How to organize your items catalog on eBay

Which of our sellers do you identify with most?

Congratulations, your eBay seller account is ready! What's next? Surely you want to list your entire inventory of items and start selling as soon as possible. This can be easy if you have just a few items. But what if you have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of them, and they have different variations — in size or color, volume or power, etc.?

eBay has solutions for uploading and managing catalogs of any size or complexity. And even if you start simple, you can learn more as your business grows.

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If you also have an offline store, start thinking about pricing and service policies to create a consistent buyer experience.

Meet some of our sellers: they live in different countries, are passionate about different things, run businesses of different sizes, and all of them have won eBay Exporter of the Year awards in different years.

Choose the seller whose inventory size is most similar to yours, and learn how they list their items. Let's get started!

Angelica Kuri

GameGirlMX, Mexico

Sellers’ Choice Award winner at the eBay Exporter of the Year 2021 Ceremony (Latin America)

20+ items listed

Angélica Kuri

Angelica is a freelance jewelry and graphic designer from Mexico. She could not work full-time due to her motor disability, and, after her mother got seriously ill, she began to look for a way to generate more income from home. Angelica recalled her passion for collecting Back to the Future items, Pokemon and Nintendo amiibos since 2008 — and decided to sell them on eBay. Now Angelica dedicates 100% of her time to her eBay Store and is constantly expanding her catalog.

Get to know the seller better

Select

if you have fewer than 50 items to sell

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As Angelica has a relatively small number of items on eBay, she lists her items individually. Let’s take a look at how you can list a new item using the streamlined listing tool.

Inventory volume: Low

Difficulty: Easy

To get started creating a listing you can:

  • Click the Create listing button on the Seller Hub Listings tab (from the dropdown menu, choose Single listing options)
  • Click the Create your listing button at the top right of any export.ebay.com page

Use the quick link

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Then begin filling in all the necessary information on your item and any additional details that will make your listing more informative and attractive to buyers.

The listing tool is divided into a number of enhanced listing sections. Here's a selection of your listing options:

  • Item specifics — type, brand name, color, style, packaging, product line etc. All details that buyers often focus on when looking for such products
  • Title — it shows up in the buyer’s search. Describing your item as accurately as possible using the 80 characters available is key
  • Variations — if you have similar items, you can save time and money by listing multiple variations of your item in one multi-quantity, fixed price listing
  • Condition — such as New, Used, or Refurbished
  • Photos and Video — to showcase your items and attract buyers to your listings
  • Categories — selecting the right category can be the difference between making a successful sale and potential buyers missing your item. You can also choose to list in a second category
  • Description — to let the buyer know what makes your item unique, including any interesting features or flaws
  • Pricing — change your listing format (by default, it's a fixed price), set the price and quantity, whether you want to allow offers, and a scheduled start time
  • Shipping — go with recommended delivery options (if available) or select your own
  • Preferences — a payment method, item location and a returns policy
  • Sell it faster — to improve your chances of selling with Promoted Listings or volume pricing (for fixed price listings only)

Then select Preview (1) to see what your listing will look like to buyers. If everything is OK, select List it (2). If you are not quite sure, edit it again or click Save for later (3). It will be saved as a draft, which you can revise and list later.

At the bottom of the page, you will see the total amount of fees that will apply. If you see the words List it for free (4), it means that there are no fees for listing this item, but a Final value fee will apply when you sell it.

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guide

Learn more on how to use the streamlined listing tool for creating your items with the detailed step-by-step guide

When creating a listing, it's important to consider using a catchy title, good quality photos, videos and as much information in the item specifics and description as possible. Check out the links below for more information.

Olga Svobodova

ScaraBeads, Czech Republic

Sellers’ Choice Award winner at the eBay Exporter of the Year 2021 Ceremony (Europe)

200+ items listed

Olga Svobodova

Olga was a housewife and a mother, who strived for self-fulfillment, professional development, and financial independence. 10 years ago she started selling Czech beads on eBay. Back then, her business was basically a couple of boxes, which has now transformed into an office building with a warehouse.

Get to know the seller better

Select

if you have 50-250 items to sell

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Olga has hundreds of items, many of which have different variations such as color and materials. Using eBay’s Sell your item form, Olga is able to add multiple items and make all of her stock available.

She can add her entire inventory of 250 items, and eBay automatically keeps track of the quantity as they sell. Let’s take a look at how you can manage a multi-quantity fixed-price listing.

Multi-quantity listing

Inventory volume: Medium

Difficulty: Easy

To list multiple items in the same listing, when creating it, simply go to the Pricing section, select Buy It Now from the Format dropdown and specify the number of items you have for sale in Quantity.

