7 Ways to Motivate You to List More on eBay | Reselling

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The more items you have in your eBay store, the more opportunities you have to sell things. It’s as simple as that. Resellers, particularly those that scavenge for second-hand goods, tend to have more items sat in their inventory than they actually have listed. It’s just the way it is. The reason for all of those items just sat there? Yeah, they may not have the time to get it all up. But a major factor is that it’s difficult to get motivated to do it.

As a seller, you have a handful of responsibilities with each product:

Taking photos
Creating the listing
Dispatching

From my experience and talking with other sellers, the final part is usually the fun part. That’s the bit that comes after you’ve got your money, and you’re just fulfilling your part of the deal. The other two parts may require some psyching up to get you off the ground.

It’s all psychological. I’ve found that even when I’m listing new items that I can use stock imagery for, the actual act of listing (even if it takes less than five minutes per item) feels like the most arduous task. That mental block can be a serious barrier in your path as an eBay seller. Whether or not you’re taking your eBay activity seriously – like enough to consider it a significant part of your income – if you struggle to list, you’re holding yourself back.

Here are three practical ways you can motivate yourself to want to list more:

1. Organise

When your inventory is in a state, you may find it more difficult to decide what needs to be listed next. Extra decisions just slow you down. Declutter, store and organise your inventory, so it’s easy to access, in preparation for your next photo and listing session.

The classic ‘Pile of Shame’ is where you end up if you don’t have your inventory organised. It’s so easy to dump all of your products that you’ll list “eventually” in a spare room, cupboard, bin liner or attic. By seeing what you have again, you may realise how much potential profit you’re sat on.

2. Processes

Back to that decisions thing. The less you have, the more efficiently you operate. Create the processes first and then put them into practice. Create or update spreadsheets with information about what you’re going to list next, what your KPIs and how you’re going to keep things flowing. Well-thought-through processes act as a solid backbone to everything else that follows.

This may be the time to make listing templates, checklists when assessing the condition of your products, or anything else that will keep your head focused when it’s time to do the actual listing.

3. Targets

It’s fine to list at a leisurely pace. List in a way that suits you, in a speed that fits in with your routine. By all means, this is your call. All I’m saying is that you will probably get more done if you decide to have a definitive minimum number of products you will list each day or week.

If a particular quantity of listings doesn’t feel like the best target to aspire to, perhaps a certain amount of revenue will. If that’s the case, then you need to have more things up to increase that interest. Everything comes back to your listings. If you need more, you know what you have to do to solve it.

4. Rewards or Sanctions

Treat yo’self. You did a good job. Go and reward yourself for the good you’ve done, after a hard day of listing and being productive. If you have something to look forward to, it may be enough drive to get down to business. Reward yourself with TV time, a drink, food, whatever works for you. If this technique is down your alley, find the thing that makes you tick.

I don’t know about you but losing out on potential sales is enough of a sanction to make me want to sort myself out and list more. Perhaps you will do something drastic if you don’t reach your daily, weekly or monthly targets.

5. Join a Community

There are eBay selling communities all over the web. Head over to YouTube and you’ll find a load of content creators that attract thousands of loyal followers in their comments. Take yourself to Instagram, and you’ll come across hashtags filled with global sellers that want to share their experiences. Dig around long enough in Facebook and groups will cross your path.

You don’t have to eBay all by yourself. Finding a community of like-minded people often makes you feel more secure in what you’re doing, and will motivate you to do more to get to the levels that others are at. Whether you take part in conversations or lurk in the forums, it can all act as fuel to make you want to list even more.

6. Research eBay Search

When I wasn’t in much of an eBay mood earlier this year, I found it incredibly helpful to just learn more about how eBay’s search algorithm works. Knowing more about it can convince you that you know exactly how to lick down your competition, so you just need to go and do it.

I found myself at an eBay talk at BrightonSEO and getting the chance to learn more about the platform gave me a new perspective on how to use it, and things that I’d been neglecting in my own listings. As soon as I got home, I applied what I’d learned for a little retail eBay dropshipping, just to prove how powerful a descriptive, well-titled listing can be.