Efficiency is king...

Let's face it, listing is the most tedious part of selling on ebay.  There is nothing glamorous or fun about it.  Most new sellers struggle with how to list a lot of items in a single day.  Doing your work up front can save a lot of time when listing and allow you to list much quicker, thereby increasing your inventory at a much faster rate.  This is the method I use, and I have listed as much as 77 items in 3 hours this way.  It's nothing for me to list 20 - 30 items per hour.  So how do I do it?  I'm glad you asked.  Let's get right to it, shall we?

First, you must have a spreadsheet.  If you don't have Microsoft Office, get Open Office or use Google Docs.  I have a demo spreadsheet you can download which will give you a head start on how to do this.  Download the spreadsheet HERE.  As you can see, I have everything broken down and simplified.  At a glance I can know anything about my inventory and my sales.  So let's break down each part of the spreadsheet so you have a full understanding of how to use it.

On the first workbook, I keep track of my buying.  I have routes that I follow when sourcing.  I put in the date, the name of my route, the mileage, how many items were purchased and the amount spent.  The spreadsheet calculates my average cost per item.  As an item sells, I increase the number count, and also add the price it sold for.  The spreadsheet deducts the ebay fees and shows my my gross profit from that route.  This allows me to see which routes are giving me the best inventory at the best prices.

The next workbook is Other Expenses.  This is where I keep track of things like office supplies, shipping supplies, etc.  Anything that is not being sold goes into this workbook.  Notice there is a date for each purchase.  This will come in handy if I ever get audited by the IRS.  I also have envelopes for each month of the year, and I put the receipts for purchases in that month into the envelope.  Again, if I get audited I know where the receipt is.

The next workbook is for my shoe details.  I put the date purchased, The route, the gender, brand, style, size, stock number (I assign numbers to all of my items for inventory purposes), item description and purchase price.  There are additional fields for the listing date, sale price and sold date.  Again, the workbook deducts ebay fees and shows the gross profit for that item.  The clothing tab is pretty much identical to the shoe details workbook.

The miscellaneous workbook is for items that are not in my primary categories.  Again you can see almost the same details as the other workbooks.  By keeping the format similar, it is much easier to fill these out.  Since the items here are going to be across the board when it comes to their weight, I have a column for that.  I weigh the item in the packaging it is going to ship in.  I always round up my weight to the next pound.

So now that you have seen the spreadsheet, what is my flow or process for completing this?  It's quite simple.  As I make purchases, I put the receipts in the bag.  This keeps everything together so it will be easier to track.  When I get home, I take the bag, pull the receipt and enter the information.  I manually add all the receipts together to get my total for that day.  As I pull items out of the bag, I fill in the details tab for that item.  As an example, if it is a pair of shoes, I input the brand, style, size and assign it an inventory number.  I then fill out the description field and include the color, style number, material and any special markings such as style name.  I then measure the length, width and heel height and add it to the description.  The last thing I do is to put the price paid.

Once I have done this, I put the item into it's package and put the inventory number on the box.  I will stage these items so they are ready for me to take pictures.  If the item needs cleaned, I do that first, then return the item to it's package.  Having staging areas for each process is also key so you don't get clean items mixed up with the unclean.  Once everything is clean, I take pictures.  I take pictures with multiple angles of each item.  I then move the item to the finished area.  Once I have a batch completed, I move them to their appropriate shelf.  I keep like items together, and in numerical order by inventory number.  So, for shoes I have them broken out by size, then number.  So all size 7's go on a shelf, and then are in order numerically.  When I list an item, I put the stock number in the listing so when the item sells, I only have to look for the number.

I know it sounds like a lot of work up front, but trust me.  I have tried every method I could think of to be efficient at listing, and this is the best one.  I can inventory, clean and finish over 80 items in one day, and that includes the sourcing trip.  I now have the rest of the week to do nothing but list.  I look at the photo of the item and then find it on my spreadsheet.  All of the details are there for me to do the listing.

By following this process, you will find you have more time available.  If you don't have to clean an item, take pictures, edit, measure and describe each item every time you go to list, you will find yourself able to list 20 or more items in an hour.