While we know growth means something different to every eBay seller, sellers do share one particular goal; to connect with passionate shoppers looking for that perfect item and drive sales of their products. eBay sellers are seeing new growth opportunities through recent store enhancements, new messaging experiences in the eBay app, bulk listing tools, research tools and by showcasing more of their items in detail with video. They’re also seeing their online businesses grow by leveraging our expanding suite of advertising solutions, like Promoted Listings. There are so many great stories out there and opportunities to learn from one another which is why we’re excited to launch our new Seller Stories series.

The new series is all about celebrating seller growth and success with advertising. We’re sitting down with sellers across our global marketplace to learn about what growth means to them, advertising strategies implemented, and uncover tips and tricks to inspire other sellers.

We sat down with Ultimate Products, a UK based company bringing branded kitchen and laundry products to the market for brands like Beldray, Salter and Progress since 1997 to kick things off. Their eBay journey began in 2009 with a focus on selling items that were intended for wholesale due to damaged packaging. Early eBay marketplace and advertising success sparked what is now an impressive multi-channel eCommerce business. Here’s more about their journey with “the sleeping giant.”

What is a fun fact you can share with us before we really dig in? What is something about one of your brands very few people know?

Of course. Here is a fun fact about one of our highest performing brands on eBay – Beldray! Beldray invented the first ever adjustable ironing board.

Why did your brand start selling on eBay? What attracted you to the marketplace?

eBay was known, and is still known, as a marketplace to sell second hand goods in addition to new items. We saw eBay as another means to sell products intended for wholesale because of damaged packaging. The strategy proved successful pretty early on and resulted in us expanding our eBay inventory to include new items (undamaged packaging). We also diversified our channel portfolio to include multiple marketplaces.

Fast Forward to 2020 and the start of the pandemic crisis where the online market was so important. We realized quickly how interested eBay customers were in buying our products and the potential growth we could generate for brands with more time and resource put into the marketplace – which we went ahead and did. We consider eBay a ‘sleeping giant’, an important marketplace to invest in.

What does growth mean to you selling on eBay?

Selling on eBay allows us to diversify our customer portfolio base, leading to further reach and brand awareness for our multiple owned brands. Our whole company ethos is creating and selling affordable products for every home and we believe that eBay is the perfect place to shop for these types of items.

When did you start leveraging eBay’s advertising solutions to promote your listings? Why? 

We began leveraging eBay advertising solutions after our sales uplift during the 2020 lockdown. We knew that increasing our listing visibility at a time where we were in a high traffic period was important and would give us an edge over our competition. We began promoting our listings with a general campaign strategy by putting all of our high value products on a fixed ad percentage. It wasn’t until July 2021 when the introduction of priority campaign strategy helped us have more control and extra visibility.

You’re pretty active with the general campaign strategy. Can you share a bit about your strategy? 

We have relied on the general strategy quite heavily to get our listings at the top of search. We have a tiered strategy and use a higher ad rate on products of higher value or we’re looking to push. The pay per sale model means we can avoid overspending. It is also an easy way to quickly promote products without having to research keywords to target. We have an extensive product offering. General campaigns are really valuable for saving time as it has a high payout for minimal effort.

You recently started promoting your listings with a priority campaign strategy. How does your strategy differ to that of your general campaigns if at all? 

We have more of a set criteria on what we’re pushing and how much money we put into priority  campaigns. We split our budget across our brands and change our spending strategy depending on how they perform. Since launching priority campaigns in June 2021 our overall catalog sales have seen an increase. In fact, in May 2022 we saw a 96.75% sales growth compared with May 2021 as a result of our priority campaigns and getting involved in whole catalogue coupons.¹

What has been the most valuable priority campaign tip shared with you?

We were encouraged by the eBay Ads team to create individual campaigns for different product types, this has helped us be more specific with keyword targeting as well as being able to track what is performing well. We do wish the tip had been shared just a bit earlier to avoid us having to go back and amend campaigns. 

What eBay advertising information, resources and partnerships have been most useful to the team? Why?

We’ve been leveraging ChannelAdvisor to help list on eBay which is really helpful given the amount of brands and inventory we have. ChannelAdvisor also introduced us to the priority strategy quite early, giving us the opportunity to test and learn before there was a lot of demand. The Seller Center FAQs are also a great resource for us. We find a lot of value in reading about the experiences of other sellers’ when we have a question . We also utilize our advertising successes experienced on other marketplaces to inform our eBay strategy. Through use of search term data we are able to more successfully target our customers across marketplaces. The search query keyword report eBay offers adds to this knowledge to allow us to tailor our priority campaigns to be more financially effective.

Overall, how are eBay’s advertising solutions helping you grow your business on eBay?

Our share of voice has definitely increased which aids in brand recognition for our portfolio of brands. Advertising also helps us stay competitive. Our success in promoting our listings has led us to trialing Display Advertising for our Salter brand the first time. 

So much of their story resonated with us. We agree that a diversified portfolio is key to extending reach and activating the advertising portfolio in different ways can help successfully achieve different business goals. Their commitment to the marketplace is what stuck with us most. They recognized the unique audience, marketplace potential and made adjustments to resourcing and time invested which has proven successful. We’re honored to be a part of their eBay story and look forward to their continued growth.

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*This success story has been updated to reflect the product name changes.