Whether your eBay business is a sideline or a major sales channel for your company, a little marketing can go a long way. Because competition is so fierce, merely listing your products isn't enough.  You need to do something to make them compelling.  HTML coding creates an interesting, attractive, and effective sales tool.

An auction listing is slightly different from the coding for a web site.  In order to sell an item, one must fill in a form.  Part of this form is the description area.  This is the area where one is allowed to use HTML coding.  Although eBay supplies templates for this area, learning a little code can enhance your listing. You can customize the listing to suit your preferred layouts, fonts, styles, colours, images, and backgrounds.  There are many resources online or in print on learning HTML.

Since the description is part of a form, it does not start with the "normal" beginning of a web site. Your description starts with the title of the item.  To create this title, one uses the "header" tag.  There are six sizes of headers with h1 being the largest and with h6 being the smallest.  The second paragraph should be a short concise description of the item. Always ask yourself, "What would you like to know about the item?"  It is important to let the buyer know what makes it unique from the hundreds of others that are up for sale.  Use a bulleted list to highlight specific benefits of your item.  For example:
My item is:

• New
• In excellent condition

The rest of the description should include shipping costs and handling costs.  Further, advise the buyer what forms of payment you allow.  Accepting online payments through PayPal will definitely help you attract more bids.

In conclusion, your descriptions should be appealing, honest, and enlightening.  It is also useful to have an "About Me" page, as well. That way, you can communicate further with your buyers by telling them about your business.
 
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Learning a little code can add a lot of polish to your listing