So, you’ve heard that selling on multiple marketplaces can upscale your business. We are so glad that you pulled yourself together and decided to test this theory.
Spoiler: it really works, but not for everyone. You can make it fly only when you know all the subtitles of the channel you’d like to reach and develop a smart selling strategy.
Already sounds complicated for you? Oh no, wait for a second. At first, read this quick guide and learn how to sell on eBay without any hassle.
Reasons Why Sell on eBay
Without any doubt, figures are the best arguments. So let’s start with some impressive facts about eBay first.
eBay holds the third position of the world’s top online marketplaces and takes second place on the list of the USA’s most popular shopping platforms. What’s more, there are more than 185 million active buyers as of the 4th quarter of 2020.
Let us stress the idea – 185,000,000 prospects you can reach (in addition to other channels) and seduce them to buy from you. Why are you still not there?
The most striking figures were revealed during the survey of online sellers carried in January 2021. eBay gained the highest score based on profitability, communication, customer service, and convenience of use. This marketplace has outperformed Amazon (fancy it ?), which appeared in seventh place.
But there are some other reasons for selling on eBay.
- Less work (building your own website is more labor-intensive and expensive than listings products on eBay. It’s becoming even easier when you’re using a listing software).
- Trust from customers (no matter what people say, eBay has established a solid reputation among online shoppers. eBay users are protected against scams and poor service, so they feel safer on eBay, even if you’re a new brand).
- Lower fees (raise your hand if DON’T want to earn more. Hah, we knew that, – your hand stays in its place. eBay listing fees are lower compared to other popular channels, so you have more space for increasing your profit margins).
- Different pricing schemes (as a seller, you have an option of setting a fixed or auction price. Fixed prices work great for products that are in bulk stock, and auctions will make a big difference if you are selling limited items that are in great demand).
- Attractive shipping costs (eBay offers some of the lowest shipping costs, which is a great advantage for those buyers who are not prone to wasting their money on shipping. The eBay Global Shipping Program makes it easy to market products internationally).
- Integration with eBay listing software (a listing management tool might enhance order management or will allow you to list new goods even faster by importing them from other marketplaces).
What Are the Essential Features in eBay Listing Software
Whether you’re looking for eBay tools that would enhance your productivity and improve sales, or are just considering this option and haven’t initiated the search process yet, here’s what SellerSkills will recommend.
Of course, there are many options out there. Some of them are great, others are just a waste of your time and money. So, we’re sharing the criteria we believe are critical for every eBay listing software.
In a few words, choose the eBay tool that would:
- Allow to create and manage eBay templates
- Provide an option to schedule listings
- Ensure you can set auto-list and re-listing profiles
- Enable bulk listing editing and uploading
- Feature a user-friendly interface
- Support pricing and stock level management
Among a myriad of eBay listing management tools, go for the options that address your business needs. Do you sell on your own, without a team of managers? Then the software with the basic features will be enough for you. But as your investments start to pay back and you feel like it’s time to expand your business, you should immediately switch to a more sophisticated eBay tool.
At SellerSkills, we appreciate your time. That is why we have compiled a list of the top 8 eBay tools that passed the test of time. It will include multi-channel software provided by third parties as well as the solutions that were developed exclusively for eBay.
What’s so Enticing in eBay Listing Fees?
You measure your eBay business success by the profit you gain, right? So, you’ve got to know how much eBay will charge in total to establish competitive and profit-making prices.
In brief, there are two main types of eBay listing fees: an insertion fee (when you create a listing or want to relist it) and a final fee (when you sell the product).
What? Do you need to pay an insertion fee for every single listing you add? No! Only when the number of listings you upload a month exceeds 200.
Once you sell the product, you’ve got to pay a certain percentage of the total amount of the sale, which includes the product price, shipping, or handling charges (find more information here).
If you want your listing to stand out, you’ve got to pay an extra fee for a listing upgrade. This is optional and you can add subtitles or bold font. The optional listing upgrades fees depend on the item’s price, the type of the updates, and duration.
Get ready to pay Additional final value fees if you violate eBay’s policy and sell outside of eBay, or don’t meet the performance expectations.
How to put ebay listings on vacation
- Go to the Change settings section of the Messages tab in My eBay, select Turn on under Vacation settings.
- In the text box, enter a short note informing your buyers that you’re away.
- Check the box beside Show people the date that you’ll be back, and enter your return date.
