1. Work out exactly what you have
Almost every bad price starts here. "Old fishing reel" and "Wright & McGill Denver Colorado split bamboo fly rod" are the same object and a very different number.
Find the maker, the model, the model number and the year if you can. Look on the item itself first: the underside, the inside of a lid, a stamped plate, a paper label, the seam of a garment. Photograph any marking you find, even if it means nothing to you yet.
If you cannot identify it, say so in the listing rather than guessing. "Unmarked" is a fact. A wrong maker is a not-as-described claim waiting to happen.
2. Price off what things sold for, not what they are listed at
Asking prices are fiction. Anyone can list anything at any number and leave it there for a year. The only figure that means anything is what somebody actually paid.
On eBay, search the item, then filter to Sold items. Look at the last ninety days. Ignore the outliers at both ends and take the middle of what is left.
- Match the condition. A boxed one and a loose one are different items.
- Match completeness. Missing a part changes the number more than wear does.
- Check whether the sold ones included postage in the price.
- If there are fewer than three sold comps, you are guessing. Widen the search or accept that you are pricing a rare thing and price it to sit.
3. Grade the condition honestly, and in writing
Honest grading sells faster, not slower. A buyer who knows about the scratch does not open a case about the scratch.
Say what is wrong before saying what is right. Name the flaw, where it is, and how big it is. "Two inch scuff on the lower back panel" beats "some wear" every single time, and it turns a return into a sale you keep.
4. Build the fees and the postage in before you set the number
This is where most sellers lose money without noticing. What you list at is not what you keep.
- Marketplace fee, usually somewhere around 13% once everything is counted
- Payment processing, already inside that on most platforms
- Postage, if you are offering it free, which means you are paying it
- Packaging, which is small per item and real across a hundred
- What the item cost you
Work backwards. Decide what you want to keep, add everything above, and that is your list price. If that number is above what the comps say, this is not an item worth listing at a profit and it is better to know now.
5. Decide the step-downs before you list, not after
The mistake is not pricing high. The mistake is pricing high and then leaving it there because dropping it feels like losing.
Set the plan on day one: what it lists at, what it drops to at thirty days, and what it drops to at sixty. Then follow it without renegotiating with yourself. An item that has sat for ninety days at the wrong price has cost you three months of the fees, the space and the attention it was taking up.
One thing this guide cannot tell you
Whether your price is even the problem.
If a listing has been shown to two thousand people and clicked by none of them, the price is not what stopped them, because they never got far enough to see it. Cutting it will do nothing. That is the difference between a listing nobody wants and a listing nobody has seen, and eBay will not tell you which one you have.