The short answer
How should you price clothing to sell faster on eBay?
Price clothing above the cheapest listings and be willing to wait. In late 2023, my Travis Matthew and Tommy Bahama shirts sold for about $29 while identical listings sat at $13 to $14. Brand first in the title, every specific filled in, and a full return policy. These are my numbers from one store, not a price guide.
- In late 2023, my Travis Matthew and Tommy Bahama shirts sold for about $29 while identical listings sat at $13 to $14.
- I'd rather hold a strong-brand shirt 100 to 160 days to get $6 more than cut the price today.
- Price replacement electronics at or below market, because buyers need them fast.
- Put the brand first in the title, then what the item is, then the specifics. Model numbers go toward the end.
- Offer returns on almost everything, including items sold for parts that don't work.
Here's how I price clothing and electronics on eBay, and how I write titles and set return policies. I made this video in November 2023, so every price below is from that time. Check current sold listings before you copy any number.
Is eBay really the easiest reselling job?
For me, yes. Buying items with a good brand on them and selling them on eBay has been the easiest work I've ever had, and the margins are the reason. I've found $3 items that sold for around $60, and that happens almost every day for me. My eBay margins run about 50 to 60 percent. When I did drop shipping, margins were about 9 percent, so for every $100 in revenue I kept about $9.
The catch is over-buying. When you can get so much product, some of it doesn't sell fast. Check how quickly a brand moves before you buy a pile of it.
Should I price clothing above the market?
Yes. I price most clothing above the cheapest listings, and I'm willing to wait for the buyer who pays more. Clothing is the one category where I'd rather hold an item for 100 to 160 days to get $6 more than sell it cheap today.
These are the examples from my store when I made this video:
| Brand | Price other listings showed | What buyers paid | Who buys it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Travis Matthew shirt | About $14 | About $29 | Men who click the first result they see |
| Tommy Bahama shirt | About $13 | About $29 | Same pattern, same kind of buyer |
| Cinch Western shirt | Worth about $24, by my estimate | About $70 | Rodeo fans who want it for an event |
Those are my numbers from late 2023, not a price guide. The lesson is about buyer behavior. Many buyers don't compare every listing. They click the first match that looks right, and a higher price can still sell. I think of two buyer types in my store: men who click the first shirt that pops up, and middle-aged women in upper income brackets who type something in and click the first result. I can wait for those buyers.
How do I price electronics on eBay?
Lower, usually. Most electronics buyers want a replacement right now, like a remote that broke or a DVD player that quit. They type the plain name and buy the cheapest one that shows up, so a fair price beats a high one.
Vintage electronics are the exception. If it's vintage, I price it higher. Here's the rule I use across the store:
| Item type | How I price it | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Clothing with a strong brand | Above the cheapest listings | Buyers click the first match, and I can wait for them |
| Replacement electronics | At or below market | Buyers need it fast |
| Vintage electronics | Above market | Collectors pay for it |
| Everything else | At market | Fast sell-through |
Price the item you actually have, in the condition you actually have it. If you aren't sure, check sold listings for the exact model.
How do I write an eBay title buyers will find?
Write the title the way a buyer would type it, with the brand first. I think too many sellers worry about the algorithm and forget the customer. Ask yourself whether your buyer would search for this item, and whether they'd like your shipping and return policy.
My title order is:
- Brand
- What the item is
- The specifics buyers search for
For electronics, the model number goes toward the end. Most buyers type the common name, like 'Sony DVD player', not 'Sony SLV DNX 57'. Someone who lost the remote and looks up the model will still find you, because the number is in the title too.
Once you've got the item, EasyFlip writes the listing from a few photos.
The rest of the listing comes in layers. Good photos come first, then item specifics, then your policies. Price comes last, and it may be the most important of all. When someone searches, 17 results can pop up, and if yours costs $13 less, they'll often buy it.
Is the algorithm the problem when a listing doesn't sell?
Usually not. When an item sits, I first ask whether my customers would actually search for it, whether they'd like my policies, and whether the price makes sense. Many sellers think they're shadow banned when the item is simply priced too high for the buyers who search. If it's on page 19 instead of page one or two, the buyer probably never saw it.
I've seen sellers list an item 400 percent over market and then put it on sale for 50 percent off. That just doesn't work. Pricing above market is fine, but not that far above it. To me, an algorithm is just a record of customer habits. Think about your buyer first, and the algorithm usually follows.
Should I offer returns on everything?
Yes. I offer returns on almost everything I sell, including items sold for parts that don't work. Buyers check the shipping and return policy before they buy, so it's part of the listing, not an afterthought.
The bottom line
This week, pull up the items you already have and do three things:
- Check sold listings for each brand before you set a price.
