Cool eBay Tools for Sellers

By Marsha Collier from Starting an eBay Business For Dummies, 4th Edition

eBay provides some smooth management tools on your Selling page. You can track items you currently have up for auction and items you've sold. It's a quick way to get a snapshot of the dollar value of your auctions, as they proceed. Although this page isn't as good for marketing information, it's a pretty good way to tell at a glance how your items are faring.

Items I'm Selling

With the Items I'm Selling page, you can keep an eye on your store items, your fixed-price sales, and the progress of your auctions. You can see how many bids your auctions have, whether your reserves have been met, and how long before the auction will close. By clicking an auction title, you can visit the auction to make sure your pictures are appearing or to check your counter.

Many people watch auctions and don't bid until the last minute, so you may not see a lot of bidding activity on your page. The # of Watchers feature can give you important information on the progress of your auctions.

The auctions that appear in green have received one or more bids (and met any reserves you've set). Auctions in red haven't received any bids or the set reserve price hasn't been met. Dutch auctions aren't color-coded and appear in black.

At the top of the Items I'm Selling area, eBay lists the current price of all items, including bidding on items that haven't met your reserve. The total dollar amount of the items that will sell when the auction is over appears beneath these totals. On the right side of your listings, eBay has a column for icons.

Items I've Sold

As you scroll down the All Selling page, you'll come to the Items I've Sold area. To avoid a lot of scrolling, you can reach an abbreviated version of this area (missing the detailed Selling Totals box) by clicking the Sold link in the Views box, under All Selling.

The Items I've Sold area keeps your sales in a concise place. You can use this feature in lieu of fancy auction management software. If you're selling hundreds of items, your list will probably be too long to monitor individual auctions — but you can view the total current price of the items that will sell.

If you're selling more than 20 items a week, you might consider using eBay's Selling Manager to give you an even more complete auction management solution.

The Items I've Sold page has the following features, which you'll find helpful in completing your transactions:

Check box: Click here to add a personal note to your record or to remove an item from your list.

Buyer's user ID and feedback rating: The eBay ID of the winner of the sale. Click it to go to the User's Member Profile, where you can use eBay's e-mail sever to contact the buyer.

Quantity: If the sale was for multiple items, the number of items is displayed here.

Item title: A direct link to the auction. You can click this link to check on your auction and see the other bidders, should you want to make a Second Chance offer.

Item number: The auction number for your records.

Sale price: The final selling price for your item.

Total price: The final selling price plus the shipping amount.

Sale date: Keep an eye on the end date so that you can be sure you get your payment as agreed.

Action: Here's where you find a hidden, drop-down menu that works with the icons to the left and offers links to various actions that you can take:

• Mark paid: If the customer hasn't paid using PayPal, you can indicate their method of payment (after you receive it).

• View payment status: See a copy of the payment receipt if the buyer paid using PayPal or a notation you inserted regarding other payment methods.

• Print shipping label: You can print a shipping label from here.

• Leave feedback: Leave feedback with a single click once you've heard that the item arrived safely and your customer is happy.

• Mark shipped. After you've shipped the item, click here to indicate that it's on the way.

• Second chance offer: Click here to make a second chance offer to one of your underbidders if you have multiple items for sale.

• Relist: Here you can relist your item on the site.

Icons: My eBay has several icons that appear dimmed until you perform an action with the Action command. You may also click the icons at the top of the list to sort your listings by actions completed, although most sellers prefer to keep the listings in the default chronological order.

• Shopping cart: The buyer has completed checkout (supplying a shipping address and planned payment method).

• Dollar sign: The buyer has paid using PayPal, or you've used the drop-down menu to indicate that the buyer has paid with a different form of payment (such as a money order or a personal check).

• Shipping box: The item has shipped.

• Star: You've left feedback.

• Comment bubble: The buyer has left feedback. A plus sign (+) indicates a positive comment, and a minus sign (-) indicates a negative comment.