You can sell almost anything on eBay, from home décor, home furnishing, bedding, diamond jewelry, fine jewelry, fashion jewelry, gemstones, auto parts, antiques, business and industrial products, mobile and accessories, collectibles, sporting goods, toys, clothing, shoes, accessories and watches. However, some categories require approval to sell, and some require a business account. Also, please review eBay’s individual market regulations and don’t sell products that are prohibited or restricted on eBay.
To get started, go to “Sell” at the top of the eBay home page, and then select “Start selling”. Choose a category for your listing by searching or browsing. The category is the area of the site where your listing will appear. Choose the most relevant category for your item. Here’s a quick introduction to the sections of the form you’ll need to fill out.
— Title: Be clear, complete and descriptive. Your title should include words buyers will search for when looking for your item. Ensure that you use about 60-80 characters and avoid unnecessary or duplicate words.
— Item condition: ensure that you select the correct item condition.
–Item specifics: Call out the various specifics of your product. If there are no specifics listed, then go ahead create your own.
— Pictures: Show off your item with vivid pictures. You should always use pictures of the actual item and never copy stock images from the Internet. Add at least 3 – 6 images, taken from different angles.
— Add variations: Instead of creating a number of separate listings for an item that has multiple options, you can create a single listing that includes all the variations you offer. By using multi-variation listings, you can show your buyers all the choices your product is available in for a single insertion fee.
— Selling format: You can create an auction-style or fixed price listing.
— Pricing and duration: Decide on the starting price or a fixed selling price. Choose how long you want your listing to run on the site.
— Payment and shipping: With eBay managing payments, you do not have to worry about how buyers will pay. Irrespective of how buyers pay, the payments will be received in your eBay account and then transferred via Payoneer to your bank account. Choose the countries you will be shipping to and decide the handling time for shipment. Select appropriate shipping options and specify the right shipping charges or choose to offer free shipping. Specify the correct item location.
— Review and submit your listing: There are several options that can help your item stand out, so choose the options that are right for you. You’ll also see a preview of your listing and a summary of the details including the listing fees. Check everything carefully. Once you’re ready to sell your item, submit your listing.
For most items, we recommend a price based on recently sold, similar items – the Terapeak Research Tool uses recent eBay supply, demand and pricing data to help you determine what to sell, when to sell it and at what price. However, how you price your item depends on how you want to sell it, either by auction or fixed price listing on eBay. For auctions, you need to start with the lowest price possible to attract buyers. For fixed-price listings, you can fix prices based on how much profit you want to make.
An effective title gives the buyer the most significant information about the listed item. Here are some tips to write an effective title:
When you’re selling to an international market, it is always important to do your research and understand the local buyer behaviour. Use keywords that buyers are likely to search for.
Your listing title should be 60 – 80 characters long. Be descriptive and include key details about your item, even if those details are also in your item description. You should also include the kind of search terms you think buyers might use when looking for your item.
Use correct spelling, avoid special characters and words that do not describe your item.
To improve your chances of making a sale, you should be accurate with your descriptions, precise in filling out all your item specifics and ensure you don’t leave anything out in your listings. This way, eBay will be able to recognise what you’re selling and display it to the right group of buyers. That’s how you get your customer’s attention. Here are few tips that you can consider:
List in the right format
List in the right category for your item
Write professional title which is 60-80 characters long and describes your item
Be as detailed as possible with the item specifics
List with the product catalogue where available
Add the product identifiers such as MPN/UPC/ISBN etc wherever applicable
Provide professional photos
Comply with eBay’s Business policies i.e. set an appropriate handling time, mention the correct item location, choose the appropriate shipping services and offer “Free Shipping” if possible
When you have many similar items that have different variations, such as color or size, you can create a single fixed price listing that includes all the variations you offer.
Here is how you can create variations for a new listing:
Click on “Create listing” on Seller Hub.
Select “Single listing” in the drop-down menu.
Search for the correct category for the items that you are going to list.
On the listing description page, enter all the details.
Click on the “Create variation” button.
If you don’t see the variation button, this is normally because of two reasons:
Listing with variations is not available in this particular category.
Variations only work with fixed-price listings. They do not work with auction-style listings. Scroll down the page and select “Fixed price” for the Format in the Selling details section.
After clicking on the “Create variation” button, you will see the variation page.
Add the attributes that you want to appear on your listing’s page and select options for each attribute according to your stock.
Review the variations to make sure your inventory matches exactly with the quantity selected for each variation. You can delete variations for which you don’t have inventory.
Add pictures (up to 12 for each variation).
Add quantities and price, which can be different for each variation of your item. However, please ensure that your shipping costs are the same.
If you have many similar items that have different variations you can list these under multiple variations. Remember that variations can only be applied under Fixed Price listings.
You can usually make changes to your eBay listings, but there are some restrictions depending on what you want to change and when. There’s no fee to revise a listing unless you add a special feature.
You can also revise single/multiple listings in Seller hub, here’s how:
Go to your “Manage active listings” in Seller Hub.
Check the box beside each listing you want to make a change to.
You can end an eBay fixed price listing at any time, but auction listings can only be ended early in certain situations. Here’s how you can end a listing in Seller Hub:
Go to the “Manage active listings” page in Seller Hub.
