can then automatically map these products to eBay categories.
3. Sync quantity, price, and descriptions to reach more buyers.
eBay’s Global Shipping Program allows you to more easily reach a global audience.
The benefits of eBay for brands and retailers are vast, allowing for brand recognition, international expansion, and ways to connect the online and offline experience. As it has evolved, eBay has added features and provided benefits to draw businesses onto its platform.
However, in order to make a profit on eBay, brands and retailers need to utilize data management and optimization platforms such as Intelligent Reach to ensure efficient campaigns that drive high impressions, clicks, and conversions.
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