What’s the best way to get started with your datafeed marketing? Have a datafeed party! What’s a datafeed party? As first reported in eBay Motors, a datafeed party does not refer to a party with vodka on the rocks, Sushi snacks, and square-dancing music. It refers to the process of sitting down and researching how many places you can send data feeds to sell in new marketplaces. So, have yourself a datafeed party and see how many new marketplaces you can find to sell your [items] with little additional effort.

Since writing that for the Motors book, I have softened my hard-core position a little. Yes, it’s OK to drink vodka and eat Sushi snacks during your datafeed party. But you get the point. Sit down and do some research on the Web to find some new marketplaces that you can use cost-effectively to increase your sales.

Used Cars

The used-car sales firms have utilized datafeeds very effectively to get their vehicles into multiple marketplaces (retail websites) on the Web. In fact, they are the leaders in using this new technique of datafeed marketing .

Procedure

When holding your datafeed party, here are some steps you need to take:

1.   Identify datafeed opportunities by researching on the Web.

2.   Determine the relevancy of the target website to what you are selling. For instance, if you sell perfume, a website that features a product comparison directory for scuba diving products may not be the best place for your merchandise, even if the datafeed is free.

3.   Determine the market significance. Does the target website get substantial traffic?

4.   Decide whether the marketplace a fit. The target website may be relevant with substantial traffic but still be a place where you don’t want to sell your products for one reason or another.

5.   Determine set-up costs. Does your auction management service provide a datafeed to the target website, or will you have to arrange special programming?

6.   Determine operational costs, including listing or click-through fees charged by the target website.

7.   Identify what data you need to provide. Do you need to provide special data that you don’t yet have in your database?

8.   Figure out how will you will handle transactions. Do you have to do something special, or will your current capability (e.g., software) handle sales efficiently?

9.   Review the cost-effectiveness of using the target website for selling your products.

Today there are many opportunities. Tomorrow there will be more. To operate cost-effectively, you will to be selective.

Why a Party?

Why make this research a one-time project? You will find doing this research in one sitting to be the most efficient. One link leads to another, and you can get a lot done in a morning or a day or a weekend. Doing it piecemeal is more difficult and tedious. However, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that once you’re done, you don’t have to do anything else. Periodically, you need to update your research to discover the new opportunities that inevitably appear.

Benefits and Burdens

What are the benefits and burdens of getting your products out into the general ecommerce marketplace (i.e., outside of eBay)?

• Potential to expand your sales cost-effectively • Sell in a catalog format, not an auction format • Sell in marketplace perhaps with less competition • Sell in less complicated marketplaces (e.g., no non-paying-buyers and other complications)

• Tap into new markets with different types of consumers than the eBay market are also burdens to expanding sales into other marketplaces:

• Takes extra time to work other marketplaces even with the use of datafeeds available in auction management services

• Many datafeed marketplaces charge fees

• Different marketplace may have different transaction procedures requiring additional programming and supervision

• Makes invntory management more complex

Datafeed marketing presents a tremendous new opportunity for you. It’s well worth doing. But you have to be intelligent in how you do it so as to minimize expenses and optimize profits.

Cost-Effectiveness Review

What does cost-effectiveness mean in regard to datafeeds? Well, there are only a few things to consider:

How much of your time will it take do the datafeed effectively?  It could be as simple as clicking on a button in your auction management service. It could be as complex as setting up a datafeed procedure.

How much will it cost? Can you do do the datafeed yourself in a short time, or will you need to hire someone to set it up for you? How much money does it cost, if anything, to place your products on the target website?

What will it take to handle orders from other marketplaces? Can you do it with the software you are already using, or will it require something additional?

The datafeed itself is a software problem. It should be easy and inexpensive to conquer. Moreover, your auction management service should make datafeeds easy. If not, it may be time to move on to a more useful service.

The money question is straightforward. Is the datafeed presentation worth the fees charged? Like all advertising, only experimentation will tell. If the target website is free, the money cost is zero; although you will still want to look at the relevancy and traffic count.

Assuming the datafeed is easy, the target website has high traffic and is relevant, and the product listings are free (e.g., Froogle), a datafeed to a new marketplace can be one of the most cost-effective means of Web marketing. This is exciting not only because it is potentially quite inexpensive but also because it is new (i.e., undiscovered). This is a good place to focus your efforts to build your eBay traffic.