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You can edit your listing to change how many items are available at any time. There are two important reasons for keeping the quantity of items up to date on your listing:

  • A listing's sales history is one of the things that determines its position in Best Match search results. If you get more stock, you should add it to the existent listing rather than creating a new one
  • You don't want to oversell items. Buyers don't want you to cancel their order because the item is out of stock; doing so can affect your seller standing

You'll always see exactly how many items are left on your listing, but it's up to you whether you let buyers see the exact number. To edit your quantity display preference, go to Selling preferences, scroll down to Multi-quantity listings and select the toggle beside Buyers can see exactly how many items are left (1).


Tip. If you regularly restock an item, you can use the out-of-stock option to hide your listing from search results until you refill the quantity.

To enable the out-of-stock option, select the toggle beside Listings stay active when you're out of stock (2) in the Multi-quantity listings section of Selling preferences.

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When you set up the out-of-stock option, the following will happen:

  • All of your existing and future bulk listings use the out-of-stock option until you disable it
  • When the quantity of the listing becomes 0 (either because all the items were sold, or you adjusted the quantity), your listing stays active but hidden from search results
  • The listing will reappear in search results when you increase the quantity of items available
  • You can still end your Good 'Til Canceled listing yourself at any time

Tip. Using the out-of-stock option on your Good 'Til Canceled listings may help protect you from receiving a transaction defect for running out of stock.

Listings with variations

Inventory volume: Medium

Difficulty: Easy

When you have similar items with different variations, you can group them under a single, fixed-price listing. This type of listing is for closely-related items that have their own, distinct variations. Most categories are set up for eBay listing variations. When listing, do the following:

1. Describe the features of the item that are standard across all of the items.

2. Scroll down to Variation and click Edit.

3. Specify your variations and the options for each variation, add pictures (up to 12 for each variation), quantities and price, which can be different for each variation of your item.

4. Click Done to submit.

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guide

Learn more on how Listing with variations can improve your buyers’ shopping experience and get useful insights into setting them up in this article.

Bulk Listing Tool

Inventory volume: Medium

Difficulty: Easy

To make the task of managing your inventory easier, you can use the Bulk Listing Tool. It allows you to relist items, revise existing listings, sell similar products, and finish multiple drafts in a more efficient way.

There are multiple entry points to Bulk Listing Tool in Seller Hub, f.e. Create multiple listings in Active listings.

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You will see a table where you can edit any field of any listing just by clicking on it and entering the necessary information. The Customize columns button (1) allows you to choose the most convenient layout. To go to the single listing edit pane, click on the pencil icon (2) of the listing you want to edit.

But if you want to unlock the true power of the new Bulk Listing Tool, use its bulk edit features. You just need to select the listings you want to revise, click the Bulk edit button (3), and choose the necessary field in the drop-down menu.

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guide

Learn more about the wide range of bulk editing options and Benefits of using the Bulk Listing Tool in this article.

Idan & Hani Mishali

Idseeds farm, Israel

Widest Sales Geography award winners at the eBay Exporter of the Year 2022 Ceremony

800+ items listed

Mishali

Hani’s and Idan’s business started from Hani’s brother's obsession with purchasing products for his gardening hobby. Today they sell a massive variety of gardening equipment including seeds, bulbs, gloves, potato growing kits and more to 100+ destinations worldwide.

Get to know the sellers better

Select

if you have 250-1,000 items to sell

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It would be a challenge to upload many items through individual and bulk listing. As frequent eBay sellers, Idan and Hani can simplify how they create high-quality listings with reusable templates.

With listing templates, they no longer have to start from scratch every time they list an item. Templates also help ensure that buyers get consistent information across all of the listings. Once they set up a template, it's easy to revise, rename, or delete.

Inventory volume: High

Difficulty: Intermediate

Let’s take a quick look at how you can create a listing template in Seller Hub Reports:

  1. Select Upload on the left-hand side.
  2. Select the Get template button.
  3. Select Listings from the Source options.
  4. Select Create new listings template as the template Type.
  5. Select Excel Spreadsheet or Comma Separated File from the File type options.
  6. Select the required category from the Category options.
  7. Select Download.

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Tip. If Reports is new to you, try to list a single item first to familiarize yourself with the tool.

Creating new listings through the reports tab generally requires image hosting. However, you can use the Drafts template, leave the image URL column blank, and add images later when you're converting draft to listings. To create a draft, simply select Create drafts template as the template Type on step 4. Then you can add images later when you're converting draft to listings.

