I just started selling on ebay yesterday. Help?

[jillan]

First of all - what a rip! I already owe them money...they charge for everything!

But - I do have a question that their help desk really wasn't able to answer.
(other than to spend an extra $25 per listing)

How do you get your listing to move up the list in the category?

My listings are at the very end. First I thought it was because I just listed them yesterday, but now I notice that listings that are newer than mine are ahead of my listing. It's really frustrating, especially since I had to pay to list my items.

Anybody know their secrets? I have a ton of more stuff to sell but don't wan't to keep ending up on the last page that no one ever looks at.

I'm beginning to wonder if taking my stuff to a consignment shop would be better.

Thanks ahead of time.

[Vinca]

1. It might have something to do with sorting by "best match" rather

than by time or price. "Best match" is fairly recent and I noticed it does the same thing to my listings. ebay drives me nuts, but I think attracting buyers is a matter of luck at this point because of the number of auctions and sellers on the site. If you've got what someone is specifically searching for, they'll find you. Otherwise, you have to hope for bored people browsing. I've never had any luck at all with their upgrades. If you look at the art section, especially, so many people upgrade there is still a long, long, long list of auctions before you get to the nonupgraded ones. I also vaguely remember feedback having something to do with placement, but I can't seem to find the memo anywhere. Maybe someone else will recall it. Bottom line, it's tough to sell much of anything in this lousy economy.

[InvisibleTouch]

2. 2 ways to move your listings up:

If you have a one-shot item, especially if it's rare or collectible, list it as an auction. You'll have to wait until near the auction's end for your item to reach the top of the search list, but it will get there - so time your listing end for a time when lots of people are online. Sunday evenings are generally your best bet. Imminently ending auctions jump ahead of even highly-placed Buy-It-Now items.

If you have multiple units of the same item, list it as a Buy-It-Now in quantity, and list it for 30 days, or even as a "Good Till Cancelled." As you sell individual units, your listing automatically moves up. If your listing ends and you have more of the same item to sell, use the "Relist" feature (not "Sell Similiar") to start over, so you don't lose your "credit" that you've built up from previous sales. You can add inventory and even change some text in your description, but you're basically listing the same thing again.

Hope that helps!

[truedelphi]

3. I'm hearing that people are fed up with E Bay, and that

Some have turned to a site called ecrater. (www.ecrater.com) They offer the seller a storefront "ie website"


I found it hard to put together in terms of my html code not matching theirs, but maybe you'd have better luck. It's free to try out as far as I know.

This household tried E Bay for a while, but the results were all in E Bay's favor. :(

[old mark]

4. J, it is a rip. I am disgusted by eBay's practices regarding sellers, and

I am actively lookeig for another place to sell.
I sold there several years ago and it was much better. It's terrible now.

mark