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If you're a seller on eBay who sells many of the same item week after week, you might be wondering how you can best take advantage of eBay's occasional discount listing days.  The other day was 10 cent listing day, courtesy of Monster.com.  Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to write this post until now, so you're going to have to remember this for the next time 10 cent listing day comes around.

Up until recently, despite my years of eBay experience, I never really understood how to fully take advantage of eBay's discounted listing days.  I just sat back and enjoyed my discount on the stuff that I was already going to list that day anyways, not realizing the full potential of discount listing days.  I'm sure that what I'm about to talk about is obvious to many eBay sellers, but it wasn't for me and that's why I'm sharing it.

The most straightforward way to take advantage of discounted listing days is to simply list more items.  This doesn't really apply to sellers that only list a handful of unique items every week, unfortunately.  The sellers that gain the most benefit from discounted listing days are those that sell dozens or hundreds of the same items week after week.  Sellers that sell the same DVDs, CDs, video games, books and other types of media stand to benefit the most.  These sellers typically sell hundreds of different items, but typically list them over and over because they have a supplier with a consistent inventory.  These sellers usually pick one or two days out of the week in which their items sell the best and set up their items to end all on those chosen days or they spread their listings out throughout the week. 

Calculate Your Listing Costs
The best thing to do if you're a seller like this is to calculate what it would normally cost you to list your items and then calculate the difference between what it costs on a discounted listing day.  For example, if you're selling new CDs whose prices are between $9.99 and $24.99, you're paying $0.55 per listing.  If you had multiple copies of 200 CDs available to sell, it would cost you $110 on a regular listing day.  On 10 cent listing day, it would only cost $20, a savings of $90.  So now the question is, what do you do with those savings?

How to Capitalize on the Savings
The most straightforward way to capitalize on the savings is to list your set of 200 CDs multiple times with different ending times and days.  For example, if you normally have your CDs set to 7 day auctions that end on Sundays, and 10 cent listing day fell on a Tuesday like it did this time, you could set up a 7 day duration set that would end next Tuesday as well as a 3 day duration set that ends on Friday.  Maybe you have tested 3 day listings that end on Fridays and 7 day listings that end on Tuesdays and it didn't work out so well so you stopped doing it, but with listing costs of only $20, it's hard not to make a profit on 200 CDs when the risk is only $20.  So we've used up $40 of our $90 savings, now what do we do with the rest? 

You could also test another set of CDs as a 5 day auction to end alongside your set that was scheduled to end on Sunday but at a different time.  For example, if you normally have your auctions close between 5PM and 9PM, you could test another set to end between 11AM and 4PM.  You might find that 11AM to 4PM has a higher success rate than 5PM and 9PM and can then adjust your listings next week to reflect your new discovery.

Maybe you've been wanting to try a different auction template or some different ad copy but are hesitant to test because you don't want to risk the cost of the auctions because it might not work.  10 cent listing day makes it easy to test because you're only risking $20 instead of $110. 

By launching 3, 5 and 7 day sets on 10 cent listing day, as well as testing different ad copy or a new template, you've affectively listed four times as many auctions for $30 less than you would have on another day, allowing you to try new ideas you've been thinking about as well as basically giving you free money because if your listing success rate on Sundays is good enough to make a profit with $110 listing fees, it's almost certainly good enough to make a profit when your cost of listing is only $20.

So there you have it, now you can fully take advantage of eBay's next discount listing day!