An excellent presentation by Debbie Levitt of As Was on eBay Store and Listing Designs that Make the Sale, as debuted at the 2010 eBay Radio Party.

1. Store & Listing DesignsThat Make the Sale Debbie Levitt, CEO As Was www.aswas.com

2. What Do You Think Of This Guy?

3. Three Ingredients for Success The right items at competitive prices. Fill a demand. The right eBay listing strategies so that you are found at the top of search. Change with them. A compelling listing that answers questions, makes people feel trust, is organised, and just makes people feel good about you!

4. Tips for Item Descriptions Use colors that complement each other. Enough text - background contrast to make things easy to read. Don’t: Navy on medium blue Cyan on orange Pink on white Dark red on black Don’t abuseHTMLfontcolorcapability. It’s more likely to make you look amateurish than like a seasoned selling veteran.

5. Let Information Be Information! Let your template’s design and layout be your design and personality. Let information be information. No multiple colours. Don’t centre everything. Don’t change fonts. Don’t use unprofessional fonts. Make info easy to read… like newspapers, books, magazines. That’s what’s comfy! People don’t read. Why are you writing so much?

6. Stop The Insansity Friends don’t let friends use Comic Sans… Or centre everything… Or write stuff in funny colours… OR IN ***ALL CAPS*** AND BOLD!!!!! Because this looks unprofessional. Not distinctive. Not comic. Just sans. Newspaper articles aren’t written like this. Professional ads are not designed like this. And there’s a pile of good reasons WHY. Want to keep reading? Nope, me either.

7. Shoppers Who Have Questions… Our research showed that shoppers who used ASQ didn’t come back and buy or bid. Why not? Chances are they: Knew they wanted this. Came to eBay and shopped for it. Found your listing and looked at it. Didn’t full trust it enough to bid or buy. Maybe they ask a question, and maybe they just leave. Hit their back button. Kept shopping. Found other listings. Trusted one, and bid and bought. The end! You lost! Even if you answered their question an hour later!

8. Name That Mood! Good designers create designs with a mood. Not just a layout. Mood, personality, company image. A memorable experience. Stand out from other sellers and businesses. Time to play Name That Mood!

9. Mood? Image? Personality?

10. Mood? Image? Personality?

11. Mood? Image? Personality?

12. Mood? Image? Personality?

13. Mood? Image? Personality?

14. Mood? Image? Personality?

15. Mood? Image? Personality?

16. OK, What Now? You CAN do this inside eBay. Oh yes you can. Stop making excuses.

17. eBay Store Rules & Best Practices No contact info in the header, design, or 310x90 “logo.” NONE. Minimal design works best. Logo, header. Colours. No Store home page. eBay cracked down on overdesigned eBay Stores in January 2009. If they were working, they wouldn’t have threatened to take thousands of them down.

18. Broken Rules, Cluttered

19. Award for Quality!

20. Listing Rules & Best Practices Information in this order: Description and images Shipping timing, pricing, insurance, international policies Returns, guarantee, warranty Payment and tax About Us Move major selling points up (ie: awesome return policy, guarantee, warranty) Punch people in the face with important messages. Not everybody scrolls. You gave up reading half my slides. Nobody reads. You’re still reading? Well, stop reading and listen to me. I’m talking!

21. POW!

22. ZAP!

23. BOFF!

24. If It Has To Be White…

25. Design Makes A Difference 100% Customer Satisfaction Gauranteed, 100% Positive Feedback. These Like new condition Noodle Long and Soft may have slight blemishes or a few player pen marks, we offer a 100% money back guarantee if you are not completely satisatisfied. www.lostgolfballs.com, the world's largest recycled golf ball company, is centrally located in Sugar Land, Texas. We retrieve, wash, grade, and package golf balls for resale at a fraction of the cost of new balls. Founded in 1992, we've grown to recover golf balls from over 850+ courses throughout the United States to insure our gold ball supply volume and quality. We sell well over 30 million golf balls annually. These like new condition balls will ship UPS ground to mainland US locations only. Remember no PO Boxes allowed by UPS. No balls have been refurbished. A very small percentage may have logos. Our AAAA is the best on the internet because we are the worlds largest compnay in our industry, we only sell the top 2% over the internet. Shop at lostgoldballs.com with no risk. We offer a 100% Money Back Guarantee Attractive: 4.62 Memorable: 4.66 Trustworthy: 4.24 Friendly: 4.45 Compelling: 4.34 Easy to Read: 4.20 I’d buy: 4.45 Attractive: 1.91 Memorable: 2.29 Trustworthy: 2.89 Friendly: 2.85 Compelling: 2.26 Easy to Read: 2.26 I’d buy: 2.58 Attractive: 3.97 Memorable: 3.71 Trustworthy: 3.97 Friendly: 3.53 Compelling: 3.62 Easy to Read: 3.94 I’d buy: 3.48 Attractive: 1.51 Memorable: 1.90 Trustworthy: 2.88 Friendly: 2.71 Compelling: 1.95 Easy to Read: 1.56 I’d buy: 2.00 Attractive: 4.17 Memorable: 4.50 Trustworthy: 3.97 Friendly: 4.17 Compelling: 4.10 Easy to Read: 4.03 I’d buy: 4.13

26. Same Old Same Old Don’t use busy, repeated patterns, even if they are available somewhere for free. 

27. No Priorities, No Mood, Boo

28. Good Design is the New “White Space” Does it really work? Yes. You need mood and personality more than you need white space. Anybody can have white space. One template only, by the way! No collages! If your kid can do it with Elmer’s, it’s not professional design.

29. Let’s Buy A Guitar

30. Now, Let’s Sell It

31. Our Templates Rock!

32. Before

33. Before & After

34. Seller’s Research Seller did A/B testing in Aug & Sept 08: More watchers, Store traffic, multiple sales. When new design was 30% of listings, it was 90% of sales. Items that hadn’t sold since May sold within an hour in the new design. 25% of auctions that weren’t selling sold nearly immediately when switched to the new design. Fewer pre-sales questions. Repeated comments about the top of the template being interesting. It makes someone "want" to scroll down to see what this seller has to offer.

35. Typical Results Our average client sees one or more of the following: More brand awareness. GMV increase an average of 15% within a month or two of working with us. Increased off-eBay sales. Higher sale prices. Fewer “stupid questions” (customer service emails) while sales go up. More traffic to their eBay Store. More multiple purchases. Higher DSRs.

36. Now, What Do You Think Of This Guy?

37. Thanks! Stay in touch! AsWas.com is my site. RocketPlace.com is my educational site. Our conference is 3-4 August 2010, totally live and online! No travel. Come get my biz card(s), and ask anything, any time.