posted on April 19, 2001 03:42:25 PM new
How do you determine your opening bid price? Looking at comparable items? Based on what it cost? An esoteric formula? A penny and a prayer? Partial cost and fee coverage? I've seen threads where a high price has been bemoaned and complaints as to items selling with one bid - thus removing the "auction" action, but I've seen threads where buyers were more or less told to increase their opening bids. I am a reseller and sort of need to take my cost into account as I'm not willing to habitually lose money. I.e., I've never yet braved the .01 auction!
posted on April 19, 2001 04:18:41 PM new
This is just how I do it, other's probably do things differently, and do well.
IF it is something that sells really well on ebay, and you can almost predict the price it will bring, you can start it low, and MAYBE a bidding war will start and you will get a couple of "ego" bids that push it higher than normal. No "ego" bids, you get what you expected.
IF it's one of them "hot" items that will always bring "good money", but is unpredictable, DO start it low, and hope you get lots of first day bidders. (You know the little "number of bids" that show on the catagory pages? The higher this gets, the more attention you get, and then that little number gets higher...)
If either of the above are items that could ruin your week if ebay went down for the last 30 minutes of the auction, USE A RESERVE. (Some people don't like Reserve Auctions, but I'm not going to lose my best piece of merchandise for the week over "Functionality" problems.)
IF it's one of those things that "maybe will sell this week", maybe not", then think REAL HARD about the bottom line you will take, and price it there.
posted on April 19, 2001 10:16:50 PM new
There's a new wrinkle posed with "Buy It Now." May not apply in your case, if you don't use BIN, but if you do, and you really are interested in getting a BIN sale early in the auction, it pays to be careful not to put the opening bid real low. A low-ball, not-really-serious bidder will bid just for fun, and there goes any possibility of SIN "Selling It Now."
posted on April 19, 2001 10:40:19 PM new
Yeah but for the ones without reserve you see a lot of people bidding on the item in hope that they can get it cheap. I know because I have done it too. I set my max a little less than BIN (about 50-75%) because I often still win. But for the seller who does BIN they lose out on the possible sale.
But then again, I would rather pay $5 than $10. When people set BIN too high and then get upset that they couldn't get the BIN price it is because they set it too high. I seem to be the only bidder on books for a certain tv show (a top 10 show) right now. But when they set BIN for $10 and open bid at $10, I will bid maximum of $6 and still get it for $5. Why should I pay $5 extra if it is likely that I will win anyway?
Most of the items I bid on have a huge market, but books never seem to have the bidding wars like computers and software...
posted on April 19, 2001 10:56:59 PM new
I've seen funny things with BIN. Had a auction with a $25 start, $40 BIN. Opening bidder (at $25) wound up having to bid $43 to win the auction....
posted on April 20, 2001 04:37:08 AM new
I sell very few of the same item, therefore, I am unsure what the "going rate" on eBay will be. I usually list with a beginning amount to cover my costs. There are times when I have paid over $10 for an item but start at $9.99 because I save the extra quarter and I feel the ending price will be substantially more.
I have been experimenting with a few 1 cent auctions on relists. There are several factors I take into account when doing this. Do I feel that I am throwing good money after bad on listing fees? How many hits did it get on the first run? Am I willing to risk that the auction will end at a penny? I have been pleasantly surprised with my one cent auctions, many of them have ended over my first listing starting bid price. I also have used BIN for the one cent relists with very few people taking advantage of it.
One last note on penny auctions. If a buyer happens to get a good deal for a penny, you will be surprised at how many of them feel "guilty" and offer to let you relist the item or send you a little extra with their payment.
posted on April 20, 2001 05:38:33 AM newThe low ballers bounced it 12 times up to $350, and then it got BINed. Buyer is FED-EXing $$$
Have the BIN procedures changed? Unless they have, this can't happen. When the first bidder bids (and doesn't use the BIN), the BIN option disappears from the auction.
posted on April 20, 2001 05:41:07 AM new
I suppose I am a "MAJOR" scardy Kat! In 5 years I have never done a penny auction, or a $1.00 auction or anything in that category. Our normal items run $30 to $150, and since I am NOT into losing money to do the Penny or dollar start I'd have to use a reserve, and in the past few years it seems reserved auctions don't do as well as NR, even if the NR opens much higher.
