Selling on eBay – Installment #2

So, you’ve got your eBay Seller Account and your PayPal all set up and verified? What’s the next step in Selling on eBay?

Go to eBay, sign in, and look at the navigation bar at the top right of the page. Click on Sell.
Now, here is a box where you can type a few descriptive words to let eBay help you find the correct category to list your item in. However, I suggest looking below that box and clicking on Browse for Categories. The reason for this is you usually end up with a more precise category which means more people find your item, which of course means a higher selling price! Also, it’s good to get used to the categories available and looking through them each time you list an item is a good way to get familiar with them.

Let’s say we’re selling a Men’s shirt. long sleeved, button down, size L.
We’d click on Clothing, Shoes, & Accessories>
Men’s Clothing>
Shirts>
Dress
Click the blue Continue button.

You will probably be prompted to choose a second category to list your item in. Unless you’ve got something that doesn’t really fit into a certain category, and you thing you’d be better off listing it in two different ones, skip this step. It costs you more money and really, where else would you list a men’s shirt?

The next step is creating a Title. Here’s a little secret: in as few words as possible list the size, color, sleeve length, gender, and brand. Then put USED or NEW at the end. Do NOT put things like Excellent Condition, Like New, Beautiful, Barely Used, etc. People are not going to search for “Excellent Condition” or “Barely Used,” they are going to search for “Men’s Long Sleeve Blue L.” Using “Like New” is against eBay policy. When people are specifically searching for a NEW shirt, your “Like New” shirt will come up. While you might think it’s great and an opportunity to make a sale you may not have made, the customer is not going to like it. He/She is already going to get hundreds of search results for NEW without everyone’s Like New items in there as well.

I don’t normally bother with the Subtitle. It’s an extra 50 cents and unless I’m selling a high ticket item it’s not worth it.

Next you’ll be able to pick from some preset color, size, and condition menus. Even if you listed those in your title it’s a good idea to go ahead and use these. That way if a person isn’t shopping using the Search, but rather by going through the categories, your item will show up when they go to
Men’s Clothing>
Shirts>
Dress
And then thy specify the size, color, etc they are looking for.

Pictures. Let me just stop to say that if you don’t have a Flickr account this would be the time to set one up. There you can host your images for free. I’ve tried a lot of different free image hosting, and Flickr is by far the best for eBay listing. That said, eBay will host one image for free. However, if you host your own images (on Flickr!!) you can have up to 6 images in your listing without any extra cost!
Hit the Add Pictures button. A pop-up should appear. In the top left corner are two tabs. Click on Self Hosting. In the top field paste the link to your photo location. This will be the picture that shows up first in your listing. It’s also the only picture that will show enlarged at the bottom of your listing, so make sure it’s the best picture of your item! Next check the box that says Picture Show. Here you can link to other photos of your item. These will show up in a little player (like a slide show) in the top left of your listing. The customer will not be able to enlarge these images, but will be grateful that you have more than one picture of the item.
I highly suggest checking the Gallery Picture box. While it cost you an additional 35 cents I’ve found it to be more than worth the price! When someone is shopping for an item and has a list of 50-1,000 items (or more) in front of them they are likely to only look at the listings that have a preview picture next to the listing.

Next time we’ll talk about wording and formatting for the Description part… Till then, feel free to try it out on your own. Research the item you’re selling. See how other people are listing/describing the item. Are they getting a lot of bids?