No reserve auctions, low starting price - ARE THE TICKET!

[John14789]

Exactly the whole point comes down to the buyer thinking its a scam. Also if you start selling very expensive items all of a sudden on a new account paypal/ebay will take action leading the closure of your account.

[SevnSins]

Based on my experiences; I have found that auction presentation means more to buyers, than your feedback score.

Feedback is useless in my mind. I'm currently competing with a person who has 400+ feedback, but this is their first and only item for sale. So it this case, the feedback has nothing to do with their selling abilities. The listing has one stock photo from the net, and a very generic description. He did sell the item, but for much less than I did.

On a side note; I think he is one of my wholesale customers. LOL!

[Modee]

Right, if you read this forum carefully you will note that in side by side comparisons of sales of identical items on my accounts with hundreds of feedback versus new accounts with zero, in some cases the items closed at higher prices on the new accounts!

But, all my auctions are professionally created with Dreamweaver with lots of hosted images of the actual item, nothing stock.

[Ihateebay]

100% of my listings started at .01 and usually ended nicely. I totally agree with Modee.

[John14789]

I have tried this method with a few of my products and it has worked out quite wonderfully! I also tried on a very new account so yes this method does work on new accounts.

[Sake-Pookie]

I have been trying some auctions at $.0 to $.99 starting prices and have been loosing money on jewelry items.

In my opinion and experience some buyers think if you are starting jewelry at a low price, it has to be worthless.

So no doubt the item dictates what works best, penny auctions -vs- Buy It Now sales.

[Modee]

No reserve, starting price a penny auctions work best for items that have a set MSRP. If you can point to "this item retails for $_____" in your listing, people will view that price as the ceiling rather than some nebulous figure they have made up.

For example, on jewelry items a lot of people simply value the item at melt value plus something for the stones. Of course unjustified, but keep in mind that EBAY is essentially the world's largest flea market and most people are not coming there looking for high end.

[Junie]

Items You Are Selling

Doesn't it depend upon what you are selling?

Clothing I don't think will make a lot of money at a penny opening bid, will it?



Junie

[Modee]

It's not the opening bid that matters but the closing price.


I've listed expensive items before for a certain buy it now price, or a reserve auction, only to have the auction fail. And then I'll list the exact same item at no reserve opening price a penny and see it sell for higher than the reserve or buy it now!

[Junie]

I'm getting off track, I suppose.

If it's a run way Christian Dior verses a purchase from Target, that makes a huge difference.



Junie

[Modee]

Ultimately, if your auction listings are created properly, which reflects a lot of different factors carefully outlined in the Short List, your closing prices will reflect market value, keeping in mind though that for many categories of products, Ebay buyers are real bargain hunters. One doesn't usually go to Ebay to pay top dollar!

[Junie]

Yes, you are right. If I made one penny from selling my goods, I'd be happy. I just don't want to owe eBay or owe on shipping. I'm in desperate need of decluttering. My dwellings are on the verge of hoarding, but I have nice things to sell. I don't want to donate those things. There is a huge pile of donations too.

Thanks, Modee

Junie