The following information was sent to me from eBay’s marketing people and I wanted to share it with you.

Use Optional Features

A recent study by the Parthenon Group indicated how powerful eBay’s optional features were in raising margins & profits on eBay.*

Bold featuring increases final price by 24% and bids by 23% on average (the most effective feature overall for the $1.00 cost).

Highlighting increases final price by 15% and bids by 12%.

Gallery featuring increases final listing price by 11% and bids by 15%.

Featured Plus! Listings increased final price by 47% and bids by 65%.

Many sellers develop a features usage strategy by monitoring listings in the categories they sell.

Maximize your eBay Store:

Try listing items with a lower average sales price in your eBay Store. This will also allow you to merchandise these items using the Merchandising Manager feature (offered through Featured and Anchor Stores) and take advantage of the Store Inventory’s lower cost insertion fee.

In addition, opening an eBay Store can significantly increase a seller’s gross sales on average, a seller realizes a 25% incremental increase in gross merchandise sales (GMS) after opening an eBay Store.*

Try New Listing Strategies

Try multiple selling formats among your product types. Fixed Price auctions, multi-item BIN, wholesale lots and other item “groupings” can help allay high costs. Reduce your cost of doingbusiness on eBay by testing and integrating $1 No Reserve listings into your selling strategy. Start items (or a portion of item listings) at a low price, such as $1 No Reserve. Often times, these items sell above retail value due to the excitement a low starting price causes in the marketplace.

Look to the Community

Check out what other sellers on the site are currently doing to sell items on eBay. The community boards are also a great place to find helpful information on new listing strategies direct from the community of sellers.

Do your homework

Review category specific information and data to help grow your business and increase productivity and profits.

Read the monthly Seller Newsflash for innovative ideas from other sellers and eBay. If you do not currently receive this Newsflash, you may receive it in your email inbox by visiting
www.ebay.com/optin
and updating your communication preferences to receive ‘eBay Email’.

EBay’s Seller Central provides monthly information on categories with high buyer demand. This information can be invaluable when testing new products and expanding your eBay business.

Experiment

Only you know what works best for you. Try different things start by taking risks with low cost items first and ladder your way up to high average sales price items. For example, there are sellers who sell laptop computers on eBay starting at $1 every day.

* Please note: We cannot make any representation that a seller’s specific item’s final price, bid count, and conversion rate will increase by the weighted averages noted.