Selling on eBay - Have you found the magic formula yet?

by Mark Kenny

Selling on eBay can be very profitable and a great way to make some cash while clearing your house of unwanted items at the same time. It's quite simple, just describe and photograph your items and seven to ten days later you'll get a payment though paypal or by cheque posted to you.

With so many items available, how do you ensure that your item sells above similar items. Despite many ebooks, self acclaimed experts and guides on the subject, there simply is no magic formula to absolutely guarantee you sell successfully. Even professional power sellers sometimes have a maximum of just 60% of auctions finish successfully. However you can increase the odds of your auction finishing successfully by using your knowledge of how buyers search.

The title of your item is the most important part of your item description. The reasoning behind this is because a standard eBay search will only search item titles. A massive 70% of buyers use eBays search box to find the items. Keywords entered into the search box are not compared with the item description or sub-title.

So ideally you need to research into your item before listing it, or at least before deciding on the title of your item. To assist you with there are two services I recommend. The first of these is called Keyword-Pro which is a comprehensive list of top 50 keywords in every eBay category. Updated weekly, the service can give you a wide range of keywords to insert into your title to give it a higher chance of being found in searches.

Details can be found at: http://trading-web-solutions.com/keywords/

eBay themselves have a smaller less powerful version that lists the top 10 keywords in each category. With just 10 words you are less likely to find words relevant to your item. It's still worth a look though - You can find eBay pulse at: http://pulse.ebay.co.uk

However a word of warning about your title. NEVER KEYWORD SPAM - This is listing irrelevant keywords in the hope of your item being found. It's used most often with vehicles, if you've used eBay to search for vehicles before surely you must have saw an item titled such as the following

"SEAT LEON CUPRA - NOT CRX, MR2, AUDI, TURBO OR LOTUS"

See in this example how the seller would be using popular keywords to draw visitors to their auction. It's a clever tactic but if someone reports you to eBay your auction will be removed and you may be issued with a warning, or even have your account closed.

Finally, if 70% of buyers use the search function, what about the remaining 30%. We can assume that the majority of them browse though the categories on eBay. Did you know for a small fee of £9.95 (eBay.co.uk) you can feature your item so it's at the top of the section. If your items of high value, them featuring it is strongly recommended. This way you should gain high coverage however your bidders search.

About the Author
Mark Kenny is an eBay seller & online entrepreneur who highly recommends the Keyword-Pro. Full details are at: http://trading-web-solutions.com/keywords/

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