I have been reading threads like this for a few weeks and am VERY tempted; if I capitulate, I'll let you know how it goes, but I am really fearful of trying such an approach.
Of course, till 2 years ago, I never ran an auction without a reserve, so maybe I'll get up the courage to try the lowball openings.
I have seen a few of the penny openings on featured auctions, on fine items, with absolutely NO bids, and that is what concerns me - I wonder if one is selling really unique, quality items and then opens at a penny and features the auction, if this doesn't cheapen the item in the eyes of the potential buyer??????
Yes, the BIN rules have recently changed in regards to reserve auctions. Under the new rule, the BIN option does not disappear on reserve auctions until the reserve has been met.
posted on April 20, 2001 05:55:55 AM new
I start all of my auctions at $1 no reserve. However, since I buy all of my items at thrift shops I am really not going to lose more than a couple of dollars if the item only gets one bid. If the item is wanted buy more than 1 person, the final bids always seem to be higher than other similar items.
If it is a "hot" item, you cant go wrong with the $1 opening bid. Last month, I listed a vintage denim shirt for $1 and the darn thing sold for $500.00! If I listed it at $100, I probably would have never got that much.
JWPC: if you want to try it, just put a few things up for a dollar. But dont put them on with other items that you are selling at higher prices. Otherwise, bidders will think you are just looking to get rid of the $1 items. See what happens.
posted on April 20, 2001 06:07:50 AM new
I like to start my auctions off at either a penny or 25 cents. I'm currently experimenting with the start price on the auctions and the ones that are getting the good bids are the items I started at a penny.
posted on April 20, 2001 06:21:22 AM new
I use the same strategy as Microbes - check the completed auctions for the same (or similar) item, then decide whether or not to lowball the starting bid. If it's something that attracts a number of bidders and tends to close at a consistant price, then I lowball it in the hopes of generating a bidding war. OTOH, if it's something that tends to get one bid and few pageviews, then I'll put it out at a fair "sell through" price. There may be only one bidder for the item, but if that one bidder is willing to pay $5, $10, or $15 for the item, then it seems kind of self-defeating to let the item go for a buck or a penny.
posted on April 20, 2001 09:55:41 AM new
I create handcrafted items that consistently sell for about 50 to 100 dollars and I have people begging me to list more (but I can only finish about 1 to 2 per week, a rate I'm happy with). I put my ID in my auctions and people search on that name. For all of these reasons, I feel perfectly comfortable starting my bids at 1.00. I've sold about 25 this way and never had one end below 50 dollars (my cutoff for acceptable profit--if I had a reserve, it would be about that much). The most exciting thing was getting 38 bids (and a HOT icon) on one item. I like the way 1.00 openings create interest and excitement over my auctions. It's not unusual for me to get 300 page views on a three day auction in what is a very, very small niche of buyers.
Would I do this if I were still selling books? No way!
Would I do this if I were still selling Victoria's Secret manufacturer overruns, NO.
These things have to be judged by many factors before you can know if this will work for you.
posted on April 20, 2001 04:00:29 PM new
On items that should sell for less than $25, I look at closed auctions and set my opening bid at at least the 80th percentile. Sometimes as much as 20% higher than the highest final bid.
Then I put the BIN $2 or $3 higher.
Works like a charm
Bill
[ edited by cdnbooks on Apr 20, 2001 04:01 PM ]
>since I don't use reserve auctions, didn't realize this had changed.
I cringe everytime eBay changes something, but this was a good "tweak".
I don't use reserves on most of my auctions, but the better stuff, I feel like I have to. I was glad I did during the last 3 day "functionality" problem that ebay had recently.
