When you are ready to submit your listing to eBay, decide what format you want to sell in, auction-style or at a fixed price with Buy It Now. To offer the Buy It Now function you will need feedback of at least 10 in order to list it.
Write a descriptive title using all relevant keywords. Imagine you are the buyer – what information would they type in to find your item? Your description needs to provide buyers with all the information they need.
Include information such as brand, age, condition etc and be honest – don’t withhold information that may be an issue later. Decide the duration of your listing. You can list items from 1, 3, 5, 7, 10 or 30 days. Many sellers list items for 7 days and include a weekend to capture weekend shoppers.
A picture tells a thousand words so always include a picture of your item. Buyers like to see what they are buying. Using eBay’s Gallery feature will ensure your listings stand out in a crowd.
Pricing
If you are using an auction-style format to sell, consider starting your item at a low price and without a reserve. If buyers believe they could be in for a bargain, it will encourage them to start bidding on your item and could lead to higher final sale price.
Payments
You choose how you would like to accept payment e.g. cheque, credit card, money order. Buyers want a safe and easy way to pay so consider accepting an online payment system such as PayPal. Paypal is free for buyers and will speed up the payment of your item.
Postage
Make sure you include all postage and packaging cost in the listing – buyers want to know exactly what they will be paying for your item. If you are willing to ship internationally, make sure you include all of the relevant international postage costs.
Your Listing Schedule
Do you always start and end your auctions at the best times? Always have auctions start and stop when traffic is the heaviest. If you make a listing schedule and stick to it then you’ll get much better results on your auctions.
Double-Check Your Title
Check to see that your item title has no spelling errors. Buyers mainly use the search engine to locate their item of interest. Search saves them lot of time and can pick up items placed in the wrong category. If my spelling is incorrect, the search function will not work. Therefore,I’ll have lost all buyers using the search function. This will kill my auction dead.The good news is, if you catch misspelling before the first bid, you can always go back and revise it.
Use A Spell Checker
With item descriptions, emails, titles and whatever else you write use a spell checker and grammar checker. Poor spelling and bad grammar will turn off some people. Even if it doesn’t matter to them, it still upsets the flow of your message and confuses the reader. We want to make a great impression and get our message across. Always check the desrciptions you write.
Watching Wording
Snipers don’t have the time to email you about condition or vague information. Some buyers only look at items going off auction that day. Be careful what words you use to describe your item. Be honest and avoid wording that will inflate your items value. It always backfires on those who make a habit of abusing words.
Know Your Product
If I wrongly describe my item, some buyers will be leery of bidding. Buyers want professional sellers. The more information you have and use, the more credible you’ll become in the buyers eyes.
Keep Your Auctions Going
EBay bidders usually wait until the last minute to bid. I wouldn’t let anyone persuade me to end early unless they made me an insane offer. If I do then I’ll miss having my auctions go through the “going, going, gone” and “ending today” listings categories that eBayer’s browse heavily.
Using The “Category Featured” Option
You’ll want your item listed on the first page of your selected category’s listings. Category featured listings are 66% more likely to sell. There is an additional cost for doing this. If you’re running dutch auctions then it’s definitely worth it. The amount of traffic you receive is much greater.
Avoid Misunderstanding
Before email, the only time a written letter was sent or received was when you were writing to a person you know well or a letter to complain. Emotion and character is easily misconstrued with email. Keeping in contact will solve most problems with the transaction.
Use The Bold Title Option
Make your item standout by listing it in bold. Items highlighted in bold are 50% more likely to sell. For some items it is a cost-effective alternative to featuring your auctions. Test what works for your particular item.
Conservative Pricing
When playing it safe, set the minimum price for your item just slightly lower than what you think it might be worth. This will encourage opening bids on the item. The first bid is always the hardest one to get. Don’t start too low, though, because the rules state that you are obligated to sell the item for that
amount if the minimum is met.
Know What You’re Selling
Before you put something up for auction, look to see if something similar is already selling. Know the market value of your item. It’s always wise to look in on the competition. If similar items are available, your starting bid should be competitive. If you’re not sure of the value of the item you wish to sell, then
you should do a little research. Having two similar items up for auction at the same time will just split the buyers and bring lower bids for both items. If your Grandmother just passed away and left you a collection of old Victorian coins, find out what they are before selling off your heritage on eBay. You could be sitting on a goldmine or a lump of coal, and ignorance could mean the difference between and a fortune.
Switch Your Categories
If your auction is under performing (with no bids) and you still have time, change categories. This is helpful when testing new and different categories. If an auction in a new category starts to fail just switch to your bread and butter category.
Write the Best Description You Can
If you find that many similar items have sold in the past, look for those which have sold for the most, and examine the item description and summary, to see what they did different to garner the higher bids.Then do the same. Try to avoid plagiarizing the exact item description,though. And be as detailed as possible. The more information you canprovide, the more interested the buyer is likely to be.
End Your Auction at Peak Times
Many people bid on items from their computers at work, so ending an auction at 2am in the morning isn’t wise. Bidders enter into bidding wars in the last minutes of an auction. This won’t happen if all the warriors are asleep when your auction closes.
Use Uppercase Letters in Your Item Titles
As you may notice above, another thing done in the title was to use capital letters. Most people enter their titles in upper and lower case letters. Anything you can do to get your item to stand out will get more people to notice your item.
Use Asterisks in Your Item Titles
There are a lot of items up for auction on eBay, and it’s easy for your item(s) to get lost in the thousands of others. Therefore, you must get your item to stand out and catch the eye of someone browsing an item listing. How? Use asterisks in the title. Here’s an example: ANCIENT_COINS! See how this catches the eye? This is so simple to do and yet so powerful.
Use Key Words in Titles
Since there are so many items on eBay, one of the most effective ways people find things is to SEARCH using the search engine in eBay. If you want people to find your item, then place key words, or “obvious” words in your titles. For example, if you’re selling a collectible model car, don’t just put the word CAR in your title, put the make and model, too. Put in as many keywords possible in the title, so the greatest number of searches will locate it someone could think of who are looking for items like yours.
Proofread Your EBAY Listings
Always make sure to proofread your listing before you post them for the first time, or have some else do so for you. You’ll be amazed at what a fresh pair of eyes will uncover. It’s very frustrating to catch a mistake after the auction has began and people have started bidding.
Don’t Start Auctions Too High
Whatever you do, don’t start your auctions out too high. EBay is not a good place to do this since bidders want a deal. It’s always better to start low and set a nice reserve if you absolutely must cover yourself. Starting too high kills the spirit of the auction process. People come to the auctions to compete for a bargain. If I price highly I won’t get the frequent early bids and won’t get the same following that I could when I price low. When you have many bidders on an auction, then irrational bidding isn’t far behind. This is something you want! Pricing highly undermines this.
You will also incur higher listing fees if you price high. You only pay the minimum in listing fees if you start anything below 99 cents or 99 pence or 99 euros etc. Do good research and get a good idea of your items market value. Generally similar items tend to sell within a fixed price range. Your goal is to hit the upper limits of that range. The people that drive prices up are either”irrational bidders” or they dont know the market value of a product they want, and exceed it in their bids without really knowing that they overpaid.
