Auctiva Blog

Post offices will handle between 18 billion and 19 billion packages, letters and cards from Thanksgiving through Christmas Day, according to news reports. With so many parcels making their way to their intended destinations, the chances of items getting damaged or lost will increase.

Filling boxes with packing peanuts and wrapping items in bubble wrap and newspaper are good practices to prevent chips or breaks, but they don’t guarantee shipments will arrive as described when they reach a buyer’s doorstep. And unfortunately, sellers will also have to worry about possible thefts during the holidays, officials say.

Dealing with either of these scenarios is not only stressful, it can also be costly. So if you don’t already purchase shipping insurance for your products, now might be the time to start.

Product Analyst Rebecca Miller says shipping insurance is always a good investment, especially during these busy times. “The small price you pay is well worth the peace of mind you get in return. And the buyer will thank you for your forethought if something does happen to their package en route,” she says.

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Over the past few months we’ve released several enhancements. These new features are sure to make listing easier and more convenient for you.

As an active eBay seller and Auctiva user, of course, I was very excited when our team of developers, engineers and programmers decided to implement many of these features.

They will save you time—and as we all know, time is money!

The first feature I campaigned for was the ability to edit most fields in a closed listing before relisting it. Our Bulk Edit feature only allows users to edit the title, price and a few other fields in a listing. But our new Advanced Relist Editing tool lets you edit the description, category, shipping details, even the template and photos. I can’t count how many times I’ve listed something with a holiday template, and it didn’t sell. Then I wanted to it with a different template but didn’t know how. Ah, what a blessing this new feature is!

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Microsoft’s Bing Cashback program (formally known as Live Cashback) has been going strong for well over a year now, and anyone who buys and sells on eBay should be aware of it. It can save buyers a lot of money—and it can bring sellers a lot of sales.

Through this program, buyers earn a percentage of a product’s price as cash back when they buy the qualifying item. This can make items that qualify for the cash back very appealing.

At one point last year, cash-back rebates on eBay were 35 percent! Of course, that didn’t last long, and the discount percentage went back down, but not before savvy buyers—and sellers—took advantage.

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There are only eight weeks left of 2009, which means now is the time to kick your eBay selling into high gear!

Auctiva has many convenient tools to help you get organized and get your listings posted on eBay efficiently—and to help them look great, too! Here are a few tips to make the best use of our tool set during this holiday selling frenzy:

1. Use Auctiva to schedule your listings. Create your listings whenever it’s convenient for you and schedule them to launch on eBay at the optimal time. Remember, you won’t have to pay eBay’s 10-cent (or more) scheduling fee when you use Auctiva to schedule your listings. Just create your listings, and specify a time and date when you want them to launch. Auctiva will take care of the rest.

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