Chapter 15. Automating Item Listing

Occasional eBay sellers get by using eBay's standard Sell Your Item listing process, which you access by clicking the Sell link at the top of any eBay page. For the high-volume seller, however, this is an extremely time-consuming way to post your auction items. Going through that cumbersome procedure for a dozen or more items at a time isn't very appealing; trust me.

A better solution for high-volume sellers is to use a bulk listing program or service. These tools let you create a large number of item listings in advance and even reuse saved listingsgreat if you run multiple auctions for similar items. You then schedule your auctions to launch at the time of your choosing, and you're done with it.

A number of these bulk listing tools are available; I'll discuss some of the most popular ones next. Which ones should you choose? That's entirely up to you, of course; they all offer many of the same functions. One of the big differences is price; they range in cost from free (eBay Turbo Lister) to 25 cents or more per listingand some even charge a final value fee on top of that! Fortunately, most of these services provide free trials, so you can try them out before you commit. Pick the tool that works best for you, with a cost you can live with. Rememberall these individual fees can really take a cut out of your profits, so make sure you factor the costs into your overall financial plan.

Note

If you prefer to create your listings one at a time, eBay's standard Sell Your Item pages will probably do the job, no additional tools necessary. I cover standard listing creation in my companion book, Absolute Beginner's Guide to eBay, 4th Edition (Que, 2006). Turn there for step-by-step instructions for creating basic auction listings.