Auctiva and eBay

This article will explain the basics of how to use Auctiva to give yourself and competitive advance and when posting items on eBay plus Auctiva is free.

What is Auctiva?
Auctiva is a web based tool that integrates directly with eBay’s database to create professional listings for free.

As we all know eBay has its standard listing fees when posting an item to it’s database. But if you want a really professional looking listing or basically want any extra bells and whistles like multiple images, scheduling, templates etc. it is going to cost you extra. However with Auctiva all of the previous mentioned extras are free with Auctiva.

How to use Auctiva?
The first thing you will need to do is create an account, to do so you can go to www.auctiva.com, make sure you first have an account with eBay and that it is a sellers account because it is going to ask you for this information when you sign up. Now you want to go to listings and create a new listing. This listing page will have everything you need to create you listing for eBay.

The first thing is the Sales Type you have 3 options here 1) Auction 2) Fixed Price and 3) eBay store, if you are new to eBay you want to choose the Auction type.

Next is the item details starting with the title, next to the title is a red asterix, anywhere you see the red asterix this means it is required for the listing. You want to be descriptive with the title so you can be found easier within the eBay committee. You can put in a sub title but it will cost extra, you will know this because of the green dollar sign next to it. Now you come across the category area, here you click on the browse button to choose the most appropriate category possible to post the eBay listing. You may post the listing into a second category but doing so will charge you double the listing amount. Now you can put in the description for the listing you want to make sure you are as detailed as possible giving the customer a clear idea of the product you are offering.

Next is one of the really nice features of Auctiva and that is adding the image, you have the ability to add up to 24 images for a single post for free whereas with eBay after the first image it will cost you 10 cents extra every other image you put in. The only extra cost in terms of the images you want to have is a gallery image. A gallery image is the image that shows up when you are browsing products through eBay. If you don’t use a gallery image then want shows up when browsing products is a little green camera, now that is now very professional is it?

Now you can put in a starting price for you listing , you can decide the quantity and the number of days you want the listing set for, your options here are 1, 3, 5, 7, and 10 the standard amount of time is 7 days for a listing.

Next in my opinion is the best feature of Auctiva and that is the ability to choose from hundreds of different templates for free. To choose a template click on select a template then scroll through the appropriate category that best fits you listing, once you have found a template click on select and then save template to the listing. Now you have a professional looking template attached to your listing.

Next is the marketing tools, the only check box you need to check off here is the one for the gallery image. If you don’t click on the check box for the gallery image you will get an error message posting your product because in the image section you have a gallery image selected.

Next you have the shipping tools and checkout options these areas are pretty self explaining, with shipping you state the area you are shipping from, what region you will ship to, if you will ship domestic, international or both, if the listing will be a flat rate or if you will use a UPS or USPS shipping rate calculator. With the checkout the number one thing I would make sure to do is state that you use Paypal as you primary method of payment.

Once you have put all of this information in you can click on the error check button to see if you have any errors before you post the item, you can also preview the item to make sure it is to your liking as well. Before posting the item I would always make sure you save the listing first so that if you need to make changes to the posting later you are able to do so. If you are satisfied with you listing and you have saved the listing then you have the option to post right now or you can schedule the post for a later date and then the post will appear in the eBay list for all to see and for you to sell.

by Kirk Jensen