2020 showed us that sellers need to go online fast and maintain their presence as the demand is only going to grow as e-commerce becomes the new modern salesperson. Remember that what is written in those two articles is the least you need to know to get started. There are many more details about the sales process on eBay, but the tips and guidelines above will allow you to focus first on the basics of successful trading on the platform.
4. Condition, price, shipping, returns
These are the main details that make the offering of your product unique, especially when you have bigger competition.
- Over 80% of products sold on eBay are brand new with each item condition meaning being different in a particular category. Accurately determining the condition of your product allows the buyer to know what to expect and is a prerequisite for a successful transaction.
- The fewer Handling Days that you offer, the fewer Estimated Delivery Days the buyer will see. It increases the chance of your listings getting a higher ranking in search results. But don’t reduce Handling Days if you cannot meet them.
- Offer options for shipping — more than 80% of customers look for products with free shipping. Offer at least one option for Expedited Shipping, at extra cost. Offer shipping discounts, additional relevant promotions clearly, and tracking information– this win customers’ trust and hearts.
- Specify your return policy – how many days, exchange for a different product, or refund and who is responsible for the shipping cost (seller or buyer).
FACT: even if the total cost is the same buyers are more likely to choose an item with free shipping over an item with a shipping charge.
5. eBay Listing Upgrades
These improvements offer your listings more exposure and should therefore increase your selling price. It’s worth paying extra if you sell items that look the same especially if you sell in a competitive market. We will share some of them with you in this post.
- Gallery Plus -$0.35 or $1 for Good Till Cancelled (GTC) listings. You get a larger version of your featured image which stands out in search results and attracts more buyers.
- Listing Designer – $0.10 or $0.30 for GTC listings. You get an attractive listing design that requires no HTML knowledge. It gives your listings a more professional feel, without the need of designing something yourself (choose from 100 themes by eBay).
- Subtitle – $0.50 or $1.50 for GTC listings. You get an extra line of text to showcase your items in the search results. And if fewer people are using the subtitle feature, that’s probably a good reason to try it if you have something useful to say. We would recommend adding keywords, important Item Characteristics, Item Condition as well as anything else that might be of interest to the buyer
- Value pack – $0.65 or $2 for GTC listings. You are getting all the above three Upgrades, all bundled for $0.65 (worth $1.05 separately).
- Bold – $2 or $4 for GTC listings. You are getting a bold type font in search results to make your listings stand out.
6. Mobile friendly
eBay ended 2020 with 185 million active buyers. On Cyber Monday 54% of visitors came from mobile devices and we can easily say more than half of all internet traffic shopping comes from a mobile device. eBay shows item descriptions differently when used on such a device.
- Font – use a black base font size of 16x pixels and stick to a max of 2 font sizes.
- Formatting – use a white background. Colorful inscriptions overload the listing and distract from its content.
- Item Description – it is displayed in a shortened form on mobile devices called a mobile description summary. This way buyers receive distorted or incomplete information, so we suggest using every form actively. Do not put in Description information about payments, shipping, and returns when they have special fields on the Sell Your Item form.
Always check your listings on your own mobile device to see how they appear and if there’s room for improvement.
We at E-Motive sell, optimize, and provide service in more than 15 countries across Europe, Asia, and the USA. Our full end-to-end marketplace services ensure you have everything essential to prepare your business for every requirement online marketplaces have.
If you have questions, interested in selling more or just want to have a chat with us, feel free to contact us.