eBay Hacks

Track Your Exposure

Make sure your listing is findable before it’s too late.

You have at your disposal all the tools available to your bidders, which means that you should be able to locate your auctions in only a few seconds. If you can’t, neither can they.

Furthermore, listing upgrades like Bold, Highlight, and Featured Plus (see [Hack #36]) can double or triple the cost of listing an auction on eBay, but until you can see the effect, it’s hard to determine if your money has been well spent.

Start by doing a quick search, not only for the specific keywords in your title but for anything that your customers might type to find items like yours. If your item doesn’t appear when it should, take a moment to add any necessary keywords (see [Hack #37]).

Where Is an Item?

eBay provides another handy tool, specifically used to locate a single item in eBay’s various category listings. Go to Site Map → Where Is an Item, and enter the item number of the auction you wish to track.

Figure 4-5 shows the results, which list the category and the page number on which the item currently appears, as well as the results for the Ending Today, New Today, and Going, Going, Gone listings, if applicable.

Figure 4-5. Use the “Where is an item” tool to see where your item is listed

The category links shown on the “Where is an item” page will take you right to your item in the listings, automatically scroll down ...