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4 Tips for Maximizing Your EBay Profits

Expert Listing Advice

FEATURED COMMENTARY

By Chris Malta
Home EBiz Product Sourcing Expert

The way you structure your eBay listings can dramatically impact your profit margins—for better or worse. PowerSeller Skip McGrath, of SkipMcGrath.com, and successful eBay author Marsha Collier, of CoolEBayTools.com, shares some tips on how to list your items to bring in the greatest gains:

Tip 1—Set Up an About Me Page
Showing buyers there’s a real person behind the listing helps to build their confidence in you. This is especially important when selling used products—people tend to be more cautious.
• Post photos that let people see you in a warmer, more relatable light. Suggests McGrath, “Put your picture on it… a picture of yourself and your dog or cat on it, something to personalize yourself.”
• Use your auctions to drive customers to your About Me page. Put a link in the auction description. Your About Me page can lead them to your eBay store or your website, resulting in more sales per listing.

Tip 2—Review Your Auctions
When you launch an auction, eBay will ask you if you want to review it—ALWAYS do so! Inaccurate or missing information and misspelled words detract from your credibility and send a message of carelessness and lack of professionalism. People associate the quality of your listing with the quality of products and service they expect from you, so always double-check your work.

Tip 3—Make Your Characters Count
EBay gives you 55 characters for your headlines, so put them to good use.
• Find out what keywords people are using to search for your item. Look at your competitions’ headlines and see what keywords others are using. Terapeak.com and HammerTapNow.com are two great sources of eBay data that can tell you the best words to use in your titles.
• Don’t waste words—no one is searching for terms like “Cool” or “Wow.” Your heading needs to be stuffed with as many relevant keywords as you can fit. If your headline doesn’t come up in the search results, no one will see it or be able to get to your item descriptions.

Tip 4—Show and Tell
Advises Collier, “Write your descriptions as though you have no photos, and take your photos as though you have no descriptions.” Anybody coming to your listing should be able to tell, from either one, exactly what they’re buying. You’re empowering your customers to make informed decisions, and giving them a sense of security that they understand what they’re getting into.