Set up for your first listing

Before ListSwiftly sends a listing to a channel, preflight checks everything that channel would refuse it for. Most of what preflight stops on isn’t really about the product. It’s setup that every listing on that channel shares. Do that setup once and your first listings go straight through, with no refusals.

This page covers that setup in order: what to set up, which refusal each piece prevents, and where to do it in the app.

The checklist

Once, for your account:

• A complete ship-from address: street, city, postal code and country. Settings → Warehouses.
• eBay: shipping terms and return terms in your eBay recipe, or your existing eBay policies imported. Settings → Listing setup.
• eBay: decide flat rate or calculated shipping. If you choose calculated, every product needs a package weight. A package template can supply one.
• Mercari: one listing made on Mercari itself. A listing you already have there counts once your first sync has brought it in.
• Mercari: a ship-from zip on your Mercari account. You add this on Mercari, not in ListSwiftly.
• One default recipe per channel. If you have more than one recipe for a channel, mark one as the default.

Worth adding to your recipes, so you don’t have to type the same answers on every product:

• A description pattern, if most of your products don’t have their own description.
• A package template with a typical weight, if you sell on Mercari or use calculated shipping on eBay.
• A category template with a default condition and item specifics, if most of what you list is one kind of thing.
• A pricing rule, if each channel should price differently from your base price.

On every product (no template can do these for you): at least one photo, a title of up to 80 characters, a price, stock, a category, and a condition. For eBay, also a brand, an MPN and a UPC. You can answer the MPN and UPC with “Does not apply”.

1. Your ship-from address

Prevents: eBay refusing a listing because its item location is incomplete.

eBay shows every listing’s item location and works out postage from it. ListSwiftly creates a warehouse for you when you sign up, but it starts with no address. Preflight accepts the address only when street address, city, postal code and country are all filled in.

Where: Settings → Warehouses. See Your ship-from address. If you pinned a channel to a particular warehouse, that warehouse is the one that needs the address.

2. Your eBay shipping and return terms

Prevents: eBay refusing a listing because it has no shipping or return terms. This is the most common refusal for a new account.

eBay won’t put anything on sale without a shipping policy, a payment policy and a return policy. ListSwiftly never makes these up for you. When you connect eBay, it creates a starter recipe with the terms left empty, and nothing can publish to eBay until you fill them in.

Where: the Your eBay terms screen right after you connect, or Settings → Listing setup at any time. The checklist at the top of Listing setup shows Shipping terms and Return terms as Ready once they’re answered. If your eBay account already has business policies, you can import them instead of typing them again.

Two choices in the shipping terms have consequences for every product you list:

• Domestic cost: “Calculated by eBay from the package.” eBay works out the buyer’s postage from the package, so every product listed under these terms needs a package weight. Preflight stops any product that doesn’t have one. The same applies when only the international option is calculated. If you’d rather not weigh everything, use Flat rate: eBay doesn’t need a weight for that.
• USPS Media Mail. eBay allows Media Mail only for books, music, movies & TV, and video games. If your shipping terms offer Media Mail, preflight stops anything you list outside those categories. If you sell other things too, keep Media Mail out of your everyday shipping terms, or give your media items their own recipe.

ListSwiftly also signs your eBay account up for eBay’s business policies automatically. eBay can take up to 24 hours to finish that. Preflight can’t see it, so if a publish in that window is held up, see “eBay business policies” pending.

3. Mercari’s two settings that live on Mercari

Mercari has no seller API, so two things can’t be set from inside ListSwiftly.

A first listing made on Mercari itself. Prevents: every Mercari publish being stopped with “A first listing on Mercari”. ListSwiftly copies the shipping choices for each new Mercari listing from one you already have there. If you’ve sold on Mercari before, your first sync brings in your existing listings, and that counts, even if they’ve ended or sold. If you’re new to Mercari, list one item directly on mercari.com or in the Mercari app, then let ListSwiftly sync.

A ship-from zip on your Mercari account. Prevents: “Add a ship-from zip on Mercari itself”. Mercari won’t create a listing without a zip code from your own Mercari address. Add an address in your Mercari account settings. ListSwiftly sees the change after its next sync with Mercari.

See Connect Mercari.

4. One default recipe for each channel

Prevents: a publish going out with nothing from your recipe, and on eBay, the missing-terms refusal from step 2, even after you’ve filled in the terms.

A recipe is a bundle of templates that fills in a new listing (see Templates and recipes). When you publish without choosing a recipe, ListSwiftly uses that channel’s default recipe. That’s the recipe marked Default recipe for eBay (or Mercari) or, if you have only one recipe for that channel, that one.

If you have two or more recipes for a channel and none of them is marked default, ListSwiftly won’t pick one for you. A publish then gets no recipe at all, so it has no title pattern, no pricing rule and, on eBay, no shipping or return terms.

Where: Settings → Listing setup → Recipes.

5. Templates that save you per-product work

Each of these is optional. Each one answers something preflight would otherwise ask you about on every product. A recipe never overrides what a product already says: the product’s own description, condition, item specifics, category and weight always win over a recipe’s defaults.

