Description The third most important component, your description, MUST incorporate AIDA: ? Attention ? Interest ? Desire ? Action Firstly we need an ATTENTION grabbing headline: ‘Once in a lifetime opportunity to obtain this rare and sought after print!’ This is a little over the top but you get the idea. Next we must generate [...]
Picture Your picture is the second most important component of your listing, a good quality picture will sell your item. If you use eBay’s picture service you will pay an additional fee for each picture after the first. I recommend Auctiva.com as they offer several features to help you create a professional auction listing including [...]
Payment Method Include as many different payment methods as possible (eBay rules prohibit cash) one of which MUST be PayPal. I regularly see eBay sellers refusing to take PayPal because of the fees, these sellers are severely reducing their final values by doing so as most eBayers expect to pay with PayPal and will ignore [...]
Price I have tested starting prices extensively and my conclusions are that £9.99 is the optimum start price for my own particular niche. (obviously your starting price will depend on the type of products you sell, but the following general principles will still apply). Starting at 1p or 99p does bring in more bidders but [...]
Auction Term My extensive testing confirms that 7 days is the optimum auction term. Anything less reduces the number of potential buyers who see your listing and 10 days I find doesn’t improve final values. The important thing is that your term covers a weekend and that your item doesn’t end during the day when last [...]
Encourage ‘newbies’ I see so many eBay sellers putting new eBayers off bidding with phrases such as ‘new ebayers must email me BEFORE bidding’ or ‘contact me if your feedback is less than 10’ This is counter productive and unnecessary. TIP: There is space in the ‘item location’ field which you can use to encourage [...]
Title The most important component of your listing is the title as it contains the words that your potential buyers are searching for. If your title does not contain the right keywords or misspelled keywords your item will not appear in your buyers search results. Subtitles are a waste of money, as the eBay search [...]
Category Your item must be listed in the correct category as many ebayers search through categories as opposed to searching for a specific item. The easiest way to identify the correct category is to search for items similar to your own and list yours in the same category. You can list in more than 1 [...]
Following on from my recommendation of Terry Gibbs The Auction Revolution, Terry has also written 2 FREE eBay guides which cover the basics of buying and selling including 13 ways to find hidden items on eBay (items that can be bought cheaply and resold for a quick profit). You can download these guides for free by clicking [...]
My early eBay selling experience involved a huge amount of trial and error to establish the best way of listing my items. How do I choose the right category for my item? How do I construct a compelling title? What should my starting price be? Should I use a 7 or 10 day auction? What information should [...]
