3 Ways to Minimize Listing Fees on eBay

There are few places in the world where you canare actually cheaper and shipping prices are not
have more people looking at your goods than duringconsidered when determining shipping fees. You can
an eBay auction. Single auctions can get hundreds,get around this rule by adding handling charges to your
thousands or even tens of thousands of hits fromauctions. If your item costs $4 to ship, you need to buy
potential customers. The catch is that, like othera $1.50 box and spend another $1 in packaging
businesses, eBay is in it to make money. That meansmaterials and want to charge a little for gas for driving
there will be times as a seller that you feel theto the post office and time involved in packaging and
company is trying to nickel and dime you. There areshipping but the maximum shipping price is $5, then
ways to reduce or avoid some fees which can enablenow is the time to use handling. Simply list shipping as
you to increase your profits without having to increase$5 and add $2.50 in handling and suddenly shipping and
your prices. Avoid paying for multiple categories, try tohandling is $7.50. That way you do not have to
roll as many fees into shipping and handling as possible,increase your starting bid by $2.50 to avoid taking a
and avoid special features on small ticket items.loss which means higher listing fees.eBay offers many
When you list an auction on eBay you have the optionspecial features for auctions. You can add colors or
to place an item in a category. Theoretically aextra pictures to your listing. You can even have your
customer can use the category area of eBay toauction listed as a featured one or have it appear at
narrow down items until they find what they arethe top of a search page. All of these extras cost
looking for. For example if you are looking for a men'smoney. If you are selling a large ticket item such as a
XL white T-shirt you can look in: clothing, men's clothing,custom built computer then it may be worth a few
t-shirts, size XL, color white. Narrowing down thesedollars to tack on these extras. But if the auction is for
search parameters helps customers find your goods,a hardcover book that will probably sell for about $10
so why not put you auction in multiple categories? Firstthen the extra hits on your auction may not be worth
it costs extra money, sometimes as much as doublingthe fee. Remember that there are selling fees and
your listing fees. Next, try thinking like a buyer. Do youPayPal fees if you use PayPal to collect money. If you
narrow a search down that way? Or do you searchsell an item for $10 that has $1 in selling fees, cost you
for "xl white t-shirt"? Most likely you do a keyword$7 to buy, and another $2 in listing and special feature
search for what you want. Use the one free categoryfees then you are breaking even on the sale. All of the
and avoid the others. The extra fees are not worthextra listing features that you use cost money that
the very slight increase in traffic this will give you.eats into your profits so be very careful about when
Instead focus on descriptive titles and using highlyyou choose to use them.
searched key words.The popularity of eBay has made it a great utility for
If you plan to charge shipping, rather than offering freeonline businesses. But do not let the owners take all of
shipping for the increased exposure, take fullyour profits. When using services like eBay or PayPal
advantage of it. Recently eBay started restricting howremember that the fees can add up. Reduce those
much sellers could charge for shipping because itfees by paying for as little as possible and keep as
confuses buyers who are trying to decide which itemsmuch money as you can in your own pocket.