Article from Auctiva Education (Education for eBay Sellers)More than a week after eBay announced its spring seller update for 2010, many eBay sellers are still digesting the news and trying to make sense of how it will impact their businesses. Major changes on the site will include adjustments to the fee structure on March 30 and phasing out the Store Inventory Format.
If getting a grasp on how you'll be affected by the impending changes is making your head spin, that's understandable. Adjusting to it all will take some time—and some number crunching—but here you'll find a few tools and tips you can enlist to make the transition easier.
Helpful tools
Starting March 30, eBay will allow sellers to list their first 100 auctions for free if they start at less than $1
Keeping this in mind, you might decide to reduce your fees by lowering the start price of your auctions to 99 cents. If you list hundreds of items, this task may seem overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be, especially if you're a user of Auctiva's tools for eBay sellers. The software offers several approaches to edit multiple listings at once.Bulk Edit: Auctiva's Bulk Edit feature allows you to change the start price of up to 100 saved listings at once—a real time saver for anyone. Think of all the other tasks you could accomplish in the time it would take to do this manually. For instance, you could update your checkout details—something eBay Motor sellers should do in the coming weeks. Remember, come June, eBay will be on the lookout for listings on that site that don't include a handling and return policy.
Auctiva Find & Replace: Luckily, Auctiva's Find & Replace is a handy tool you can use to quickly and easily specify return policies and handling times. (As we've mentioned in previous articles, this requirement doesn't mean you'll have to accept returns, but you will have to let buyers know what your policy is, one way or the other.) This tool is located in Auctiva customers' Saved Listings page and allows users to edit up to 100 listings at once.
Sellers should also think back to any listing upgrades they've added to their listings, such as subtitles. With eBay's Store Inventory Format being eliminated, the subtitle feature will now cost at least $1.50 per listing, and you'll have to consider if the additional cost is worth it to you. If it isn't, the Find & Replace feature will let you edit or delete subtitles for multiple listings at once.
Bulk Live-Listing Revision: Active listings can also be updated right from sellers' Auctiva accounts. Add, remove or change information, such as subtitles and return policies, from live eBay listings using Auctiva's Bulk Live-Listing Revision Tool. This tool is located in Auctiva customers' Active Listings page and allows up to 100 listings to be edited at a time.
Scheduling: But those aren't the only ways you can help your bottom line. If you schedule your listings, consider doing it through Auctiva, since it won't cost you extra. On eBay you'll pay 10 cents a listing for this convenience—$1 if you list on eBay Motors—but this feature is free when you're on one of Auctiva's listing plans. You can also post more than 24 photos with your listings, and get free Supersizing and image security features using Auctiva's tools.
It's natural to feel apprehensive about how the upcoming changes will impact your bottom line. But hopefully now you feel better prepared to tackle what's ahead. March 30 will be here before you know it, so take the horse by the reins and start making the necessary adjustments to your listings.
This article has been condensed. Read the full article here.
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