Ebay Selling Tools and Sales Automation

September 24th 2005

In this article we will describe some of the tools used by eBay sellers to maximize their time and profits.  Of course, eBay sellers can individually list every item by hand.  This may be the best approach when you are selling just one unique item.  But what if you have many items to list over and over again? 

There are some great selling tools available online.  Ebay offers their Sellers Assistant.  Many sellers use this product, even some high volume sellers.  The drawback is the seller still needs to manually launch queued items.  It is better to have a system that does this automatically.  The advantage to eBay’s Sellers Assistant is that it is a downloadable program.  The program will reside on your computer.

The biggest advantage to Sellers Assistant is the cost.  It is free to use. If you want more functionality they offer the Pro version for the very reasonable price of $25 a month.  The Pro version offers post sale functionality.  You will need to send out payment reminders and actually produce an invoice.  Since the program resides on your computer you will still need to manually launch actions.  This can be done in bulk though.

If you want a system that puts eBay selling on “auto-pilot” then subscribe to Marketworks, Andale, Channel Advisor or another auction assistant program.  After you input the details for an item these online services will handle everything except shipping the item.

Marketworks and Andale have been the most popular third party services.  Others including Channel Advisor are becoming very popular.  Most of the popular third party auction services offer other avenues for selling your merchandise besides just eBay.  Other popular sales channels include Yahoo, Amazon, Overstock and Froogle.  Froogle is a great channel because it is free. 

I am familiar with Marketworks (formerly Auctionworks) and will discuss the way this service works.  Most of the popular services offer similar bells and whistles, but many of the top vendors including IBM, Home Depot and Sharper Image chose Marketworks as their service.

The first thing you need to do is take your pictures and create an ad design.  I use Microsoft Frontpage to create the actual eBay ad.  It is similar to a word processor and will generate HTML code that you can use for the eBay ads. 

You will want to describe the product as precisely as possible and try to figure out what potential customers will ask you about it, because they will ask.  Answering email is very time consuming so you may want to see how other eBay sellers describe the product.  Make your ad better.  Don’t include the price here.  Don’t even include the shipping price here.  These variables will change over time.

After you sign up with Marketworks go to the inventory section and create a new item. You will be creating a database record for the item here.  There are many fields that need to be filled in for each product record including your cost, the price your sell it for, buy it now price, the shipping cost, that HTML you generated with Frontpage, the Title of the product and more. 

 After you create the item you will need to assign it a launch bot.  We have created nearly a hundred launch bots over the years.  They vary according to how you want them to work  For instance you may want to create a launchbot that launches Tuesday and Friday nights using eBays Buy it Now feature.  Or maybe you will want a launchbot to launch your item daily without Buy it Now.  The possible configurations are endless. 

After you assign your item to a launchbot, Marketworks does the rest, assuming you set your preferences up including what type of payments you accept, where you will ship to etc.

Basically you don’t need to be tied to eBay.  The program will automatically launch your items, send the customers to your checkout and collect the information generating an invoice for them.  If an item does not sell it will restock it.  Marketworks will queue the item for the next launch cycle. It will calculate sales tax and help you prepare your income tax.

These automated eBay selling machines will allow you to go to the store or even take a small trip without missing a beat.  Unlike running a liquor store or market, you will be free to work on your own terms.

By Dan Wilson
Best Syndication Staff Writer

  Ebay Selling Books

Keywords and misspellings:  eBay ebay Ebay selling seling