cattom124: When selling on Ebay is it better to start the bidding lower than the than the amount you want for the item?
I just opened an account on Ebay. Let me know if you know anymore helpful tips when selling on ebay. Thank You !
Answers and Views:
Answer by Tim
By starting it lower, you have lower listing fees.
If the price is too high no one will bid on it, but otherwise you may not get want you want.
Answer by DegWhat ever you do, do not put in a reserve price.I refuse to even bid on a item like that. Customers want to know what the rock bottom price is, not to guess.Answer by Volusian
Generally, you want to save on listing fees and let the (ebay) market to set the closing price. In most cases, this means starting the initial price at $ 9.99 or less. However, the only exception is for expensive items. With the current recession and sales at ebay (and most everywhere else) soft now, you don’t want to get burned. Use you discretion with expensive items.
Some tips that may be helpful to you……….
Be honest and accurate in your descriptions – One-sentence descriptions are for lazy sellers. One paragraph should be sufficient for most items. My general guideline is the more expensive (read higher priced) an item, the more you should ‘talk it up.’ It won’t be time wasted. Use lots of adjectives in your descriptions. Adjectives make prose and your items come alive. Without them, prose is dull and your items less appealing. Just add a little ‘sizzle’ and even have a little fun with it. In short, make your descriptions stand out above the crowd.
Be professional – use good English with no spelling errors
PICTURES:
ALWAYS include at least one picture, more pictures for higher priced items. Make sure your pictures are clear. There are far too many pictures on ebay that are dark. If prospective buyers can’t see your items clearly, your items, more than likely, will not fetch the closing prices they deserve. To remove darkness, use any photo editor to add some brightness and a wee bit of contrast.
Eliminate clutter. Prospective bidders don’t want to know what kind of cereal you eat or what kind of kitchen table or bedspread you have. Use a SOLID backdrop when taking your pictures as you want to focus all of the attention on your item. In short, the one and only thing you want in your picture is the item being sold. A SOLID white or light blue backdrop is best. However, there are certainly items that won’t show well on a light backdrop. In these cases, use a darker backdrop. And for gosh sake, don’t even think of using a plaid blanket as a backdrop for your pictures as I once saw on ebay. You should also crop the photos in your photo editor. Good pictures can add 5% to 10% to final closing prices.
GOOD DESCRIPTIONS + GOOD PICTURES = GOOD PRESENTATION. This is what you should strive for.
COMMUNICATION:
GOOD Communication is a must – Always notify buyers when you mail their items. It is not only a courtesy you would want and expect as a buyer but it is also both good customer service and good business practice. After all, you are the ‘President & CEO’ of your ‘company’ running your business but using ebay as your selling medium. In short, conduct your business so that it reflects well on you as a person. Treat everyone as a human being, not a living being and this includes people who have inquiries about your items, not just your buyers. Prospective buyers making these inquiries could ultimately be the winning bidders and possible repeat customers.
TIPS TO MAXIMIZE PROFITS:
Do not limit your auctions to one country. SELL WORLDWIDE. The reason is elementary. You now have access to the largest market ebay has to offer. Limiting your auctions to only one country also limits your potential profits. A basic business tenet is, ‘the greater the potential market, the greater the potential to maximize profits.’ But do note in your listing that PayPal is the only form of payment you will accept from overseas bidders/buyers. Through experience, you will learn that there are certain problem countries. Italy seems to be one of them. Mail sent to buyers in Italy very often ‘mysteriously disappears.’ If this is the case, just note in your listing you sell to all countries EXCEPT (name(s) here).
However, if you decide to limit sales to only one country, such as the USA, never say NO when you receive an email asking if you would ship to Taiwan, Germany, Australia or wherever. The reason is that you have a ‘FISH ON THE HOOK!’ This person will bid! When he or she does, this may force a previous bidder to enter another, higher bid or force later, first time bidders to come in with higher bids. So always say YES to these emails if you want to maximize your profits. But do say that PayPal is the only form of payment you will accept from these overseas bidders
Avoid selling ‘nickel and dime’ items. People who list and sell a steady stream of items that close for $ 5 or less are wasting their time. Less expensive, similar items ($ 5 or less) are best sold as a group to save time. If you have a large number of these cheaper, similar items, divide them up into sub lots of three, four or five.
