Homepage >> Help >> Selling >> Listing an Item
It is important to take care in creating a detailed and accurate listing. If you have not done so already it is advisable to set up your payment options and shipping charges before creating your listings.
Note that fields with a red star * next to the field name on the listing forms are required fields.
It is important to select an appropriate category for your item. If you are unsure, search for similar items on the site and look what category they are listed in. You are able to choose the appropriate category from the drop down list of categories. You are also able to choose a subcategory once you have selected your main category.
Always include an image that depicts your item accurately. To upload an image located on your computer:
Tip: You can also search the Internet for an 'Item Image' by clicking on the link provided below the 'Upload Item Image' button. If the image of your item is on the Internet: Save the image by right clicking on it and clicking on 'Save Picture As' Then follow the above steps to upload the image for your listing.
Note: Your item image must be either in JPEG (.jpeg, .jpg), GIF (.gif) or PNG (.png) format only. If your image is greater than 50 KB in size then the Bob Shop system will attempt to resize it, which could change its dimensions (this is to ensure speedy page load times for your prospective Buyers).
The minimum information required to create a listing is the title, description, listing duration and some pricing information. However, in order to ensure success, it is strongly recommended to add a detailed description that is as rich and professional as possible including images of the product being sold.
An editor is provided in order to make it easy to create professional looking descriptions for your items being sold. Multiple images can be uploaded into your description using the Upload Image button 
. Use the editor like you would any word processor. An overview of the HTML editor functions is shown below:
| Icon | What it Does |
| Upload or insert your own or other's images into the HTML page. |
 | Preview what the HTML page will look like for users. |
 | Select a layout template. See "Templates" for details. |
 | Cut the highlighted text to the clipboard. |
 | Copy the highlighted text to the clipboard. |
 | Paste the text you copied (with or without formatting). |
 | Copy content from Microsoft Word, then paste it into the HTML editor using the pop-up accessed from this icon. |
 | View or edit document source code (for advanced users that understand HTML). |
 | Undo or redo the most recent action taken. |
 | Bold, italic, underscore or strikethrough highlighted text. |
 | Change the colour of the highlighted text. |
 | Change the background colour behind the highlighted text. |
 | Add numbering or bullets to highlighted text lines. |
 | Increase or decrease the highlighted text's indentation. |
 | Alignment of highlighted text (left, centred, right, justified). |
 | Add or remove hyperlink from highlighted text. Also used to manage file uploads and links to files on the web server. |
 | Insert table. Number of columns or rows, and table width, height, borders, & alignment can also be set. |
 | Styles & formatting determine the appearance of HTML text. You may also use the drop down boxes to style specific elements (such as headings), or set overrides for font face, font size, etc. To remove the applied style select the style name again. |
The condition of the item being sold (new, secondhand or refurbished) is required. Depending on the listing format (Auction, Buy Now or Classified) some pricing information is required. For auctions it is recommended in most cases to set a starting price at the minimum you are willing to receive for the item (rather than setting the optional reserve price). The bid increment is also a required field for Auctions and should be set at about 5% of the price you expect to receive for the item. For Auctions and Buy Now's you can optionally include a market price if you would like to give Buyers an indication of their potential savings.
Most listings will have a quantity of 1. You can however set multiple quantities if you have the stock available. Bear in mind that for auctions it would normally not make sense to list a large quantity as an auction with a quantity of 100 for example could potentially require 101 bids before the price would start to go up. Multiple quantity auctions are therefore better suited to Buy Now's.
The minimum quantity per Buyer is rarely set to anything other than 1. It can however be used in certain situations such as in the wine industry where it is the norm to sell wine on a per bottle basis but requiring for example at least one case of wine to be bought per Buyer. If for example you had 4 cases of wine to sell with each case consisting of 12 bottles of wine and you wanted each Buyer to buy at least one case you would set the quantity to 48 (4 cases) and the minimum quantity per Buyer to 12. Bidding would now be priced per bottle and each Buyer would be required to buy at least one case.
It is recommended to offer warranties and guarantees to your Buyers as far as possible. Even if this is only limited in nature it will provide an additional level of trust and security for your Buyers and will also result in the warranty and guarantee icons showing on your listing.
