Listing on eBay

Get Starting and List Your Items

Listing on eBay.

There are a few different ways to list items for sale on eBay.

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Listing

You can go to the website and follow their sell your item link to list each item individually or you can download their free program TurboLister to speed up the process and make the auctions look pretty.

Alternately, you can invest in another auction listing type software that does this as well.

I personally like TurboLister. It's free and easy to use for listing on eBay.



Whichever way you choose to list your items, the listing on eBay process is painless, and becomes less time consuming the more you do it.

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Photos

There will be a place to insert a photo of your item, and for an additional fee, you will be given the option to include a Gallery Photo of your item in the search menu.

Basically, this means that a prospective buyer can see a mini picture of your item while he is searching the various listings for what he wants.

I would highly suggest spending the few cents more to do this, on each and every one of your items. It will boost your sales.

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Research

Before you start the process of listing your item, however, you will need to do a little research to see what your item is worth before listing on eBay.

eBay makes this really easy for you.

If you click on the Advanced Search option under the search box in the upper right hand corner of the eBay home page, you will have the option of checking for closed listings.

This is important because you will be able to see what similar or identical items like yours have sold for in the last month.

On this page, you will look for your item, as though you were a buyer.

For instance, if you have an American Girl horse, you would type that into the search bar, click the box that says completed listings only, and hit Search.

Then you will see all of the American Girl horses listed in the last month.

Some of these may have sold at high amounts, some maybe low, and others may not have sold at all. You will be able to see each one of them.

This research provides you with several valuable things: it tells you what category to list your item in, what price you should start your item at, and what your title should look like.

You will want to look at these completed listings. Learn from their successes and failures.

• --Why did one item have no bids?
• --Was the shipping too high?
• --Did the seller have bad feedback?
• --Did they list the item in the wrong area?
• --Why did one item sell for so much more than the others?
• --Did they have a very low starting amount?

Generally, you will want to place your item in the same category as the higher selling ones.

Your starting price should be similar to their starting price as well.



Notice, I said that it should be similar to their starting price, not their ending price.

If, when listing on eBay, you immediately ask for the higher ending price when listing an auction, buyers may not attempt to bid on your item, choosing instead to bid on someone else's identical item.

That other seller might actually get more for their item than you were asking, because once a buyer bids on an item, and they really want it, they will typically bid again if needed.

The only time you should start your auction at a higher end price is if you are selling it as a fixed price item, and not as an auction.

You also want to look at successful titles.

In this example, for listing on ebay, "American Girl horse" can be worked with.

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The Auction Title

The most important part of an auction is its title.

You will want to take full advantage of every space allowed for your item's title.

While doing your research, you may find that the name of the horse you have is "Penny". You would want to include that in your title.

You may also find that items with the word "Felicity" in the title do even better, since that is the name of the doll the horse belongs to.

So your title would want to have all of these elements in it, maybe an appropriate title might be:

"American Girl FELICITY horse PENNY like new!"

Notice how I varied the all capital letters and the regular type? I did this so that key words would jump out at the buyer.

If you type in all caps or all regular type, no words will jump out. Your title does not have to make grammatical sense, you can throw in extra words, or say "like American Girl" if you have a generic product that is similar.

Your main goal with the title is to use as many keywords as possible to lead the buyer to your auction.

Next, you will need to give an accurate description of your item in the item description box. Make sure that you put down the sizes, colors, and any distinguishing features of the item, including its condition.

You may need to measure it with a measuring tape and list its dimensions.

It is very important at this stage that you do not type your description in all capital letters. It is very unprofessional and distracting to a buyer.

And, make sure to use proper spelling and grammar. It is a big turn off to a buyer to have to weed through a difficult description.

Make sure, while listing on eBay, that you put in facts, and describe what you are selling accurately.

Your auction listing description is a binding contract between you and your buyer. If you inaccurately describe your item here, the buyer can ask for his money back.

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The following links will show you more about listing and selling items on eBay. Each link has more detailed information about each specific subject than what was listed here. Enjoy!

Getting Started on eBay

What to Sell on eBay

Shipping eBay Items

All About Feedback

Advanced eBay Users

Other Auction Sites

eBay Affiliate Program

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