- To hide your fixed price listings, check the box beside Keep people from buying your fixed price listings while you’re on vacation.
- Lastly, you have the option to preview the message by clicking the “Preview” button at the very bottom
Lastly once you are back from vacation make sure to reopen your eBay Store by simply select Turn off under Vacation settings.
There are a couple caveats to know when you set your eBay store on vacation mode:
- eBay will continue to charge fees, such as your eBay Store subscription fee and listing-related fees while vacation settings are on.
- It does take several days for your listings to become hidden after you updated your eBay Store vacation setting.
- Once the vacation settings are “on”, they stay “on” until you turn them off.
- Once you turn your vacation settings “off”, it can take several days for your listings to appear in the search results.
Additional caveats to fixed price listings:
- When you hide your fixed price listings, buyers won’t see them in your eBay Store, search results, or cross-promotions. If a buyer added one of your items to their watch list and tries to purchase it while you’re away, they’ll see a note stating that you’re on vacation and not processing orders.
- All auction-style and other listings will continue to appear as they normally do.
- Buyers who have already purchased items will still be able to view them.
How to Cancel eBay Listing
A lot of misunderstanding appears when a seller wants to cancel eBay listing. In fact, you can instantly delete some listings, while others can be ended only in certain situations.
How to remove eBay listing with a fixed price? That’s the simplest one! As a seller on eBay, end listing at any time. Just go to your Seller Hub account, navigate to Activate Listings, hit the checkbox near the product you would like to delete, and then pick End Item from the dropdown menu.
All the fun begins when you have to cancel an auction listing. You can end this listing type only in certain situations. Intrigued? We will explain how to delete eBay listing with an auction price in a second.
At first, let’s see when you can end your auction eBay listings earlier:
- If the item gets lost, damaged, or is no longer available.
- If you made a mistake when listing a product, like the starting price.
- If there are no bids on the item.
- If there are some bids and you are willing to sell it for the highest current bid.
- If you don’t want to sell the product to the highest bidder and only 12 hours are left till the end of the auction.
What shall you do if your item doesn’t meet these criteria? Here are some of the tips on how to remove a listing from eBay. Contact bidders and ask them to retract their bides so you could end the auction listing early. If the auction comes to an end, reach the winner and arrange the transaction cancelation.
Formatting the eBay Product Description with HTML
You probably know that all product descriptions on eBay are formatted with HTML. If you already have at least a basic HTML background, uploading a description won’t be an issue. But if this abbreviation sounds like complete abracadabra to you, don’t worry. Things are not that complicated.
So, how to listing on eBay with HTML? Use the basic HTML elements, – special formatting keywords enclosed in pointy brackets (called tags). You put the text between the tags to get the desired formatting style.
Every tag contains two parts:
- A start tag: <p>
- An end tag (which should be placed at the end of the formatted piece of text and has a slash before the keyword)</p>
Key Tags for eBay Listing Formatting
If you are using multiple tags, keep in mind that your first opened tags should be closed last.
eBay Fast Listing Publish with SellerSkills eBay Listing Software
Once you decide to jump into the eBay selling platforms as the first selling channel or an additional source of income, how do you optimize the process of selling on eBay?
With SellerSkills, a multi-channel management software, it’s easier than ever. Sync your Amazon, Shopify, Walmart, and eBay accounts and manage them from a single dashboard.
How to add and manage eBay listings with SellerSkills? Pfff, that’s a cushy job! If you already sell on Amazon or Shopify, there’s no need to go through the HTML-creating process for eBay product descriptions and uploading all the files. You can import existing listings with the previously uploaded data right to your eBay account in seconds. You will also be able to make bulk listing changes all over the marketplaces at once.
SellerSkills will make managing your eBay inventory a breeze. If you’re tired of manually updating the product quantity on all the marketplaces when new products arrive, SellerSkills will take care of this. Just set new product quantities once, and the information on all the integrated channels will be automatically synced. By the way, you’ll forget about manually decreasing the quantity of remaining goods after every order as well. SellerSkills has developed a smart algorithm that decreases the item quantity after the order is submitted.
You can also buy labels, print packing slips, and arrange multi-channel order shipments from the SellerSkills centralized panel. Forget about millions of open tabs that slow down your computer. You’ve got everything you need to handle orders from eBay, Amazon, Shopify, and Walmart right here, in one app.
SellerSkills team is wishing you good luck in conquering a new marketplace. If you have any questions or issues, we are always here to help you out.