You can also create templates to bulk edit and manage existing listings and orders:

  1. Select Upload on the left-hand side.
  2. Select the Get template button.
  3. Choose Orders or Listings from the Source options.
  4. Select the template Type (e.g. Edit price, quantity or delete listings, Add order tracking and feedback).
  5. If you choose Orders as the template source, select the Date Range for the report (from 1-90 days).
  6. Select Download.

Once you've downloaded the form and filled it out, each row being one listing. Then you can upload the file to create new listings or edit existing ones in bulk. Here's how to do it:

  1. Select Upload on the left-hand side.
  2. Select the Upload template button.
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  4. Choose .xlsx file type if you plan to use Excel, otherwise choose .csv file type.
  5. Select the template type you're uploading.
  6. Select Upload.

After that, your file will be processed and all the actions you requested will run. This usually takes less than 15 minutes, though very large files can take longer. When the upload is finished, you'll see a message about it, and a downloadable report of all the actions taken will be generated.

What are the other advantages of using Reports? If you manage hundreds of listings or orders at a time, there might be room for you to optimize and save time. Learn how to use the Reports tab and get the most out of it for your business

Francisco Ortiz

Genesweb, Argentina

Widest Sales Geography award winner at the eBay Exporter of the Year 2022 Ceremony (Latin America)

5,000 items listed

Ortiz

Francisco Ortiz is a lawyer by profession who, thanks to his passion for music, has built one of the most successful eBay stores in Latin America and this year was recognized for the Greatest Global Reach. In an increasingly digital world, he has found a large number of buyers looking for CDs, DVDs and other music-related items that are bought by people from all over the world, mainly Latin American music lovers, looking to complete their collections.

Get to know the sellers better

Select

if you have over 1,000 items to sell

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Francisco has approximately 5,000 items with different products. He currently employs two other people who help him with the logistics and tracking of orders and has sent packages to places he never thought of going like Indonesia or Malaysia.

As the business grows and the number of orders increases, it becomes more difficult to maintain a high quality of service. Let's take a look at the checklist that could help you figure out if it's time to hire an employee:

✅ You get bogged down in routine. If you run out of time and energy to build your business strategy, it may be time to entrust someone with simple tasks.

✅ You work all the time. Sooner or later, this can negatively affect your quality of service and your business in general.

✅ You are lacking in some skills. Sometimes it makes sense to hire someone who already has specific knowledge, instead of learning it from scratch yourself.

✅ Your customer service is getting worse. Your rating starts to decline, and you need help urgently!

✅ You can hire an employee. If you have enough resources, hire and train an assistant ahead of time.

On eBay, you can use eBay Multi-User Account Access to allow you to grant permissions to other users to access your account and perform workflows on your behalf. You will gain additional support without exposing your password and critical business information to designated users, and there is no limit to the number of delegates.

Inventory volume: High

Difficulty: Intermediate


On eBay, you can use eBay Multi-User Account Access to allow you to grant permissions to other users to access your account and perform workflows on your behalf. You will gain additional support without exposing your password and critical business information to designated users, and there is no limit to the number of delegates.

Learn more on how to organize teamwork on eBay and to set up Multi-User Account Access on eBay for collaboration.

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There is another way to get help with all aspects of your listings and order management — to find a reliable partner. eBay partners offer software and services to help run your eBay business.

Inventory volume: High

Difficulty: Advanced

If you are searching for professional solutions:

  1. Go to the special page.
  2. Use the filters at the top of the page to select your country and services you need from the list:
    • Onboarding solutions (catalog creation)
    • Listing design and optimization
    • Account Operation services
    • Channel Management Platform / Order management
    • Customer support
    • Logistics
    • Training
    • Useful content
    • VAT consultation
  3. On the partner’s company card, you can find more detailed description, contacts and special offers for eBay sellers or leave your feedback on the partner’s services.
  4. Contact a partner directly and grow your business with these powerful resources!

So now that you have met our sellers and got some insight into how to best manage your catalog and list your items, follow the scenario that suits your business and keep these tips in mind:

Useful pages and articles on creating and managing your listings:

Tips on listing optimization

Photo tips

Adding a video to your listing

How to make your listings more mobile-friendly

How to create Listings with variations

How to create a listing with a charity option

How to set up your shipping options

How to create and use selling templates

How to list faster with business policies

New Bulk Listing Tool: advantages and features

How to boost the visibility of your listings

How to use Seller Hub Reports

Monitoring your business in Seller Hub

eBay Partners