More expensive (higher priced), similar items are best sold individually to maximize profits. There are ebay ‘vultures’ who just love to swoop down on similarly grouped items in one listing. When they win these auctions, they turn around and sell the items individually and, in most cases, get one and a half to 2 times and sometimes three times what they paid for them on an average item basis. I know this works. When I had more time (read unemployed), I was one of these ‘vultures.’ This is one of those situations where the parts are worth more than the whole.
Short of items to sell and where to find items to sell? Garage and yard sales, church bazaars, flea markets are obvious as are ‘junktique’ shops. If you want to let your fingers do the walking, you too can be crafty ‘vulture’ like a select group of other ebay sellers. Become a member of several smaller auction sites and search for bargains there. But as before, ‘stick with what you know.’ These smaller auction sites are great for buyers for the same reason they are bad for sellers:
Far fewer potential bidders = less competition = lower closing prices
Once you have your bargains, turn around and sell them at ebay. Ebay has the largest membership of any auction site. There isn’t another auction site that is remotely close and I do mean remotely close to having the number of members that ebay has. Here is the ebay formula:
Largest, by far, of any auction site = MAXIMUM competition = HIGHER closing prices,
If you want to do your listings OFFLINE, download the TURBO LISTER program free from ebay. Once you have finished with your listings, you can upload them anytime or schedule a date and time when you want your auctions to start.
Lastly, keep in mind that experience is the best teacher. Start off slowly listing only two or three items and see how that goes for you. Once you get your feet wet and gain confidence, start listing more items on a weekly basis. You will soon learn the ins and outs and the dos and don’ts in short order and ultimately settle on a system that works best for you. The more items you list, the more items you will sell, the more $ $ you will make and the harder you will work. Nothing in life comes easy and that includes becoming a successful seller at ebay. Good luck & happy selling!
Answer by lojanet1898I wouldn’t suggest anyone to become a seller on eBay. The most important thing you need to know is: 1) eBay does a very poor job to enforce winning bidder to honor their bids. 2) you are always the last person who gets paid. First of all, you need to pay eBay insertion fee and final value fee. FVF only applies if your item is successfully sold. Second of all, you will be charge a PayPal transaction fee for payment processing service. Then you need to pay USPS, UPS, or DHL to deliver the item to the buyer. The left over amount, minus your cost and 15% of government tax, will be the actual amount that goes into your pocket.
Although eBay claims your item might be eligible for an insertion fee credit if your item didn’t sell or the winner didn’t honor the bid. However, you can only use it once. In order to be eligible for the insertion fee credit if your winner didn’t pay, you will need to first of all file an Unpaid Item dispute on the 8th day after the auction ended. Then you’ll have to wait another week for the winner to response. If the winner didn’t response, then you can relist your item and get your insertion fee credit when your item is sold the second time. However, if the Non Paying Bidder reply to eBay says they want to complete the transaction, then you’ll lose the eligibility EVEN THOUGH THEY STILL HAVEN’T PAY YOU.
Remember, never ever use the “Sell Similar” feature even you have like 100 identical items because once you list your item through “Sell Similar”, you’re consider relisting your item and you are automatically not eligible for insertion fee credit. Tricky huh?
The most stressful part is their feedback system. Sometimes, there are sick people out there, they bid on your item just to mess around. Some even leave you a negative feedback just for fun. eBay will not do anything to remove it. Even though you think you’re undeserved, eBay will not remove it unless they are presented with a valid court order stating that the comment is slanderous, libelous, defamatory or otherwise illegal. eBay doesn’t remove Feedback without a court order, even if a member believes it is retaliatory, false, unfair, or harmful to his or her name, character, or reputation.
