What the eBay Listing Page Contains

By Marsha Collier from eBay Business All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Every item for sale on eBay has a listing page. The listing page gives you a lot of information about the item for sale, including how much has been bid and how much time is left in the auction.

A conventional auction-item page.

Here’s what you'll see as you scroll down a typical auction-item page:

Item title and number: The title and number identify the item. Keep track of this info for inquiries later. Some sellers also use a subtitle to pass on more information about their items.
Item category: Located just above the item title and number bar, you can click the category listing and do some comparison-shopping.
Watch this item: Click this link, and the item is added to the Watching area of your My eBay All Buying page so you can keep an eye on the progress of the auction — without actually bidding.
Starting bid or Current bid: This is the dollar amount that the bidding has reached. The amount changes throughout the auction as people place bids. If no bids have been placed on the item, it will read Starting bid.
End Time: Although the clock never stops ticking on eBay, you must continue to refresh your browser to see the time remaining on the official clock. When the item gets down to the last hour of the auction, you’ll see the time expressed in minutes and seconds. You’ll also see the date and time that the listing will close.
Shipping costs: If the seller is willing to ship the item anywhere in the country for a flat rate, you’ll see that here.
Ships to: Sellers can limit which countries they'll ship to, and that info will appear here.
Item location: This field tells you at the very least the country where the seller is located. You may also see more specific info, such as the seller’s city and geographic area.
History: This field tells you how many bids have been placed. The starting bid is listed in light gray next to the number of bids. When the listing is live, you can click the number of bids to find out when bids were placed.
High bidder: This field shows you the user ID and feedback rating of the current high bidder.
Buy It Now price: If you want an item immediately and the price listed in this area is okay with you, click Buy It Now. You will be taken to a page where you can complete your purchase.
Quantity: This field appears only when multiple items are available. If you see a number other than 1 in this field and the item is open to bid, you’re looking at a multiple-item auction (Dutch auction). If it’s a multiple-item, fixed-price sale, you have no opportunity to bid — you use Buy It Now to purchase whatever quantity of the item you want.
Meet the Seller: This area gives you information about the seller, including icons that show the status of the seller, the seller’s feedback score, their positive feedback percentage, how long they've been a member, their feedback profile, a link you can click to ask the seller a question, and a link to their other sale items.
Description bar: In this section, you find the item description on the Description tab.

The shipping and handling details for the item listing.

By clicking the Shipping and Payments tab, you’ll find some other important data on the typical listing page, such as the shipping rate, who pays for shipping, and whether insurance is offered.
Item-related links: From here you can e-mail the item to tip off a friend on a good find, get some advice from an antiques or collectibles expert, or run the auction by someone who’s been around the eBay block a few times and ask for strategy advice.