Using eBay Listing Promotions to Test Market Your Products

You've listed and listed items on eBay before but some products don't sell all that well. You're afraid of listing over and over as eBay listing fees add up quickly. Likewise, you know you want to try different pricing levels but again fear wasting your money on more eBay listing fees only to have your product not sell.

There is a great answer for you to keep costs down and still be very flexible. Frequently eBay will have free listing promotions for sellers. Even though I will date this posting I will mention that eBay just began a free listing period from September 28, 2010 to January 7, 2011. This, and any other time eBay has these promotions, is the time to test market your products.

During these promotional periods for the first 100 items you list in an auction you are not charged an initial listing fee. You are only charged the final value fees if the item sells (and any upgrades you make before listing the item). Of course there are the typical catagory exceptions. If you care to read about that follow this link: http://pages.ebay.com/promo/ListFreeHoliday2010/. You can start your listing at any price for free.

Take advantage of this and try:

• New items you have never listed before.
• Adjusting the price of items you have already tried.
• Different quantity levels of items you have listed in the past.

While it is fairly obvious I can tell you from experience that I have used my eBay account (shameless plug for Sourcical: http://shop.ebay.com/sourcical/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=25) to try those various things. For example, I initially started by listing 500 Tyvek wristbands in one auction but used the promotion to try different pricing levels and higher quantity levels. During the current period I also plan to try new items. It is an ongoing situation using trial and error but you can learn a lot and increase your eBay sales.

In fairness to you I will mention that there is at least a couple of disadvantages. There will be higher competition so it can be more difficult to sell your item. Also, higher competition may mean your item does sell but not for as much then it would have during a regular time period. Try to keep these things in mind when measuring results but since its free to list you should still creating some test listings.

What do you think? Have you successfully used these promotional periods that had positive effects afterwards? Are there more disadvantages?