But these are nothing compares to their new feedback policy starting in May 2008. Sellers are no long able to leave negative feedback for bidder. Sellers can only leave positive feedback. Yup! Even the winner doesn’t pay; you still cannot leave negative feedback to him or her. The seller will have no way to find out the credibility of the bidder.
eBay constantly changes their policy. They always have something new comes up everyday and it is almost impossible for sellers to catch up.
Sometimes if eBay thinks your shipping charge is unreasonable, your listing will be removed without prior notice. They may also suspends your account permenantly and will not let you reinstated no matter how many emails you sent to them.
Also, if you’re new to PayPal, even thought you have shipped your item to your buyer, PayPal will hold your fund for 21 days. That’s right, you won’t get paid for 3 weeks even though you have to pay your vendor, the shipping cost, and all the fees that listed above. Here’s the stupid rule that makes new seller’s life in hell:
PayPal and eBay are working together to make payments for eBay items even safer. Because we want both buyers and sellers to feel confident about sending and receiving payments through PayPal, we may temporarily hold payments for items sold on eBay.
Make sure to ship the item right away, so you’ll have access to the funds sooner. We’ll release the hold in 21 days unless you receive a dispute, claim, chargeback, or reversal on the transaction subject to the hold. We may release the hold earlier if either of the following occurs:
• The buyer leaves you positive feedback on eBay.
• We confirm that the item was delivered.* We can confirm delivery if you ship the item with USPS, FedEx, or UPS and either use PayPal shipping labels or upload tracking information from the transaction details page. This applies to transactions within the United States.
Additional hold period
If you receive a dispute, claim, chargeback, or reversal on the transaction subject to the hold, we may hold the payment until the problem is resolved.
Learn more about the PayPal policy for payments holds on eBay items.
eBay is not a safe trading place for sellers. Especially for beginners. The buyer can do whatever they want and PayPal always favor the buyer. For instance, the bidder can file a dispute to Paypal claiming the item is not as described. Paypal will then ask the buyer to return the item to the seller. As long as the buyer can provide a tracking number and shows the item is being delivered. The buyer will instantly get their money back even though they just sent an empty box or a piece of garbage. Paypal is not a bank so they are not regulated by the FDIC. However, they can manipulate your money without your consent
Answer by TimVolusian, Has provided some outstanding advice.
However, I would like to add that you include several pictures in your listing. Remember ebay wil let you post one photo for free, then .15 cents for each additional picture. If you plan on listing alot of items, then using a photo host will save you a lot of money.
If you haven’t, sign up for a photo hosting service, such as inkfrog, photobucket, or my personal favority is Seller’s Sourcebook.
With SSB, you can choose for thousands of templates for your listings, add as many pictures as you want to your listing, launch your listing from thier site (immediately or select a time you wish for it to start).
Their fees are very reasonable. I pay $ 70 per year and they offer outstanding customer support.
Also, sell what you like. Don’t worry about “What’s Hot”. If you don’t have a passion for the items that you are listing, it will show up in your ad and it won’t sell. Or if it does sell, perhaps for opening bid.
When you price your items, start them out at a price that you will be happy with if they only go for opening bid, as a majority of items do.
Do not excessively pad your shipping and handling. I charge $ 1.00. That covers, my cleaning supplies, packaging materials, Delivery Confirmation, plus my fuel to go to the Post Office.
I have been buying and selling on ebay for 10 years. While it’s not always fun. There have been times, I hae taken time off six months or more. Then I get the itch to sell again.
It is alot of hard work, but you get out of it, what you put into it.
Answer by the_art_spaceit IS better in a way, because quite often people won’t even look at items with high starting prices.
By starting low they think they might get a bargain, then as the days go by they (hopefully) get attached to the idea of owning it and will be willing to pay more!
BUT only do it if you’re sure your item will get lots of bids, because you do have to complete the sale, no matter how much it goes for.
Answer by Paula from Maple StreetThere is a very high percentage of items that sell for the opening bid price or don’t sell at all. To be on the safe side, don’t start it any lower than the lowest possible price you could accept for the item plus eBay and PayPal fees or you will be losing money.
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