Last time I explained the different types of Selling Methods that you can use when listing your goods on eBay and some of the benefits of each method.

Now that you know which selling methods you’ll use, it’s time to look at some of the Listing Upgrades that are available to add onto your item to increase the amount of buyers, bidders and the amount of money you’ll ultimately receive for your item.

There’s quite a few Listing Upgrades available and depending on which ones you decide to add to your item, the fees can dramatically increase, and therefore decrease your end profit margin.

You want to make sure that the upgrade you pick is going to increase your final sale price a significant amount, to cover the eBay upgrade fees and also give you a better sale price.

So let’s look at some of the pros and cons of the different Listing Upgrades available:

• Gallery: Gallery is the photo that appears next to your description in the search results.
For the small fee, it’s definitely worthwhile as your buyers can see what you’ve got to offer. If you choose to not have Gallery you run the risk of a 50% chance they won’t even look at your listing and moving onto the next product that does have a Gallery Image.
 
• Home Page Featured: Is where your item’s description appears on the eBay homepage.
Not only are the fees quite high to use this feature, but it’s also not guaranteed that your item will actually be displayed, as eBay rotate through all the featured items.

• Featured Plus: Your item will be displayed at the top of the page above the fold where your listing is most prominent. The benefit for this is that most people only check out a few pages when buying items and only the top half of the page, so you have more exposure. While this feature is costly, if you’re selling high ticket items, it’ll be money well spent.
 
• Highlight: This feature will highlight your description with a purple band. Choosing this option is personal preference and there’s no evidence at this stage to suggest that this feature will improve your sales.
 
• Border: The border feature surrounds your listing with a coloured band that again is up to personal preference.
 
• Bold: Bold ensures that your title will stand out in bold font. Bold doesn’t stand out in keyword searches though, so it’s best to make sure your keywords are the best you can use. Remember you only have 55 characters, so make the most of them!
 
• Subtitle: The subtitle is a great way to add extra information onto your title if you run out of characters. The subtitle doesn’t show up in keyword searches and is best for additional info such as the recommend retail price, or any extra information about the product that you can fit in.
 
• Listing in Two Categories: Listing in two categories is a great way to sell your item to two different markets at once. For instance, in the clothing category you can list in the men’s or woman’s categories and you may have a unisex jumper and want to sell it in both categories, however you do have to pay the insertion fee twice.
 
So that’s most of the listing upgrades that are available to use when selling your item on eBay.

The best way to find out what will work best for you, is trial and error, but remember to always check the fees that apply to each feature to make sure you’re investing in your business rather than over-marketing and over- spending too much of your hard earned profits.

Till next week, keep listing, keep selling and most importantly keep having fun!

Matt & Amanda Clarkson
 
You Won The Bid Ltd
Australia

61 7 5539 8264

Helping Everyday People Become Time & Cash Rich with eBay

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