Should You Be Using eBay Promoted Listings?

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Should you be using eBay promoted listings for your reselling business?

Do you need to have promoted listings to have a successful flipping business in 2023? eBay started promoted listings a few years ago. They used to just have a flat percent that you would pay them and then they came out with promoted listings so they could make more money.

Do Promoted Listings Make Sense For Your Business Model?

Our reselling business is based on the concept of low volume and high profit. We sell less items, but at a higher price. Your strategy for promoted listings might be different depending on your business model. We sell 80-120 items a year averaging $1,100 to $1,400 per item. They are typically larger items that we ship via freight. Not a lot of people do freight so there isn’t as much competition. If you’re selling smaller items you might be competing more with other sellers that have the same item. Promoted listings might make sense for your business model.

I never list one of my items with a promoted listing on it. I always start it out where it’s at. I list it for the price and I do not do the promoted listing at first. If I check it within 20 or 30 days and it has not gotten a good amount of views or watchers on it, then I might go in and promote it after that point.

At that point when you go to promoted listings eBay will give you a recommended amount for promoting your item. It might be 10% or 12% but we typically reduce that and go with the minimum they’ll allow us to do. It used to be 1% but now it’s 2%. They won’t let you promote for less than 2%.

Reevaluate Before Buying A Promoted Listing

Before going to a promoted listing it’s worth reevaluating your current listing. Sometimes you might be able to improve a picture, improve your title, or add to your description. Improving your overall listing so it gets searched more can help. Add more buzzwords to your title. Titles definitely are a big thing because when somebody is searching for something on eBay, they’re using that search bar, and if you don’t have a word in your title that somebody is looking for, they’re not going to see your item.

If you are selling an item, search for that item and go into the solds and see what the last item title was in the sold section. You can see how they attracted buyers with their language and do something similar.

Should You Be Using eBay Promoted Listings?

Another thing to do is add video to your listing. Pictures are very important but a video can show flaws up close or show an item working. That can really help sell a buyer.

We just use our phone for our photos and videos. Don’t have clutter in the video or pictures. Use good lighting.

We do not use promoted listings when we list an item the first time. Is it right, is it wrong? We don’t know. That’s just what our practice is. I don’t want to pay eBay more money than I have to. If we aren’t getting the views and we’ve improved our listing, then it may be time to consider a promoted listing.