Years ago, when eBay first started, the only listing type was auctions. Now we have fixed price, store inventory, best offer, and second chance offers. Buyers are not forced into participating in an auction if they want to buy an item.
The old philosophy used to be, “Start the listing at 99 cents, get the bidders involved, and watch your price sky rocket.” This does not happen much anymore. And I am doing damage control with many clients who follow this outdated advice.
Here is why 99 cent auctions don’t work effectively anymore:
1. There are many other ways to buy items on eBay. Auctions aren’t the only choice.
2. Buyers don’t want to wait for an auction to end so they will buy from your competitors who offer the item at a fixed price and they “but it now.” If you aren’t offering fixed price to appeal to these “in a hurry” buyers, your competition does, and buyers will gravitate to your competitors. Furthermore, Amazon continues to grow and all items on Amazon are "buy it now." If a buyer can't find it on eBay at a fixed price, they will go to Amazon.
3. As a result of #1 and #2, there are fewer bidders in the bidding pool to drive up the price of auctions.
4. Consequently, your item does not get very many bids, and sells at a lower price than you would like.
5. More sellers are using research software to determine the listing type that brings the highest average price. Many times, fixed price listings bring a higher price so sellers use the fixed price listing instead of an auction.
The solutions:
1.Use Terapeak to determine the listing type that brings the highest average price.
2. If Terapeak says to use an auction, start the bidding at your rock-bottom price. Even if you only get one bid, you will get the price you wanted.
3. 99 cent auctions can work in some situations if a seller is very familiar with how a product performs over a period of time, or if you have a hot item such as the hot holiday toy or concert tickets limited in number. This is not a strategy for beginners. Wait until you have more experience with a product before using the 99 cent strategy.
For more discontinued item you can sell on eBay for profit, check out my latest Hot List.
Suzanne, you are so right, the 99 cent days are over. I do like to use the $9.99 auction start price however! I have some luck with that. If items don't sell at auction. Put it in my store, raise the price, add best offer and use markdown manager. Thanks for the great article!
ReplyDeleteANNE Z
I agree somewhat with this post. It's all about the item that is being listed. Can the Buy it Now option be available for the duration of an auction listing? I know in the past when you included Buy it Now with an auction, it would be unavailable after the first bid was entered.
ReplyDeleteSuzanne, I just wanted you to know that I followed your advice in this posting and added the "Buy It Now" and it really worked well for me! I was having the constant problem where an item would attract a ton of followers and they would bid but not as high as I would like. Added the "Buy It Now" and next thing I knew someone had bought it and booted all those non-bidders :)
ReplyDeleteI only use auctions as a way to drive traffic to my FP listings. I have experimented with running no auctions and my FP sales were way down when I run auctions my sales are a lot better and I make and sometimes exceed my sales goals. So, auctions at 99 cents are not the way to go any longer. sometimes I will do auction with BIN but they don't seem to work as well as FP listings.
ReplyDeleteThe .99 cent method worked for me on the first try I had no feedback or anything it was my first selling item n someone bid higher than what I was selling it for.
ReplyDelete