You will need to select an opening and closing date and time for your listing. Auctions and Buy Now's on Bob Shop can not last more than 21 days whereas classifieds can be listed for up to 32 days. Sellers usually list their items on Auctions for three to seven days. Longer Auctions make little sense, because experience has shown that most Auctions get bidding activity only in the last few hours. However, it is a good idea to list rare and high-value items for longer, in order to give more people a chance to see them. Automatic extension If this option is checked, your Auction will extend for a few minutes every time there are last minute bids. Since Sellers usually want to have the auto extension, this is selected by default. If you do not want your auction to extend automatically with last minute bids, click the box to de-select this option.
If you have five identical items and would rather sell them one by one, select the 're-list the original quantity' option from the Automatic re-listing drop-down menu (the original quantity in this case being one). The re-list original quantity option is also useful when you are listing small items to be sold in a specific quantity. You may, for example, have 250 beads and want to sell them in fifties. Rather than stating the minimum quantity of 50 and the available quantity of 250, opt to re-list the 50 beads five times. Automatic re-listing can work for you if you decided to put up several identical items in a single listing (this is something we do not recommend for most items). Provided you make the appropriate selection (re-list items not sold), the system will re-list only the quantity that did not get sold. Finally, even if you sell only unique items, you may sometimes want to rely on automatic re-listing. After all, if you have listed a hundred or so different unique items, it may be a bit of a handful to open each and every one that did not find a Buyer in order to re-list it. Again, if you make the appropriate selection (re-list items not sold), the system will re-list only the items that did not get sold. In order to have your unsold item automatically re-listed under the same conditions as the first time, select one of the following options from the drop-down list:
In the Re-list count drop-down menu, choose how many times you want to re-list your item. You may re-list up to ten times.
Whichever automatic re-listing you select, bear in mind that everything (except the quantity in case you opted to re-list unsold items) remains the same – including the Enhanced Listings. With the consequence that your monthly Bob Shop fees can be higher than you may have expected.
A Seller sets shipping and other charges such as insurance. The shipping charge is the amount you charge Buyers to ship the item to them. You are able to set up shipping charges in your 'My Bob Shop' section under the 'Selling' tab. Once you have set up your shipping charges, these will appear on all your future listings for you to re-use. View the shipping charges help for a comprehensive guide to setting up your shipping charges.
When creating a listing, simply select one of the shipping product classes you have created from the drop-down menu. The selected shipping option will appear in your item listing, under the 'Shipping and Charges' section. To get going you may want to set up just one default set of shipping charges, which will apply to all your items listed.
This is the method of payment you as a Seller will accept from your Buyers. You only need to set up your payment options once and they will then automatically apply to all your listings. View the payment options help for a comprehensive guide to setting up your payment options.
Tip: You may set your payment options in advance, before you list your first item for sale. Click on the Selling tab in 'My Bob Shop'. Find the Payment Options link in the Sales management section. Select the check boxes next to payment methods of your choice and fill in the required details. Click on 'Update payment options' button.
In order to use Enhanced Listings you need to be an Advanced Seller (however, Basic Sellers who list Classified Adverts may enhance the listings but will be billed up front for the fees and will be payable via credit card before the listing is loaded). Enhanced Listings allow you to get additional exposure for your items by having them feature more prominently on the website. View all the Enhanced Listing options available.
Bulk uploads are a great tool for Sellers who wish to list many items at once. Uploading the items one by one can be very time consuming. With the bulk upload tool, you are able to list many items at once using a CSV sheet, which is similar to an Excel spreadsheet. If you often load 20 – 30 items at once, then this tool will save you a lot of time. You can format all your listings in a single spreadsheet offline and upload all your listings in one go.
Log into 'My Bob Shop', go to the Selling tab and click on the Bulkload Items link on the left hand side, under the 'Sell items' heading. You will be prompted to upload the saved CSV file. You can also bulk upload multiple images at once using the Bulkload Images tool.
Tip: If you have already loaded items manually through the normal web based interface and want to quickly relist these items changing only a few fields, one way to achieve this easily is to use the picklist tool to select all the relevant items and then generate the bulk upload csv file from your picklist by clicking on the "Generate Bulkload CSV" button. You can then edit the csv file in Excel as required and then upload your items in bulk.
