Making an effective Ebay listing

[Alcandor]

I've been trying to make effective posts on Ebay and I have yet to have any success, to add to that, the person I'm working under for an internship asked me to list a whole bunch of stuff on Ebay. I'm a fairly tech savvy person and we're selling tech related items, so I do just fine at listing specs and all those great things, but, again, I've yet to have a single item of mine sell.

 

I want to hear from you guys what you think makes an effective Ebay advertisement/listing and any advice about using the site, getting more views on your auctions, or anything else Ebay related would be much appreciated.

 

ave,

Alcandor

[Vavetti]

Take your own pics and not just rip the first off off google is a great reason for me to click, you can somewhat see the condition of the product then. 

[NeatSquidYT]

1. Take a photo with the item on a big piece of white paper and with good lighting

2. Don't have obnoxious titles like "INTEL I3-4130 NEW AND IN BOX", just have something like "Intel Core i3 4130 - New and in box"

3. Have good, descriptive descriptions

4. Try and sell other things rather than expensive things for the feedback first.

[BKOben]

I guess it really depends on what your selling, but for me many years ago and still to this day I look for a seller with a history of making sales, the only way I think I would buy from someone who hasnt sold anything is if they had a good history of purchases as well with good feedback from sellers and maybe a low price item, I wouldnt risk a large amount of money on a unproven seller. People are probably looking for less risk.  Look at similar items listed on ebay and see what they write up for their sales description probably will give you a good starting point for yours. Like others said, great photos are good and real ones not stock photo.

[Alcandor]

For me many years ago and still to this day I look for a seller with a history of making sales, the only way I think I would buy from someone who hasnt sold anything is if they had a good history of purchases as well with good feedback from sellers and maybe a low price item

At the moment I don't have any purchases or sales on my personal account; To build a better history of purchases would you advise making fewer larger purchases (I'm looking to pick up a titan soon and I have some pretty crazy plans for a build log) or many smaller purchases (I can't think of any smaller items I'm in need of at the moment.)

 

On the account I'm posting stuff for the internship on, they have 600+ sales with 100% rating. 

[kennethnakasone]

As a seller, I've always made a short (1 minute, maybe 2 at most) video depicting the item being sold. Of course, this is in addition to taking pictures. I'm not sure how much of an influence this has had though, as my listings always sell, and I never tried selling something without a video.

 

As a buyer, like NeatSquidYT mentioned, I tend to ignore listings using Caps-Lock, grammatical mistakes, etc. Personally, I would go a step further and not mention the condition of the item in the listing's title, and instead put it in the Condition/Description sections. Putting it in the title just seems rather tacky.

 

I also appreciate when the seller writes the history of the item, but if that's not available I wouldn't mind too much.

 

Good luck on your internship!

[Aphexx]

I remember seeing a YT vid on how to make a better for sale listing.

 

it started with taking a pic of the product on a box covered in black linen in front of your computer monitor. the box just high enough to make the bezel disappear and you put up a tasteful image on your monitor as a backdrop for your product

 

I forget the rest, I'll see if I can find the link

[TomLambert_]

Look at what other people do. 

 

"INTEL I5 3570K UNLOCKED FOR MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE 15.2 GHZ POWERHOUSE WORKSTATION COMPUTER GRAPHICS"

 

You will actually get sales this way, unlike what others have said in this post, do what others on Ebay do. 

In essence, what people on this thread have said is "Do the kind of thing that people do that we would buy off." However, the trouble is that only 0.000000001% of the population actually know what they're talking about when it comes to tech; most of whom aren't buying off Ebay. Your audience is the consumer with more money than sense (which is the vast majority of them these days), so trick them into buying something that seems more awesome than it actually is.

 

For example, I've got a desk fan right next to me and I need a bit of readies for a Cheeky Nando's with the lads so I put it up on Ebay like this:

"DESK FAN LIKE NEW CHEAP FAST ACTION UK MAINS READY"

In the description, I list certain things about it that I find interesting:

"COOLS YOU ON A HOT DAY WITH NEW ROTATING ACTION TECHNOLOGY"

Overselling is key, but it's important not to sell features that it doesn't have, I couldn't say (for example) that it keeps you warm in the winter because it doesn't.

 

People on this site may not buy, but they are not the people we're aiming at here. We're looking for the average Joe who lives on benefits in his council flat in Brum. We're not after those who know the difference between Teacakes and hot cross buns or can comprehend whether the chicken or the egg came first. There are plenty of these people out there who get confused by clever marketing, the kind of people who when you tell them that Lightning ports charge faster than normal ones, they'll believe that. Trust me, Ebay is full of these idiots.

 

TLDR: We are all rapacious capitalists

[Calavera]

Clear titles, don't put too much information in there.

Tag the shit out of the listing, the more tags the more chances of someone finding it.

Have clear pictures, and a good thing would be to have a picture edited to look nicer than in real life. It's basically click-bait.

Make a very organized decription, put everything in there that someone would need to know before buying it but not too much.

 

It's simple rules but it does help a ton.

[Alcandor]

 

it started with taking a pic of the product on a box covered in black linen in front of your computer monitor. the box just high enough to make the bezel disappear and you put up a tasteful image on your monitor as a backdrop for your product

I really like that idea, problem is I don't have all that nice of a camera so taking a picture of my monitor isn't really an option.

 

 

As a seller, I've always made a short (1 minute, maybe 2 at most) video depicting the item being sold. Of course, this is in addition to taking pictures. I'm not sure how much of an influence this has had though, as my listings always sell, and I never tried selling something without a video.

I really like the video idea, I'm probably going to use that. I would like to go into image manipulation or video editing so I'm planning on picking up a nicer camera sometime. For the video do you just fill it with B-roll shots of the product or do you cover any of the specs?

[kennethnakasone]

-snip-

 

I figured buyers would just get annoyed with seeing my face instead of the item, so yeah, I just used B-rolls. I don't see anything wrong with having some A-roll shots though.

 

Most of the stuff I sold were rather underwhelming, so while I did spend part of the video on specs (something between 1/3 to 1/4th), I tended to spend a larger portion of the video demoing the item.

 

However, I was mainly getting rid of old books, toys, and the occasional handheld console, so my priorities were probably a bit different than what yours are.

[Alcandor]

I figured buyers would just get annoyed with seeing my face instead of the item, so yeah, I just used B-rolls. I don't see anything wrong with having some A-roll shots though.

 

Most of the stuff I sold were rather underwhelming, so while I did spend part of the video on specs (something between 1/3 to 1/4th), I tended to spend a larger portion of the video demoing the item.

 

However, I was mainly getting rid of old books, toys, and the occasional handheld console, so my priorities were probably a bit different than what yours are.

 

No, that's an awesome idea. I'm totally going to do that.