When selling on eBay US, it’s important to follow listing best practices in this highly competitive, global marketplace. Following these practices can significantly improve the visibility of your product listings in eBay search results, making it easier for potential buyers to find them.

We’ve compiled a list of recommendations, organized from easiest to more advanced.

Optimize your product titles

• Aim for a listing title between 61-80 characters, with the initial 52-55 characters important for eBay search results and the rest more relevant for Google.
• Experiment with product titles, emphasizing natural language over excessive keyword usage. Consider using Title Builder or AI-based tools for title suggestions, such as Printify's Smart Suggest tool, which can help generate SEO-friendly titles quickly and efficiently. Learn more about optimizing your listings with Smart Suggest here.
• Avoid using special characters like “|” or commas in your listing titles.

Add item specifics to each product listing

• Item specifics consist of descriptive keywords detailing your item, such as brand, size, dimensions, type, color, or style. They play a crucial role in helping buyers find your product.
• Customers use item specifics to filter search results. Your item will only show up in filtered results if you’ve included the relevant item specifics.
• We recommend including a minimum of 12 item specifics per listing, aiming ideally for as many as possible. Increasing the number of item specifics improves your listing quality and visibility in search results.
• eBay offers bulk upload tools to make adding item specifics easier. This is especially useful for existing listings requiring additional item specifics.

Set up automatic positive feedback for your customers

• While store feedback doesn’t play as significant a role in the ranking of your active listings as it once did, accumulating positive feedback can still be beneficial.
• Feedback often operates on a reciprocal basis: providing feedback to receive it helps cultivate positive reviews. To encourage this reciprocal process, consider setting up automatic positive feedback for buyers. By doing so, eBay will automatically leave positive feedback on your behalf for the buyer after their purchase.

Relist or promote any stagnant listings

• Stagnant listings are those that have remained active for 91 days without a sale. To improve stagnant listings, you have several options.
• Experiment with these approaches to see what works best:
  • Check that your listings align with the guidelines provided in this article.
  • End and relist the item.
  • Consider promoting the listing (4% ad rate is recommended for stagnant listings).

Set up a store newsletter

• Set up an automatic store newsletter for your past customers and followers to let them know about your new products or any ongoing store promotions. It’s free and you can choose between several templates (“Welcome”, “New products & collections”, “Coupons”, etc.) that can be customized.

Lower your listing handling time

• Handling time is the number of business days between when you receive payment for an item and when the package is scanned by the shipping carrier.
• As you’re just starting out, we recommend using the default handling time of 10 days. However, as you start receiving more orders, we recommend checking average handling time for those and lowering your listing handling time. By doing that you will improve the search placement for your listings. However, be careful not to go any lower than your average handling time.

Get a Top Rated Seller badge

• Sellers who provide outstanding customer service may qualify for eBay’s Top Rated Seller program. eBay offers exclusive benefits to Top Rated Sellers, such as increased visibility for their listings and exclusive seller protections. Click here to learn more about the requirements for becoming a Top Rated Seller on eBay.

Run store promotions

• Consider running promotions in your eBay store, like creating markdown sale events or generating coupon codes for your customers.

Next, ensure you familiarize yourself with eBay fees and integrate them into your retail pricing strategy to maintain your profit margins.