Select the checkbox next to the item you want to end.
If an item you list on eBay doesn’t sell, we can automatically relist it for you. You can also relist your item if the buyer didn’t pay, you had to cancel the order, or you had to end the listing early, but in these situations, you must do so manually. When an item is relisted, either automatically or manually, it can take a few hours before it appears on the site. To manually relist an item:
In Seller Hub, tick the box beside the listing on the “Manage unsold listings” page and select “Relist”.
Keep in mind that fees for any listing upgrades you’ve chosen will apply when an item is relisted manually.
Business policies are important because they let buyers know how they can pay you, how long it will take you to ship an item, the delivery services you offer (including shipping and packaging costs), and whether you accept returns.
You can create and manage policies from the business policies dashboard in the “Account” section of “My eBay”
You can enhance your listings to help make them stand out by adding certain features, such as a subtitle, or bold font. The fees for these optional listing upgrades vary depending on your item’s price, the listing format and duration.
“Domestic shipping” means shipping within the same region as the site on which you choose to list.
“International Shipping” means you are willing to ship the item internationally.
For example: Suppose you list your item on ebay.com (the US website), you may choose to offer “Free Shipping” under “Domestic Shipping” and under “International Shipping – Worldwide” you may charge USD 20.
This would mean that any buyer whose shipping address is within USA would be eligible for free shipping. Any buyer whose shipping address is outside USA would need to bear the shipping cost of USD $20 in addition to the item value.
You can choose to exclude specific shipping locations (i.e. regions, countries, PO boxes) from all your listings by using our Exclude shipping locations page. When you apply your shipping exclusions, we’ll block buyers whose primary shipping address is in a location you don’t ship to. You can change this setting in the “Buyer Management” section of your selling preferences.
After you create a listing, it should show up in eBay searches within 24 hours.
If your listing is active and more than 24 hours have passed since you completed it, check carefully for typos or errors that might make it unsearchable. Here are some quick checks you can do:
Make sure you didn’t misspell anything or run two words together in the item’s title
Look for any typos that have accidentally created profanity in your listing – eBay searches will block a listing if it spots profanity.
Remove any special characters (! @ / *) from the title
See if you’ve created a duplicate listing. If you have, you’ll find a note in the “Selling” section of My eBay or Seller Hub explaining that your listing won’t be available until you’ve received at least one bid on the identical active listing.
Promoted Listings puts your merchandise in front of more buyers when they’re actively searching and shopping on the eBay network, increasing item visibility and helping to improve the likelihood of a sale.
Promoted Listings are currently available to Above Standard and Top Rated eBay sellers with recent sales activity.
Sellers can promote fixed price listings for most categories except for Vehicles, Real Estate, Everything Else, and some Travel categories.
Auction and Auction Buy It Now listings are not eligible at this time.
When you create a Promoted Listings campaign, only listings that are eligible for the service will appear in your selection view.
You can access Promoted Listings from the Seller Hub, the Marketing tab in Seller Hub, the Active Listings page, My eBay, and through the advanced listing tool.
A Promoted Listings fee is charged based on the ad rate selected by the seller.
Ad rate is calculated as a percentage of the item’s final sale price (excluding shipping and taxes) and is only charged when a buyer clicks on the promoted listing and purchases the promoted item within 30 days of that click.
The Promoted Listing fee is based on the ad rate that was in effect when the promoted listing was last clicked.
The Promoted Listings fee is additional to the other eBay listing and selling fees.
All fees appear in your Payments tab or on your monthly eBay invoice, which sellers can download (see Selling Fee and Invoice FAQ)
No. The Promoted Listings ad fee is only charged when a buyer clicks on your promoted listing and purchases that same item within 30 days of that click.
Recommended listings are those with the highest potential to benefit from being promoted, due to the marketplace trends like buyer demand and the competition in the item’s category. eBay recommends that you can promote the Recommended listings first, although you can still promote any of your eligible listings for greater visibility.
Promoted Listings helps boost your items’ visibility by showing them in prominent places on eBay, including in search results and product detail pages and on the eBay network.
However, do remember that because you cannot edit the look and feel of the listing, optimizing your listings for Best Match remains an important recommended best practice. High Quality listings have a higher potential to get more clicks and ultimately more sales.
No. An individual listing will only appear once in the same set of search results. If your listing is promoted, it will either appear as a Promoted Listing or an Organic listing, depending on which one ranked highest for the buyer’s search query.
Your Promoted listing will only be shown if it needed the boost to rank higher than its organic counterpart.
Promoted Listings do not show listings that are not active—whether sold, expired, or ended. If an item was previously promoted and has sold, expired or ended and you ‘Sell Similar’ or relist that item, it will be automatically promoted and inherit its previous Promoted Listings settings.
Note: Multi-quantity Good ‘Til Cancelled listings remain promoted until removed from their campaigns.
We measure the 30-day sales attribution window from the last click received and charge based on the ad rate in effect at the time of the click closest to the sale.
Example: If a buyer clicks on the same Promoted Listing three times before making a purchase, you will be charged the ad rate in effect for the click closest to the sale. In this case, that would be the ad rate in effect at the time of the buyer’s third click.