• Title & Description fills in a title pattern such as {{title}} and a description pattern. Saves you from: “A description”, when a product has none. The starter recipe has a title pattern but no description pattern, so until you add one, every product needs a description of its own.
• Pricing applies a rule to the product’s base price: a markup, a multiplier or a fixed price, with optional rounding. Saves you from: nothing on its own, because the product still needs a base price. The price the rule produces is the one checked against each channel’s limits.
• Package fills in a weight, and optionally all three dimensions. Saves you from: “The package weight” on Mercari, and on eBay with calculated shipping. It fills in a weight only when a product has none, and only when a listing is created from the recipe or the recipe is applied to a draft.
• Category fills in a fallback category, a default condition, and default item specifics. Saves you from: “A condition” and missing item specifics, when most of what you list is the same kind of thing. The category is a last resort: the product’s own category comes first.
• Shipping and Payment & Return fill in your eBay terms. Saves you from: the terms refusal in step 2 (eBay only).

Keep title patterns short. Preflight checks the title after the pattern is filled in, so a pattern that adds “ - Free Shipping” to a 70-character product title goes over the limit.

Where: Settings → Listing setup → Templates. Then add each template to your recipe.

6. What each product still needs

These are about the item itself, so you answer them on the product. The confirm sheet fills in many of them when you add a product.

• At least one photo: on the Images tab.
• A title of up to 80 characters, for both channels.
• A price above zero, and stock of at least one for the channel. If you hold some stock back from a channel with an inventory buffer, the buffer comes off before this check.
• A category: always the eBay category. ListSwiftly works out the matching Mercari category, and asks you to confirm it once if it isn’t sure. See Categories.
• A condition that the category accepts. See Condition.
• For eBay: a brand, an MPN and a UPC. “Does not apply” is a valid answer for the MPN and the UPC, but not for the brand. Some categories need a particular barcode, such as an ISBN for books. Also fill in any item specifics the category requires. See Item specifics and identifiers.
• For Mercari, and for eBay with calculated shipping: a package weight, on the Product Info tab, unless your recipe’s package template supplies one. See Package and weight.

What preflight will stop, and the setup that prevents it

Both channels

Preflight stops a listing when…	What prevents it
It has no photo, or a photo file can no longer be found	Add a photo to the product. If ListSwiftly says a photo is missing, upload it again.
It has no title, or the title is over 80 characters once the title pattern is filled in	A title on the product, and a short title pattern.
It has no description	A description on the product, or a description pattern in your recipe.
It has no price	A base price on the product. The pricing rule works from it.
It’s a first publish and there’s no stock for that channel	Stock on the product, in the warehouse that channel ships from.
It has no category, or the category has other categories under it	Pick the most specific category in the picker. A category template is a fallback.
It has no condition, or a condition the category doesn’t accept	A condition on the product, or a default condition in a category template.

eBay

Preflight stops a listing when…	What prevents it
There are no shipping terms, or no return terms	Shipping and Payment & Return templates in your default eBay recipe, or your existing eBay policies imported (step 2).
The ship-from warehouse has no complete address	Street, city, postal code and country in Settings → Warehouses (step 1).
The shipping terms are calculated and the product has no weight	A package template in the recipe, a weight on each product, or flat-rate shipping terms.
The shipping terms offer Media Mail and the item isn’t a book, music, film or video game	Media Mail only in a recipe you use for media.
The price is under $0.99 (eBay US)	A higher base price, or a pricing rule that doesn’t take it below $0.99.
The brand is missing, or there’s no MPN or UPC	A brand on the product, plus an MPN and UPC, or “Does not apply” for either.
The category needs a specific barcode, such as an ISBN for books	The real number on the product. “Does not apply” for the MPN doesn’t answer this.
A required item specific is missing, or a value isn’t one eBay accepts	Item specifics on the product’s Specifics tab, or defaults in a category template.
The condition needs extra grading details (graded and ungraded trading cards)	No setup prevents this. ListSwiftly can’t send those details yet, so list these items on eBay directly.

Mercari

Preflight stops a listing when…	What prevents it
You’ve never had a listing on Mercari	One listing made on Mercari, brought in by a sync (step 3).
Your Mercari account has no ship-from zip	An address in your Mercari account settings, then a sync (step 3).
The product has no package weight	A package template in your Mercari recipe, or a weight on each product.
The price is under $1 or over $2,000	A base price, or a pricing rule result, between $1 and $2,000.
The condition doesn’t match one of Mercari’s five: New, Like new, Good, Fair, Poor	Choose the condition from the list rather than typing your own wording.
There’s no Mercari category	Pick the Mercari category when ListSwiftly asks. It remembers your answer for that eBay category.

Good to know before your first sale

• A Mercari listing holds one unit. Mercari has no quantity, so a product with five in stock is listed there as one. When it sells, ListSwiftly relists it only if you’ve turned on auto-relist, which is off until you choose otherwise. See Ending, relisting and stale refresh.
• If a channel still refuses after preflight said the listing was ready, the reason is shown on the listing. See When a channel refuses.

Next

• Add your first product
• Preflight