Using a reserve instead of a high minimum bid

Many sellers have found that starting off an auction with a low minimum bid and a reasonable reserve is better than starting the auction with a minimum bid equal to the reserve price. The psychology is that many bidders want to get their feet wet by placing a low bid before they will place a bid that is closer to the item's actual worth. Some buyers feel that this is a trick, but it seems to work. Whether buyers like it or not, it seems to be a good business practice. Experiment and see if this work for you.

Reserves will turn some bidders away

When considering whether to use a reserve or not, you should realize that many people will not bid on an item once they realize there is a reserve on it. You need to decide whether the benefits of using the reserve offset the cons. If the reserve price is too close to the minimum price it might not be worth setting the reserve. This is often true of low priced items. The closing price is often not significantly higher than the final price. To get a feel for what the closing price might be, look at other similar auctions.

Take advantage of a bidder's excitement

There is an excitement that buyers have as they bid on an item they really want. It is fun for them to see how the item they have bid on is doing, to see if they are the high bidder, and to make counter bids. It is a competitive game where all want to be winners. You as a seller should foster this excitement if possible. This is part of the reason why starting the bidding on an item at a low price is nice; it gives buyers a chance to get into the game and get attached to the item.

What should I sell?

There are those that are using online auctions as a great way to clear out the stuff they don't need anymore, but for the rest of us, online auctions present a great opportunity to really supplement our income or take the place of our day jobs. Some statistics say that about twenty percent of the sellers are selling as part of a business.

So, once you have sold all the things around your house that you want to sell, what do you do? You need to go out and buy merchandise that you can resale at a reasonable profit.

What kinds of things will sell well? This is the question every serious seller is asking himself or herself every day. There is no magic formula in finding things to sell, but there are some general things to consider as you look for those items:

• Price - there needs to be enough of a price difference between your buying and selling price that it makes it worth your while to sell the item. You might make a great percentage profit selling small toys, but how many toys do you need to sale to make some reasonable money. Look for things that you can get a great deal on.

• Item Characteristics - certain items have characteristics that make them poorly suited for online auctions, such as milk and other perishable items, certain chemicals, etc.
• Availability - you want to sell an item that you can get a good deal on. If you can't get a good deal, others that can get a good deal will be able to sell for less than you. In most auctions, people sell what they have a connection or other access to at a low price. Being able to get a good price also increases your profit, which makes online selling worthwhile.

• Demand - it does no good if you can get a great deal on something that would sell for a reasonable profit but most people do not want it.

• Repeatability - ideally, you want to sell something that you can sell over and over again. This saves you time in creating ads, which can be very time consuming. This also allows you to take advantage of the economics of scale. You can buy the shipping containers in bulk, learn the most efficient ways to send the item, etc.

Think search words when creating ads

Online auction sites have millions of auction items in thousands of categories. And auction sites only allow you to list any given item in one category at a time. How can you determine the best place to post your items without endless experimentation? And how will potential buyers ever find your items if you don't find that perfect category? How do they navigate through this maze?

While some people, as matter of personality, will naturally browse through categories and subcategories and sub-subcategories, and so on; many simply click on "Search" and enter words that they'd expect to find in the titles or descriptions of items they are interested in.

When you search for a word on eBay, it only looks for that word. The eBay search engine does not look for words that might contain your words. For example, if you search the item titles for dog, you will only get titles with the word dog. You will not get titles with the words dogs, doggy, or dogged, or any other word that contains dog. If you search for dogs, you will not get titles with the word dog. This is very important to remember. In many cases, a buyer will search for the singular of plural form of a word looking for an item, but he or she will generally not search for both. On Yahoo! Auctions, this problem does not exist, so if you search for the singular form of a word, you will also get the plural forms.

As you title and describe your items, use as many of the words that you think a buyer might use to find your item.

Additional promotion

There are many ways you can promote your online auctions. You can mention your auction items on your Web site or at the bottom of e-mail messages. If you regularly auction items on a certain auction site, you can make mention of it in advertising and other communications. Once people realize that you regularly auction items off, they will consider it a source of your products.

The more people you can get to your auction, the better the price you will probably be able to get.

Auction ending time and day

Sellers should try to end their auctions at times when their potential bidders will be available to make last minute bids. Buyers might consider making bids on items that end at odd times; these are auctions that many might not be interested in.

If an item is for personal use, most buyers will probably be shopping for it in the evenings. If an item is for business use, there is a greater chance that buyers will be shopping during business hours.

The day of the week is also important. Generally, more personal item buyers are available on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Weekends are not good for buyers; they must be occupied doing other more important things. Business item buyers generally make their purchases during business hours.

Take into consideration time zones. 10 PM in California is 1 Am in New York.

As a seller, once you determine the best time for your auction to end, you need to start your auction so that it will end at the desired time. The time of day that you start is the time of day that you end. If you start your auction at 8 PM, it will end at 8 PM -- you cannot select an ending time.

Information please

The more information you can provide for bidders that better off you will be and the more problems you will avoid. When people don’t supply information, bidders start to wonder if they are hiding something, or the bidder makes an incorrect assumption that will cause a lot more trouble for you and the bidder later on.

Make sure to include details about the condition of an item, especially if there are some imperfections in it. Mention any payment and mailing related information. Give a clear and accurate description of the product. If you can include a picture, this can help a lot. A bidder can tell a lot about an item from a picture.

Shipping

If you know how much it will cost to ship your item, include that information in the description.

Remember the cost of packaging as well as the postage.

If you have a choice, sell small items rather than large ones. Sell items that will fit in a standard size box that you can send parcel post, rather than selling furniture or pianos. And better still, in the US, sell items that will fit in a flat-rate priority mail envelope.

In the US, for an item that will cost $2 or more to mail first class, you are better off sending it in a flat-rate priority mail envelope for $3.20. If you went with first class, you would end up spending nearly $1 for a padded envelope, which would add weight and raise the postage cost. Even if the first class postage would be less than $2, you still might be better off with priority mail because the cardboard flat-rate envelope provides good protection for paper goods, like comic books, and your package is likely to arrive sooner at its destination, with more careful handling.

Also, with flat-rate priority mail, you know the shipping cost right away without going to the trouble of weighing -- if it fits in the mailer, then regardless of weight, the cost of $3.20. This gives you the opportunity to use the shipping cost as an incentive for people to bid on more than one item from you.

Register and/or insure the packages

For just a bit more money, you can register your package and be able to verify that it arrived where it was suppose to go. For still a bit more money, you can insure the contents against loss or damage. Registering and insuring an item can save you a lot of hassle and worry, and the cost can easily be paid for in the time you will save if there is a problem.

Record keeping

What types of things should you keep records on? Almost everything. You want to save your e-mails and all communications you have with others. If you are a seller, you need to track information about the items you are selling, If you are a buyer, you need to keep track of all of the things you are bidding on. You also want to save copies of the final Web pages for the item.

Special software programs that can help you

As online auctions becomes more and more popular, there are more and more programs available that are designed specifically for helping the online auction user. The cost of these programs might quickly get paid for if you do a lot. Remember, the more you do, the more each moment you save on an action is amplified tens, hundreds, or thousands of times.

Communicate, communicate, communicate

I know this sounds like a lot of work, but if you are well organized and have some general e-mails that you just modify a bit and send, it will not take that long at all. The other person does not care if they get a form letter, they do care to hear from you and that what the form letter says is true..... Recommended Books: eBay Marketing 2001 Reseller's Package!  and eBay Auctions Marketing Course!

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