As someone with “Top Rated” status, over 1,500 positive feedback (at 100%), and over 1,000 items listed for sale, I’m writing this article to share my favorite eBay tips, tricks, and best selling practices. If you follow these guidelines, I’m confident you will increase profits and succeed as an eBay seller.

For my companion article for buying on eBay, visit: “5 Things Every eBay Buyer Should Know!“

1) Upload Great Images!

The first thing people see when they search for an item on eBay is the image. It’s staggering how many sellers still use low quality & unclear pictures in their listings, when it’s so easy to take great photos that help to sell items exponentially faster. You don’t need a fancy digital camera. Nowadays, most smart phones come equipped with excellent cameras.

BE SURE TO TAKE CLEAR IMAGES & CROP THE EDGES AS MUCH AS YOU CAN!

Secondly, unless you’re selling an unusually large or weird shaped item, a few pieces of white poster board from your local CVS or craft store are the perfect surface for taking pics. As long as the room has a fairly bright ceiling light or lots of natural sunlight coming in, you can just lay the paper(s) on the floor and take the pics from above. You can also use your camera’s options to adjust the brightness if needed, and be sure to crop the image as much as possible! I can’t tell you how many listings I’ve immediately dismissed because the seller left his big, hairy, bare feet showing in the bottom of the image and it grossed me out! ?

2) Fill Your Title With Keywords.

The titles of your listings can be up to 80 characters long.  While you shouldn’t spam your title with extra keywords unrelated to your item, you should fill the 80 characters with as many relevant words as you can. I often see sellers make the mistake of leaving wasted space in their titles. If a potential buyer searches eBay using a descriptive word that this seller left out, their listing will not be shown, and another seller (who included the word in their title) will likely get the sale.

THIS TITLE USES ALL AVAILABLE SPACE & HAS LOTS OF KEYWORDS!

For example, someone selling a tee-shirt of “The Vulture” character from the new Spider-Man movie might title their listing as: “The Vulture Tee Shirt, Size XL”.

Whereas I would use the title “NEW! Marvel Comics Spider-Man: Homecoming Movie Shirt (feat. Vulture) – Men’s XL”.

My title uses all 80 characters and includes only relevant info. I added the “Marvel Comics” brand, the full name of the actual movie, and noted that it’s a men’s shirt. These extra keywords may get me a buyer that was searching for Spider-Man: Homecoming items, but not necessarily the Vulture. Still, they may love the design once they see it, and if your price is just right and you have a good description/images they may just buy it!

3) Keep your descriptions short & sweet.

A simple, two paragraph description that sounds honest, and like it was written by a real person will sell an item faster than a long-winded page in a fancy template that looks like it was made by a retail store.

Buyers on eBay know they are often shopping from private collectors and amateur sellers. By offering a short and accurate description of an item, as well as clear images, it may help make the sales process seem more personal and friendly to the buyer. Also, try not to re-use the same description for every item and just change the title and images. This makes the seller seem too lazy to write in specific details about the item and many buyers will simply move on to a different listing instead of messaging the seller and waiting for a response about the product.

4) Choose the right category & fill in the product details!

Be sure to list your item in the category that is most relevant to your product. If your item is in the wrong category or sub-category, buyers may not see it when they search!

For example, you can list a new Star Wars toy under the category “Toys & Hobbies–>Action Figures–>TV, Movie & Character Toys”. Or, you can be more specific and list it under “Collectibles–>Science Fiction & Horror–>Star Wars–>VIII: The Last Jedi”. This helps people searching for only Last Jedi figures find your listing faster.

Also, be sure to fill in as many item details as possible, especially when selling apparel & accessories. Many people will use filters when looking for items, so if they filter out only “XL” sized shirts and your sizes field in blank, they won’t see your item when searching!

5) Try To Price Competitively.

If you’re dealing with a very rare or high priced item, you may be able to charge more than usual and get away with it, but more often there will be other people selling the same item, and their listing prices may vary greatly. In this case, if you’re trying to sell your item quickly, try to price it just below the cheapest or average price.

It’s good practice to research your competition, and be sure to look at completed (sold) listings and see what people are actually paying for an item. For example, I often see a collectible that has only few available listings for sale around $100, but the completed items have lots of listings that sold for $50 or less!

This is because the item may have a certain retail price that owners expect to always be its minimum value, but as we all know, the market (via supply and/or demand) dictates the price of most items. In this case, the average person is not willing to pay more than $50 for this item. So, you can list it for $100 and hope to sell it eventually, or list it for $40-60 and maybe sell it in a day or two!

If you have any questions about buying or selling on eBay, please feel free to contact us or comment below. Thanks for reading!

Despite having about 169 million users worldwide as of 2017, I still constantly meet people that don’t know or trust eBay enough to use it! I’ve been using eBay literally since their inception, as a buyer and a seller, and I’ve encountered pretty much every issue that can arise.

