When it comes to selling on eBay there's no denying that item listing pages often need a little more oomph than the standard eBay tools you'll find on eBay.com provide. Our list of 20 tools are best suited to small and mid-sized sellers, are free to use or are eBay tools that you can use for less than $20 per month.
Using eBay tools can help you enhance the look of your eBay listing and make the process of listing on eBay quicker and easier. Plus, some of these eBay tools for sellers can add interactive features to make your listing stand out in the crowded eBay marketplace.
EBay Tools for Image Manipulation and Hosting
Gimp for Windows is a free and open-source image editor that offers eBay sellers a Photoshop-esque look and feel. You can use Gimp for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. Because Gimp is beta volunteer-developed software, support and updates may not be available. Gimp for Windows requires Windows 2000, XP, 2003 or Vista. Gimp is also available for other operating systems.
Photobucket is an online service that eBay sellers can use to host listing images. Photobucket automatically generates your link code for email, instant messaging, a direct link, or an HTML code link. Other options include slide shows and some image editing tools. The free account offers 1GB of storage.
PhotoPlus Version 9 is free photo-editing software from Serif Europe Ltd. that can be used to edit brightness, contrast, color balance, remove red-eye and other common editing functions for digital photographs. It offers an export optimizer, photo enhancements, selection tools, image slicing and editable text. PhotoPlus is free, with an enhanced version available for $9.99.
Picasa is free image software offered by Google that lets you organize all the photos on your computer and also edit those photos and add effects. You can use it to do basic editing functions such as crop, straighten, red-eye removal, change color or contrast, change the lighting and also add effects like soft focus, tint, glow, and others. The software is completely free, and it is a professional organizing and editing tool.
Village Photos is an eBay Certified Developer, so you can be sure that its image hosting service will work well for eBay sellers. Village Photos assigns a permanent URL to the images you upload and also provides URL, HTML and Thumbnail view code you can copy and paste. Free accounts are limited to 50 images and monthly plans start at $3.75 for up to 800 images.
EBay Tools for Creating Interactive Listings
SitePal is a hosted service that allows you to create a speaking avatar for your eBay listing or website. Character options allow you to use your own photo and record your own voice or use built-in Text-To-Speech. SitePal offers a free 15-day trial is offered with monthly subscriptions starting at $19.95 per month.
Page Mage is a listing eBay tool (see Listing Tool section below) with eBay templates, however its features allow sellers to add video, moving text, slide shows and more to eBay listings. The service is free for up to 24 listings per month and $9.95 per month for unlimited listings. You can read our in-depth Page Mage coverage here.
EBay Tools for Bulk Listing and Auction Management
AuctionSound is an eBay auction management software product that sellers can use to manage eBay consignment and online inventory. The software handles image hosting, eBay templates, consignor management, and offers reporting tools. AuctionSound offers a free 30-day trial with a $24.99 AS Lite (starter version) price.
Auctiva auction management provides eBay sellers with a number of tools including professionally designed eBay templates, marketing tools, image hosting, listing software and inventory management. Auctiva offers a free 30-day trial with monthly subscription plans starting at $2.95
Blackthorne Basic is a software application that will enable you to create professional listings in bulk, track the status of sales, and manage buyer communication and feedback - all from your desktop. Blackthorne Basic offers a free 30-day trial and costs $9.99 per month on a subscription basis. Medium to high-volume sellers can upgrade to Blackthorne Pro (free trial and $24.99 per month subscription).
EBay Selling Manager is free for all eBay sellers and can be accessed from within your "My eBay" tab. The tool is designed to help medium-volume sellers manage their eBay listings. Features include the option to track active listings, generate bulk feedback, and print invoices and labels in bulk.
EBay Turbo Lister is a free listing tool that lets sellers list multiple items and upload in bulk to eBay. Turbo Lister offers bulk editing capability, search tools, and a toolbar for better control of your listings.
Supreme Auction is an eBay Compatible application that lets you create multiple listings and submit them to eBay. The application offers free template designs, widgets, images and more. With this tool you can list on eBay US, eBay UK, eBay Germany. A freeware version is available with options to upgrade to add more features.
EBay Tools for Creating Unique HTML Listing Templates
BiggerBids offers eBay HTML layouts for your listings. The template allows you to store information that remains the same from one auction to the next. Free 30-day trial available after which the monthly fee is $8.95 for unlimited auction layouts and image hosting.
Listing Factory allows you to create professional-looking eBay Templates using more than 100 pre-designed templates or you can design your own. The service automates eBay HTML output without the seller needing to type a single line of code. A free trial account provides access to Listing Factory's hosting server. The standard version is available for $49.95 per year.
EBay Tools for Market Research
HammerTap is an eBay research tool that helps sellers to discover what products to sell and how to make more sales more often. The HammerTap service provides tools for research, market trending, listing optimization, keywords and more. HammerTap offers a free 10-day trial with monthly plans available for $19.95.
Marketplace Research by Terapeak is available to eBay sellers, via the eBay website. It offers eBay sellers the option to view average selling prices, find the best performing keywords and categories, Track products to gauge market demand, and can help you determine the most effective listing format to use for your item. Monthly subscription plans start at $9.95 per month.
EBay Tools for Shipping Assistance
EBay Shipping Calculator is an eBay tool that lets you specifying shipping costs in your listing. eBay's free Shipping Calculator provides real-time shipping costs to buyers all over the world -- and since all sellers are required to specify shipping costs, this is a pretty handy tool.
UPS Shipping Calculator is a free online tool that lets eBay sellers provide shipping and package details to obtain rate information for available UPS courier services. On the UPS website you simply provide the shipping and package information to calculate the cost of shipping your eBay packages using UPS.
USPS Shipping Calculator is another free online shipping tool that lets sellers provide shipping and package details to obtain rate information for available USPS delivery services. The USPS website also offers a number of helpful guides including Domestic Price Charts, International Price Charts, Postal Zone Charts and information on APO/FPO/DPO Restrictions.
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Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.
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