by Adina T. Mason

Created on: November 28, 2007   Last Updated: April 07, 2011

So you have just spent time listing all of your items for sale, now what? Sure you can just wait for people to visit ebay and randomly stumble upon your item, OR you can get a head start and market your item. Marketing your eBay items will bring more visitors to your items thus bringing you more bids to your items. In the long run a little bit of marketing can make you a lot more money.

Since eBay is an Internet auction site, then it only makes sense to advertise online. You do not want to advertise in a newspaper, per say as you may reach a crowd of people who do not have online access or have no interest in eBay. Below I have listed some leads to help you get started in marketing your item(s) and maximizing your sales.

1) BLOGS: In this day and age it is nearly law to have a blog so if you have a blog then advertise on it. eBay now has something called "eBay to go" where you can create a widget to embed in your blog. Your blog readers will click this widget and be taken directly to your list of items.

2) ADVERTISE ON OTHER BLOGS: If you know anyone with a blog then ask them to give you a quick blurb about current items for sale so that their readers can see your items. For example, I run a blog for work at home parents so I am always accepting these kinds of emails. Some blog owners with high traffic may charge you a small fee but depending on what you are selling, it may be worth it.

3) SOCIAL NETWORKING: Myspace, Facebook, Xanga, LiveJournal, CafeMom, are all great areas to advertise. If you area member of one or all of these sites, then send a bulletin to your friends and ask them to forward the bulletin and so on.

4) FORUMS AND MESSAGE BOARDS: Some message boards and forums have a special board dedicated to showcasing your items for sale. You can also add a link to your signature and when people see it they may click on it, thus bringing more views to your items. Just be careful not to "spam" message boards and make sure you are not violating any rules before posting.

5) EMAIL: Send emails to everyone in your email address book and let them know you just listed some items for sale on ebay. Ask them to forward it to their friends and such on.

6) CREATE EBAY BANNER ADS: If you join http://www.contextuads.com/, they have a program where for a fee as low as $2.00 you can reach up to 1000 visitors or more. Fees vary by page views; however, its a small fee that will gain you a lot of eyes to your items. What contextuads does is they create banner ads and display them across different websites. People visiting these different websites will possibly see your item and click on it thus bringing you a possible bid.

7) RSS FEEDS: Rss feeds are syndications where people can "subscribe" to your listings. Meaning they will get automatic updates of all your listings every time you list an item. All you have to do is go to your marketing tools in ebay and turn it on. This is primarily targeted for those with ebay stores, however it will bring traffic.

8) EXPORT LISTINGS: If you have an eBay store, you can also go to your marketing tools and export your listings to search engines. This will bring people to your listing who are simply searching in a search engine for a specific item and your item will come up.

Be creative in marketing your ebay listings and make sure to follow rules and terms of service agreements by any outside websites or blogs that you use. Be sure not to spam others as that is illiegal.

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