As someone with Top Rated status, over 1,500 positive feedback at 100%, and over 1,000 items listed for sale, I feel confident in my ability to help others use eBay more effectively. I’m writing this guide to buying on eBay so that people can better understand how awesome and fun buying from eBay can be if you just follow a few helpful tips!

1) Buy-It-Now VS. Auction Style

“BIN” (Buy It Now):

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Auctions:

Traditional style auction where a single item is listed for 3-10 days and will automatically end when the timer hits zero, even if it has no bids. Any number of buyers can place bids at any time, and the price will incrementally increase depending on what each person bids.

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Which Should I Choose?

2) Be Patient And Find The Best Deals

If you’re not in a huge rush to buy your item(s), you can often get some amazing deals if you know how to look for them and wait for the best listings. Here’s a few things you can do:

Watch:

Use the “Watch” button to save a listing and see if the seller lowers the price with a sale. You’ll also receive random e-mails letting you know that an item you’ve been watching has been re-listed or lowered in price!

Follow Seller:

Use the “Follow Seller” button to get notifications whenever one of your favorite sellers lists new items.

Save Search:

Use the “Save Search” feature to follow a search word or phrase and get notified when we a new item is listed that matches your criteria. This way you can be one of the first people to have a chance to grab a new item that’s listed at a good price. (This is my favorite way to find new listings for rare, or expensive items I’ve been trying to buy for a long time!)

Search for your item without too many filters if you don’t quickly find it at a good price. For example, I may look for an item in all styles of listings in all categories if it seems hard to track down. Someone may list a rare Super Mario Bros. shirt under the “Video Game Collectibles” category, which I won’t see if I have only items in the “Men’s Clothing” category showing.

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3) Pay attention to shipping dates and locations.

Although I’ve had many great experiences buying from other countries, one mistake many people unwittingly make is accidentally ordering items from overseas (usually China) without realizing it, and get upset when the item takes 3-4 weeks to arrives and/or turns out to be a cheaper version or knock-off of the item. You should pay attention to the part of the listing that states how long the handling and shipping times are, and the location where it’s shipping from. If you’re in a hurry to get an item fast, you can filter your search to only include items that ship from within the country you live in, and look for items with 1-2 day handling and priority shipping options.

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Often times the same item will be available for a fraction of the usual price, and it’s tempting to impulse buy it, but be sure to check that it’s not being shipped from Asia. This goes especially for clothing and toys, because these are common items that are re-printed or unofficially reproduced in China, and the size and quality of the items usually suffer to keep costs down for them.

4) Buy from a trusted seller

While there’s always going to be some bad seeds out there selling low quality items, making mistakes or ignoring messages, it’s pretty easy to spot the good sellers from the bad ones. Here’s a few points to consider:

Feedback Ratings:

Feedback ratings. Every eBay user has a feedback rating, and sellers especially have detailed info that you can scrutinize to help decide if they are worth buying from. Check and see how many stars they have on average for their customer service rating, and read a bunch of their feedback comments to see what other buyers have said about the seller. Be sure to filter them “as seller” so you only see the feedback they received for selling items. ?

Negative Feedback:

Don’t assume negative feedback makes a bad seller! Ebay in many ways is a numbers game. The more items a seller lists, the more items they’ll sell and the more chances buyers have to leave feedback. Just like with any major retailer, honest mistakes happen sometimes. A item may be damaged or lost in shipping, shipped late due to bad weather or holidays, or the seller may just accident overlook something when describing the item in their listing. While there are instances where a seller is truly unprofessional or unresponsive and deserves a negative feedback, often times buyers are hasty to leave feedback before even contacting the seller and giving them a chance to explain or correct the issue.

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I’ve even seen many times a negative feedback for a seller but the actual feedback comment is totally positive! They just happened to accidentally check off “negative” or “neutral” instead of “positive”. Usually sellers are happy to address concerns and will work with you to fix any issue, especially to keep their ratings in good standing. If a seller has a few negative feedback, but has exponentially more positives and/or sells thousands of items and their rating is still above 98% or so, I would still consider them a good seller and worth buying from!

5) Take advantage of “eBay bucks” & promotions

Just like other major retailers, eBay tries to come up with fun ways to make your buying experience better!

After a quick and free sign up here, you’ll be able to earn eBay bucks with most purchases. You’ll earn a percentage of each qualifying purchase to your ebay bucks account, and at the end of each calendar quarter you’ll receive a digital gift certificate that you can use for any items on eBay.

In addition, ebay will send you notifications alerting you to eBay bucks promotions that give you up to 8x more ebay bucks for many items! If you use eBay as much as I do, it’s nice to once in a while get a credit that helps me justify buying something fun or expensive I was holding out for.

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If you have any questions about buying or selling on eBay, please feel free to contact us or comment below. Also check back in our blog soon for part 2 with my top tips for selling on eBay!