How to Use eBay Category Listings to Maximize Exposure and Increase Web Site Traffic

Posted at May 7, 2009

Very few eBay Power Sellers will reveal exactly how important it is to choose the right category. Many of them hope you’ll pick one of the large “default categories,” set up your auction, cross your fingers and then abandon all hope when you don’t get any bids, much less a purchase.

This helps further solidify their “place” as the perceived top sellers online in a specific category. But you can optimize your product for the best possible exposure by following a few simple and straightforward eBay tips.

So what should we be looking for when optimizing products in specific categories?

As you think about category optimization and your eBay selling strategy, it’s important for the audience to realize that there are literally thousands of categories on eBay. As big as eBay is, there are critical tips for selling on eBay you need to know to make money and avoid losses. These include knowing what categories to list your products in and actually how to pick the right ones before you list.

One of the most important eBay tips is in knowing there are thousands of categories on eBay, and to think about and realize that each category is its own marketplace. The illusion that everyone sees your product online is a myth. Not to take anything away from eBay, but know that there are thousands of mini-markets on the Web site. Each category you utilize for your eBay selling has certain characteristics that draw people to a specific category.

For the vast majority of the products that I sell online and on eBay, one of the tips for selling on eBay I routinely use is to spend the extra money to list them at the top of the category. This is what’s known as a “featured” price listing. Featured price listings run around $22 – $35 as of the year 2009. However one of the best eBay tips and keys to optimizing your category is to make sure that you can come up at the top of the listing. As strange as that sounds, it pays to pay for a featured listing in your eBay selling if you have a product to sell that sells in volume, or you are promoting it as an introductory product.

So keep that in mind and file it in your list of best tips for selling on eBay. You definitely want to make sure you’re selling the product in the right category and (when appropriate) selling it as a featured item. Research the categories, go to eBay’s Home page and look at all categories. There’s an option there to view the categories. Document what categories you want to sell in. Another of my favorite eBay tips: You may want to copy and paste the categories into a spreadsheet to give you a detailed list.

Another key variable in your eBay selling strategy is to determine who else is selling in the category. Do you have competition in that category? There are definitely niche markets out there in particular categories. It behooves you to know this on the front-end. I can’t tell you everything you need to know in terms of category optimization, but I can certainly tell you that another of the smartest tips for selling on eBay you can use is to take the time to research before you actually go out and sell in a particular category. It will benefit you enormously.

Also, aside from using the featured auction listing, yet one more critical eBay tips is timing the run of the auction. You’ll notice if you go online, that there’s a lot of people out there involved in eBay selling who run an auction without listing it as a featured auction, and they’ll run it in, say, one- or two-day intervals. Why do they do that?

Let me tell you why they do that as another of my preferred tips for selling on eBay: Whenever you put a listing online, and you post your product online it will come in at the top of the category. As other listings come into that category, it will start moving down within the category. One of the driving forces and best eBay tips behind increased sales on eBay is continual, repetitive exposure. That’s why you want to consider using the featured auction. Because if you go into your selected category, it will be at the very top for the duration of time the auction is running.

So, if someone comes online and they go to a particular category and are looking up an item, they will see your listing close to the top – perhaps many times over. If you don’t have a featured listing as an important part of your eBay selling, and you don’t pay the money for a featured listing, you will not get nearly the same amount of exposure as you would if you purchase the featured listing service.

So include these tips for selling on eBay and understand the importance of the correlation of running featured auction listings and how much exposure you will get, and then compare that to the total number of listings of the same product without having a featured listing. You can then find out which approach is more cost effective. Also, using a counter on all of your listings is yet one more of my best eBay tips. A counter will give you an accurate number as to exactly how many people actually saw your auction listing.

Knowing and interpreting this information can save you a lot of money in unnecessary eBay advertising fees and help you greatly with all your eBay selling.