Welcome back! I hope that you found some of the info and links in part 1 interesting. Now we are going to talk about selecting the type of listing and some basic design ideas. If you only have single items to sell and are sourcing your items from home or local markets, I suggest you use either the "fixed price" format or the "auction" format as you really don't need to set up a store just yet. Stores are great because of the reduced listing prices and longer duration of the listing but they don't show up on the regular searches unless there are something like 10 or less auctions for that item. Auction and fixed price listing are almost exactly the same except in an auction, people place bids while fixed price lets people buy now without waiting for the auction to end. Auctions can have a "buy it now" option added but it will cost extra money so a lot of people don't like using that feature. eBay offers many listing upgrades that can help promote and sell your item but most just add fees to your listing cost and should be used sparingly. I suggest two options for EVERY listing and they are, pictures and gallery. Having a picture to show your item atracts attention and displaying it with the gallery option puts it on the search page so people get an idea of what your item is before they click on your listing. This attracts buyers that are interested in your item and not "window shoppers" that click just to see what the item is. I suggest that you review the fee list (link) before you decide what options to add to your listing so you know before hand how much these additional items cost. I suggest that you run your listing for 7 days to give more people a chance to view the listing even though you will find that most "hits" will come in the last couple of days of your listing. This happens because most people sort their search results by "items ending first" or "ending today" but it is always a good idea to have your listing out there for as long as possible.
Now we will touch on the design of your listing. I will save the fancy HTML and advanced listing ideas for a future edition. The two most important parts to each listing are :
- The title
- The description
The title is where you will not only capture the attention of the buyer so they click on your listing, it is also the one part of the listing the people search most. When people search for an item, eBay's search engine scans the headline only unless people click the option to search both title and description. I have found through tracking software I use that 90% or more of all the hits I get came from a title only search. Are you beginning to see how important it is yet? You only get a limited amount of space so fill it with keywords that people might type in to the search box and avoid the attempt to be cute by putting in funny symbols. Here are a few examples of what not to do.... "Great stuff!!!" "L@@K!!" or "Check this out!" Try to keep as many words related to the item as you can, like... "Pearl Harbor DVD Ben Affleck new in box" This title will be displayed with a search on any of the words in the listing. You can find some popular search terms at Auction Keywords. (link) In the description portion of the listing you will not only give details of the item and its condition, you should also use this area to try and "sell" your item. "Selling" your item is done by trying to convince the buyer that your item is something that the can't live without and that you are the only buyer that they should buy from. This is done by giving examples of how and when the item should be used, the improvement that it might have made in your life, the attractiveness of your home with this item in it..... The list goes on and on. The most important part of this process is to always show an interest in each and every item you are selling and make it sound interesting to your shoppers. I will give more examples in a future marketing edition that I am working on.
Well, its about time to close for now, I wanted to add a couple of links to give you some ideas on HTML programming for the details portion of your listing. These should help you understand the basics of page design and the language that powers it. You don't need anything fancy to sell on eBay but every little trick helps. Try some of these and let me know how they work for you.
This last link is for watching auctions, looking for good keywords to put in your title, and much more. This is a good tool to see what is hot at the moment and find out prices for the items you want to list.
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