Use Vzaar in eBay Listings
We all know about YouTube for video, and while that can be used to host a video in an eBay listing, there are other better alternatives. One such alternative is called Vzaar (not sure how you pronounce that one) and you can find it at www.vzaar.com
Vzaar has been specifically designed for eBay sellers, and it has some really cool design features.
Firstly, there’s a ‘BID NOW’ button above the video in the top left of the frame, to make it easy for someone to place a bid as soon as they’ve watched your video.
Secondly, your username also appears in the top bar, above the video, reminding the buyer who you are. The more times they see that information, the more comfortable they’ll become bidding and buying.
Thirdly, your feedback is also displayed. As long as you have good feedback, this is a definite plus. If your feedback is very low (below 20) then you should get that up as fast as possible by buying some inexpensive items and inviting the seller to give you positive feedback – just make sure you buy the items from DIFFERENT sellers because you only get ONE feedback point per seller. In other words, if you bought 10 items from one seller, you won’t get 10 feedback points, just one.
The basic version of Vzaar is free, and the quality of the video is superior to YouTube.
Don’t forget, it’s also sensible to create a video for your ‘About Me’ page. Include comments about why buyers can have
confidence buying from you, details of your website URL so they can go directly there to take a look at other products or services, as well as general reassurance about why customers should feel happy spending money with you.
Don’t underestimate the power of that kind of video. It’s been proven that sellers who have a personal video on their about me page convert many more sales compared to those that don’t.
With a tool like Vzaar, it’s incredibly easy to create this type of video. Plan out what you’re going to say by writing a script on a NotePad or Word document, rehearse it a few times so it sounds natural, and then, using your webcam, record the video into Vzaar. Don’t forget to check that the audio recorded. Most webcams have a built-in microphone but you can usually plug in another microphone if you have one, for higher quality.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. Video is the future of selling on eBay. It’s VERY persuasive because buyers are delighted when they can see the item is real.
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:34 am
Hello Andrew and thanks for the post. Very kind. If I may can I update you and your readers with a few changes to our service that your article doesn’t quite capture?
1. Our player, as Andrew correctly states, was built with eBayers in mind. We love eBay and its a great marketplace to be able to support. However, our player no longer has any BID or BUY or FEEDBACK features in it. Our users were telling us that they wanted to use the player on other websites (their own, blogs etc) and so it didn’t make sense to keep the eBay data in the player., as cool as it was. The good news is that our video adoption on eBay, since that decision was made in November 2008, has continued to grow so we don’t feel that we have harmed the product on the eBay side in any way.
2. An About Me style video is an excellent idea and one that a lot of sellers are turning to. If you run say 250 lines of product a video for each item may not, today, be practical. So why not consider a video that talks to many aspects of the way you trade. We have sellers who have driven down customer support questions by tackling them upfront in a video. We have one customer who displays how his items are packed and parceled in his videos. His feedback DSRs have improved 0.2% since. The video doesn’t necessarily have to be about the product!
3. The power of video is growing. It is certainly early days and a good time to be ahead of the curve, and your competition. Here are some data points some vzaar users are enjoying:
Diamond Jewellery United, based in Antwerp Belgium, saw their sales increase by 65% four months after implementing product videos.
Industry Recycles, who sell second hand industrial equipment and started using vzaar video over a year ago, saw an increase in sales over 12 months by over 307%
We hope that is of interest to you and your readers?
PS - Andrew, the vzaar link at the top isn’t linking through
Yesil, an online furniture website that ran a video on their homepage, saw a 50% increase in web traffic transferring to a rise of 30% in sales since the start of the year.