- Price strong-brand clothing above the cheapest listings, and decide how long you'll wait before you drop it.
- Put the brand first in the title, fill in every specific, and write a return policy you can stand behind.
If you want a weekly rundown of what's selling, sign up for the newsletter.
Questions people ask
How much should I price clothing on eBay?
Price it above the cheapest identical listings if the brand sells well, and be willing to wait for the extra money. Check sold listings for your exact item and condition before you pick a number.
Is reselling clothing on eBay worth it?
In my experience, margins on eBay clothing run about 50 to 60 percent, compared with about 9 percent when I did drop shipping. Those numbers are from a video I made in November 2023, so check your own costs and fees.
Should I price electronics lower than clothing?
Usually, yes, at or below market. Most replacement electronics buyers want the item fast, so a fair price beats a high one. Vintage electronics are the exception, and I price those higher.
Where should I put the model number in an eBay title?
Put the brand and item type first, then the specifics, and add the model number toward the end. Most buyers search by the common name, like 'Sony DVD player', not the model number.
Should I offer returns on every item?
I offer returns on almost everything I sell, including items sold for parts that don't work. Buyers check the return policy before they buy, so it's part of the listing.
Sources
Prices are eBay sold listings, and every fact below was checked on November 20, 2023.
Read the full video transcript
now like what challenges have you encountered thus far being a reseller and kind of like how are you trying to overcome them like it could be with listing or hiring employees what things have you run into yeah so I'm I'm really empathetic towards people that you know struggle with business struggle with eBay specifically because in my experience this is the E this is the easiest job I've ever had uh the margins are just incredible it's so easy to just go find items that are $3 that sell for 60 almost every single day so I have experience in in like Drop Shipping as well where the margins are about 9% so for every $100 in Revenue I get nine bucks that's you know here on eBay my margins are between 50 and 60% which is a lot lot easier to deal with so one thing that I think if I lived in a bigger city I
think one thing that I would would would struggle with is probably over buying just because you're able to get so much product that and it it doesn't sell extremely fast in some cases so I could have foreseen that issue but honestly when it comes to just buying junk with a good brand on it selling it on eBay this is by far the easiest job I've had um I I have a lot I have a close Network so I have a few employees most of them are are my family members my my brother-in-law things like that and then I have a lot of ride or die friends that are just willing to do anything for me so every time I want to make like a special YouTube video I have a friend that makes that makes thumbnails and and just does a ton of things I make my own thumbnails but he's sent me a couple
drafts like hey so whenever I need anything I just have people to to rely on but yeah I mean kind of unpopular opinion eBay is the easiest job in the world man like we just need to buckle down and and focus on it and we'll all be thousand errors in a couple days yeah if you've ever uh you know dug trenches for a living or you know roofed houses or fixed fence on a farm yes eBay is very nice in the fact that you can literally do it from your sweatpants with your loafers on and make six figures though I would not recommend it but uh you can so that's the beauty eBay's awesome you know yeah it's been around forever but still there's such a great opportunity this video is sponsored by Zeke and Antics an amazing tool that can help you go further faster in your reselling journey and what we got here
pulled up is one of their many tools within their platform and this is the product research section of their app and what I did is I typed in women's jeans I just want to get a good overall view of what is going on in the women's jeans niche as I am a clothing reseller and when you type that in this is based on a 30-day average and you can see here how many have sold when you can sort from lowest to highest and you can see kind of the price ranges for these items what I like to do here is get a good bird's eye view of kind of what keywords are found in a lot of these titles that have been selling lately I'm able to extract some of these keywords and use them in my business and also identify upcoming Trends I'm able to see you know what is kind of coming out
of fashion and what's coming into fashion another great tool is their title Analytics tool where like I said you can go through and find a lot of the keywords that are trending now that you can use in your titles to help you rank better in search we want to be able to capitalize on the keywords that are being used in high selling items so we can also gain that surge volume as well you can see in the price analytics section you could see sell through rates compared to pricing so you could get a good idea of how you want to price your items so if you're wanting to try out Zeke analytics check out link down below where you can get a discount upon sign up now back to the episode what what are the key factors do you think that determine success of a reselling business specifically on eBay I guess since that you
sell on so there there's a ton there's a ton of different things that's obviously why I started a YouTube channel to disclose all this information but uh honestly I think people so I'm I'm personally a numbers guy I love I love information I love numbers I love all this stuff I love understanding the algorithm and things like that but I think too many people focus too much of their time and attention on the algorithm instead of their customers so I think oh if I if I don't do this will that irritate the algorithm when you should just replace algorithm with customer so like a lot of people are like oh well I don't know if eBay's algorithm is going to like how I listed this and it's like no you need to ask yourself will will my customers actually search for this will my customers like this shipping policy will my customers like this return
