If you’re selling products on eBay, then you may not know that you’re competing with nearly 20 million other sellers on eBay around the world. This means you’ll want to ensure that your listings firstly get found, and secondly stand out against the competition. Optimising your listings will result in more sales, more saves, more bids and more offers.

So, just how do you ensure that your eBay listings are optimised as well as they can be? Well, in this guide we share our top tips when it comes to ensuring that potential buyers can find your listings, and maximise the chance that they make a purchase.

How to optimise your eBay listings - a step-by-step guide

Step 1: Consider keyword search

Whether you’re selling a single item on eBay or 10,000+ items, it’s vital that potential customers can find your products. If they can't find them you aren't going to sell them.

Unlike an ecommerce website, where shoppers tend to use product categories and filters to shop and browse, many shoppers use the search function on eBay to find exactly what they’re looking for. Then, users can use their search to set up alerts around those keywords so that they’re notified when new items are listed that match their search criteria.

With an estimated 1.7 billion active listings on eBay, it’s no surprise that shoppers search this way. Categories and filters will only get you so far, often to thousands or tens of thousands of listings, compared with a traditional ecommerce website which may list hundreds of items in a category. 

Because of the prevalence of shoppers using the search function, we highly recommend having a keyword-focussed approach to naming your product listings. 

Consider not only the specific product name or type of product (for example, ‘Sony Vinyl Player’), but also consider including the model number, colour, condition and other information that make your listing more findable, and more clickable. 

Below, you can see an example of a well optimised eBay listing for search - with the model number, brand, product description and colour. This listing also includes excellent postage options and attractive delivery timescales to help it stand out in search results:

Step 2: Add new listings regularly

eBay’s algorithm is reported to reward sellers that are regularly listing new items on eBay. Because of this, we recommend keeping your store up to date on a regular basis with new product listings and updated product listings to demonstrate to the marketplace that you are a very active seller.

Also try updating or changing / re-detailing existing listings. Once you have listed a product don't just leave it there. Go back and update or rewrite the listing at least once a week.

Step 3: Use attractive delivery and pricing strategies

eBay will acknowledge listings which have attractive delivery terms, competitive pricing and generous returns policies. We can see that each of these benefits offered to buyers is heavily promoted within listings and so making the most of this free promotion from eBay should, in-turn, help you to see an increase in sales on the marketplace.

Using the same turntable example, we can see how eBay uses ‘Great Price’ stickers, ‘Free 2-day postage’ acknowledgements and ‘eBay Premium Service’ badges to promote their best sellers.

We can also see this repeated within the listing itself in the ‘Shop with confidence’ panel to the right hand side, and clear 30-day returns policy information below the buy call to actions:

Making the most of all of this listing real estate is sure to help your listings both be discovered, and convert well.

The other reason that pricing is so important when it comes to your eBay listings is due to the level of competition you can usually expect. Additionally, the typical type of buyer looking to purchase on eBay are typically more price-driven than your average ecommerce customer, so its especially important to ensure that the pricing of your listings is competitive. 

At StoreFeeder, our listing management software makes this easy, as you can update the prices of all of your listings either individually or in bulk without needing to login to the platform.

Step 4: Maintain a high number of 5* reviews - and address negative reviews

According to survey research by EcommerceBytes, 80% of buyers consider seller feedback on eBay before making a purchase. Because of the importance of positive reviews to potential buyers, eBay makes quite the song and dance about sellers which excel when it comes to positive feedback. For example, a silver shooting star in a seller's star rating means they've received positive Feedback over 1 million times. However, if you don’t have thousands of listings then don’t panic. eBay also awards its best sellers (whether they sell a little or a lot) with Top Rated status, which means they've provided a great experience for their buyers and consistently deliver outstanding customer service.

Linking back to step 3 (offering attractive delivery terms), Top Rated Sellers can also receive the eBay Premium Service badge on eligible listings when they offer free domestic postage to UK buyers.

If you’re considering how to manage your inventory more effectively by implementing best practice, then we can help. StoreFeeder is one of the UK’s leading multichannel software providers to retailers and we help our customers to grow their businesses by providing software that drives efficiencies. Get in touch today for a free demonstration that we can tailor to your business.

Step 5: Ensure your listings are as strong as they can be

As much as the above four steps will help your listings perform better, if your listing information is incomplete, inaccurate or not thorough enough, then this will hurt your conversion rate.

Our recommendations for doing this include:

• Maximise the use of images - eBay gives you 12 images for free, but try to include at least six images as this will fill the main image and carousel of images so that your listing looks as complete as possible.
• Include an accurate description which details the features and benefits of the product.
• Match the product to the suggested eBay product when listing - particularly if you are selling something in the tech category, as this will ensure that product reviews are pulled through for that particular make and model of product.

Step 6: Update your listings regularly

As well as adding new listings regularly, refreshing your existing listings is technically considered a ‘refresh’ by eBay. Essentially, they view updates as a sign that you are taking proper care of your product listings. This then triggers the eBay algorithm which may help to boost your listing up the search results.

Step 7: Use a great piece of ecommerce management software to help you manage your listings

At StoreFeeder, we understand just how much work taking care of all of the above is - especially if you have thousands or even tens of thousands of eBay listings. 

That’s where our software comes in to save you huge amounts of time and money. 

As well as integrating with most of the world’s leading ecommerce platforms, StoreFeeder can also be used as a listing management tool across online marketplaces including eBay, Amazon, ETSY and more.

So, if you’re a serious eBay seller, whether you sell just on eBay, on your own site, other marketplaces or a mixture of all of these - then StoreFeeder can help you to:

• Manage all of your listings in one place - including pricing, images, listing information, product descriptions and more. 
• Create reports on all of your sales across all platforms - so you can adjust your strategies specifically to each marketplace.
• Integrate with your courier and fulfilment partners - StoreFeeder can integrate with Yodel, Royal Mail, DPD, DHL and many more of the world’s leading courier companies so that you can have full control of each order end-to-end. 
• Integrate with PDAs and act as a warehouse management system that can drive picking and packing efficiencies.

The above list covers just some of the benefits of using StoreFeeder software to manage your eBay listings. To find out more about how StoreFeeder can help your business, we invite you to see the full power of the software yourself with a free, bespoke demonstration. 

So, you now have the inside track on how to optimise your eBay listings, if you want to make this easier and manage both your online store, marketplaces and despatch, let's have a chat. StoreFeeder is helping hundreds of online sellers grow their businesses, you can book a free demo here. If you want to start working on the business instead of in the business, you can contact us here.