The list of tools used by eBay sellers in support of their selling can be dizzying, from standards eBay Stores and eBay's Selling Manager to the dozens of My eBay apps on offer in eBay's App Center to offsite social media and viral tools like Facebook and Facebook apps.
Long before trying any of these, however, most beginning or growing sellers should enable a free tool available in eBay's subscriptions system called Sales Reports Plus. Sales Reports Plus does exactly what it sounds like it does, providing sellers detailed information about their current sales performance on a weekly or monthly basis, including:
- Number of items sold
- Number of listings ended
- Total dollar volume
- Monthly growth percentage
- Average sale price of items
- Number of unique buyers
- Total fees paid to eBay and PayPal
- Fee breakdowns by type
- Number of unpaid items
- Sales breakdowns by item category
- Sales breakdowns by listing format and duration
- Sales breakdowns by time of day and day of week
- Various combinations of these
- Visual charts to help make sense of this information
If you're just starting out, or even if you've been selling for some time but are looking to grow, examining your Sales Reports Plus results is your first stop in understanding what listing formats, listing times, and kinds of items are working best for you, as well as how well you're doing at managing your fees. In combination with an analytics app to track your real-time results and competition, sales reports can help you to master the eBay supply and demand environment.
Subscribing to Sales Reports Plus
If you've already opened an eBay store, then you've been subscribed to Sales Reports Plus automatically and can access your sales reports immediately. Otherwise, follow these steps to subscribe:
- Log into your eBay account and click "My eBay" at the top of any eBay
page.
- Click on the "Account" tab at the top of your My eBay page.
- On the My Account page, click the "Subscriptions" link at the left side
of your window.
- On the Subscriptions page, scroll down to the Available Subscriptions section and click the "Subscribe" link next to Sales Reports Plus.
It costs nothing to subscribe to Sales Reports Plus, and subscribing doesn't create any extra hassle for you—it doesn't, for example, require maintenance, a detailed sign-up form, or anything similar, nor does eBay send you SPAM as the result of your subscription.
Accessing Your Sales Reports
After subscribing to Sales Reports Plus, you can access your sales reports at any time by re-visiting the Subscriptions page (see the steps above for details) and then clicking "View My Reports" in the Active Subscriptions area of the page. You can also visit Sales Reports Plus directly by bookmarking this direct link to the Sales Reports Plus tool.
Though eBay's customer service page for Sales Reports Plus suggests that after subscribing you'll immediately have access to the previous month's data, in practice you may have to wait at least a week for data to begin to appear. Once it does, however, you're ready to begin using Sales Reports Plus.