policy will my customers like this item that I priced 400% over market value and then put on sale for 50% that just just doesn't work it's it's uh you just have to think from a human psychology perspective instead of a technical algorithmic perspective this is what I talk about probably the most on my lives because people think that they're like Shadow Bann on E eBay when really it's just your your item is a189 too expensive and your customers can't see it because they usually just put lowest press plus shipping and then you're buried on page 19 instead of page two or one Al if you want to be successful in reselling understand human psychology more than Al algorithmic movement algorithm is customers habits the algorithm is taking customers habits that that's that's what an algorithm is it's it's not a you know it's it's not this God or deity it's it's literally just trained on
information so if when we say algorithm that's YouTube algorithm Twitter algorithm all these algorithms are just trained on how human psychology how we how we do things you know um so yeah you 100% is people when when you can relate algorithm to just your your customers and the end buyer you then it all starts to come together you know um so like get piggy back off of that um what is like the importance of an effective product listing for optimization and how impactful is that for your sales and profitability so like how do you how are you optimizing your listings so they do end up in buyer faces yep so this is something that you've talked about on your channel a lot and there's a lot of free information across YouTube and Google and eBay they they uh I forgot what the program is called but every three months or six months eBay releases like
like two to 15 videos about how to help people sell online on eBay and I always put this if you're selling Electronics this is the title structure you should follow as a foundation if you're selling clothing this is a title structure you should follow as a foundation and so I think the foundation of a listing is the title you got to make sure that the title is set up piggybacking off of human psychology the way your customer would type it so a lot of people ask me because I sell a lot of electronics they're like where do you put the model number and I I typically put that at the end or towards the end because some people their remote will break and then they'll look up the exact model number and then they'll type it in and mine will be in the title so I'll I'll catch them anyway but most people just type
into eBay Sony DVD player they don't type in Sony SLV DNX 57 they just type in Sony DVD player and so I start my listings brand what the item actually is and then all the specifics after that so that's the foundation and then I'd say the first floor of a listing you got to have good photos and then the second floor still important item specifics and then probably I'd guess I would say the elevator in that building that is super important are your policies so you got to get them from the foundation all the way up to the first and second floor via policies of shipping return policies and then obviously and then I think probably one of the most important things on eBay specifically is is pricing it's not the most important but it's one of them because when you type in an item 17 of them pop up and if you can get
one for $13 less you're probably just going to buy that one yeah yeah how do you handle your pricing strategies uh so you can remain competitive are you I mean now that you've been selling for a while on on eBay uh how are you are you checking comps making sure your Price Middle the market or how are you determining your prices yeah here comes here comes the controversy this what what I talk this is what I love talking about so that's good in these in these um quarterly reports that eBay talks about they uh talk about what they call a premium customer so their goal right now a lot of companies goal is how can we get as many customers as possible eBay has now shifted from that to how can we get higher paying customers we're we're willing to lose 40 customers that spend $40 a year to get one that will spend over
$5,000 with us this year and so they they talk a lot about their premium customers and those are the people that I advertise to the biggest premium customer on on eBay right now there's two of them there are Millennial men such as myself Millennial men will buy a Travis Matthew shirt for $29 even when other ones are listed for 14 because they just click on the first thing that pops up and then there's middle-aged um women that are in Upper to extreme income classes they just type something in and the first thing that comes up they click on so I actually price things depending on the item so so Electronics I price lower because people are typically just looking for a replacement and so they just want they want to buy that replacement but if it's vintage then I'll price it higher but when it comes to clothing I actually price things higher than most
people would because I have so many items that have a two we sell through that I'm willing to wait 100 160 days to sell clothing for $6 more because I'm waiting for that that guy that buys the Tommy Bahama shirt for $29 even though the exact same shirt is there for 13 because he doesn't care he makes $80,000 a month and he just wants to go sit on a yacht in his custom Tommy baham shirt so so like people always tell me all the time a lot of the brands that I sell Travis Matthew Tommy Bahama there's this Western one called cinch I've gotten a ton of messages from Rodeo Allstars that like hey I'm a participating in the world world tour Rodeo here in Las Vegas this scent shirt is awesome and they buy it for $70 even though it's only worth 24 so so I kind of price higher on clothing and then
everything else in my store I just list at Market so that way I can have that extremely fast sell through coupled with the uh the longer shelf items if that makes sense a lot of information right there for sure no that's great uh just briefly you're offering Returns on on most on all your items or everything yeah even items that are four parts and not working I still offer returns cool
