eBay Glossary

You will need a working vocabulary to start to sell on eBay. Here are all the terms, the eBay jargon, you need to know.

Feedback – Feedbacks are statements others who have interacted with you on eBay -- whether buying or selling -- submit about those business transactions with you. It goes on your feedback record for all to see.

Seller ID – These are similar to the User ID on other sites. Be sure to choose one that is easy to remember. Hopefully, the ID will let them know what you do. If you can use the same ID as your website name, it helps a lot.

Auctions and eBay Stores – These are interconnected sites, two methods that eBay presents items to buyers. You must pay a monthly fee, about $15.95, for an eBay Store. Store listings and fixed price eBay listings are also shown on another site called eBay Express which caters to buyers who want to make immediate purchases, more like other shopping sites on the internet. This cross-promotion can bring more buyers to you. Auctions get the most exposure on eBay.

Sell Your Item Pages – These are where you enter the information for your listing and specify details about your sales policies. There was only one page to fill out when I first started selling on eBay 8 years ago. Now there are 4.

PayPal – The eBay-owned payment service. PayPal.com takes credit cards. The advantage to you is that people can pay using PayPal from your blog and from your website, as well. eBay buyers are pre-conditioned to using PayPal, so you should capitalize on that.

Keywords – are like search words. They are words people enter into eBay’s search boxes to find items that interest them.

Categories – eBay divides items into categories. Even the art category is subdivided many times by period, subject matter, and more.

Listings – These have information about each item offered for sale on eBay. To offer buyers more ways to purchase items they want, eBay provides several ways to participate. 1 to 10 day auctions, Fixed Price listings, and Store listings.

Reserves – If you have participated in art auctions, this is a familiar term and on eBay it works the same way.  A reserve is the amount below which you will not sell. It is always higher than the starting bid.

Starting Bid – The price at which the bidding begins. You can put the amount you want for the piece without a reserve OR you can put a lower amount. Lower amounts always get more hits.

Hits – Are the number of times people view your item page.

Listing upgrades – For an extra charge, you can place your listings in a more conspicuous location on the eBay category lists. Some upgrades work better than others. I’ve had the most success with Featured Plus, Gallery, and ProPack.

Gallery – When shopping, buyers on eBay can look at lists of auction titles with tiny pictures or at the gallery view, which has larger images. For artwork, gallery is a must.

Seller list – This list contains only the items you are selling. People get to this list by searches, links on your item pages, their personal “favorites” list on eBay, or links outside of eBay – such as your website. You want people to see this list so they see all of your artwork, not just one piece from the list of thousands of artworks in the art category.

Description – This is the text and, perhaps, extra pictures which you submit to eBay that tells about your artwork. Besides details about the artwork and a statement that personalizes the piece, you should include some information about yourself and your art, your guarantee and return policy, the shipping cost, and payment methods you take.

Title – This is the listing title that eBay buyers see in the category list or search results (along with a thumbnail picture). This title gets those first-time potential buyers to your artwork and is very important. It must contain keywords that buyers on eBay use to search for what they want.

About Me Page and My eBay World page – eBay started with the About Me page and, I think, is transitioning sellers to the My eBay World page. This is space on the eBay site, separate from your seller list and item description pages, that eBay provides for you to tell your customers about you and your business.  Make it unique and interesting. The rules about what you can put on these pages are much more lenient than what you can put in your item description. You should put links to your blog, website, and encourage sign-ups for your emailing list.