Thoughts on fixed price listings vs. normal auctions

joker73

I'm curious about what people think about the effectiveness of fixed price listings on eBay, as opposed to normal 5- or 7-day auctions. Like most eBay sellers, I prefer listing my auctions so that they end on Sunday evening, but lately Sunday (for 7-day) and Tuesday (for 5-day) evenings have been too busy for me to sit down and post a bunch of items. So, I'm thinking about trying a few 7-day fixed priced listings - I know what I want for each card, conditional on average recent eBay selling prices, but am not crazy about paying for the higher insertion fee that results for higher-end cards.

Is it worth the higher fee - i.e., have others had much success with fixed price listings? Do items tend to sell fairly quickly (if priced in a reasonable manner), or do you think buyers tend to ignore fixed price listings and try to snag a bargain via auction listings? Thanks in advance for your thoughts .

Robert

envoy98

Hi Joker, you pose an interesting question, one I myself have fought with. The only real advice I can add on this is based on my experience with buy-it-now. I've had quite a few things sell via BIN within the first hour of listing an item, in some cases the BIN was quite a bit higher than my reserve. In fact, only a few weeks ago I had a guy use the BIN with 3 minutes left in the auction and the auction was only $20 below my reserve, which I posted. The BIN was $75 over my reserve.

Personally I stay away from the fixed price as a buyer and as a seller. Primary as a buyer because the price is usually a fair amount over what similar auctions have closed at. For example, you'll see 5 of the same card closing at 80-100. Then you'll see a fixed price at $109 or $119 for example. Sure, I can get it faster, maybe pay a little less for shipping in some cases but the card books at $125 or $150, so it doesn't seem like as good of a deal.

As a seller, I hate paying the higher insertion fees. I follow and truly believe in the "nothing attracts a crowd quite like a crowd" mantra. What I mean is, if in the final minutes of an auction I am browsing the "Ending Soonest" (used to be going..going..gone which was much better) anyway..when I am browsing that I look at prices, the higher price I see, or the more bids I see usually pique my interest enough to warrant further investigation. If it's about to end, and it is a BIN only, then I pass. I don't really know why other than I assume nobody else wanted it, why should I? Does that make sense?

I guess, in a long winded sort of way... I would suggest a low starting bid, low reserve and reasonable BIN. I usually do very well with those characteristics. The low starting bid gets bids, the low reserve may help to have it met a bit sooner and it's a little cheaper to set the reserve lower as you pay a percentage of the reserve price. Once the reserve has been met, I find people tend to bid on it quite a bit more if the reserve was low to begin with.

Here is an example of a formula taht works well for me.

Auction ends on a Sunday afternoon or evening.
.01 or 1.00 starting bid.
Card books at $100 (Most are selling 45-70)
Reserve $50
BIN $65
8/10 times I'll sell it at the bin. It's a couple bucks lower than the highest recent ended auctions and in the middle for the reserve. So either way I make out.

Your mileage may vary. but it's worked well for me.

joker73

Thanks for the thoughtful response - your strategy makes a lot of sense. I guess I just wish that eBay let you choose an open-ended # of days (rather than just 3/5/7/10), so you could list at anytime and still have them end on Sunday ...

Robert

SDavid

Just keep in mind that the insertion fee is based on the reserve price, not the minimum price you set.

bill7549

Yeah, the insertion fee can be stiff because of a high reserve. That's why I just throw it on there at $4.99 opening bid and hope it makes it (which it has always done).