Ebay sellers..help wanted

BigRedMachine

I'm sure this has been discussed before, so please forgive me.

I was getting ready to list a handful of singles on the bay and got to thinking.....

What length of auctions do most of you experienced sellers use and why?

Ebay charges more for 10 day auctions and, to be honest, that seems like overkill. It's nice to maximize exposure by keeping an item up for a lot of days, but whenver I list an item for a week, there are never many (or any) bids until the last couple hours anyway.

Any opinions would help, thanks guys.

Shawn.

rbdjr1

Try seven days. Try to list after 9 PM EST, so you can get the West Coast bidders in Prime Time. 11 PM EST works! Discount Sportscards (a major seller) goes 5-days, so I started listing 5-day auctions also. I then switched back to 7-days, as "what part of those two extra days free did I not understand"? LOL!

Good luck!

rbd

jrdolan

Paying 40 cents for a 10-day listing is quite worthwhile on expensive cards. You list on a Thursday night and end on a Sunday night for two full weekends of exposure.

Another tip: Unless you're selling a dollar card, pay the 35 cents for a gallery photo. That photo outside your auction forces more space between you and the auctions before and after you. You don't get lost so easily, and it's cheaper than paying for bold ($1) or boxed ($3). Plus if your card is very attractive or a high-demand insert, say, the gallery pic gets more people to click on your auction than just your description.

You can also do your title in ALL CAPS. This is like putting it in bold, except it's free.

If you want to sell your card for at least $25, list the opening bid at $24.99 rather than $25. You'll save 60 cents on the insertion fee. Likewise for $50 or $100 -- list it for $49.99 or $99.99. The other levels to list a penny or nickel under are $200 and $500. Anything over $500 costs $4.80 to list, even a (real) Mantle rookie. The reserve fee, if any, is extra -- $1 up to $49.99 and $2 up to $199.99. After that it's 1% of the reserve up to a max cost of $100. You do get the reserve refunded if the item sells, but not if it doesn't.

BigRedMachine

thanks for the help guys.

BigRedMachine

I got a handful of small dollar cards up tonight. Thanks again for your advice. I'll keep my fingers crossed that I get top dollar, went with the seven day auction and gallery picture like you suggested.

Shawn

envoy98

I don't know that how long you list an auction for makes that much difference. Although as jr mentioned, a 10 day is great for two weekends of exposure on high dollar cards. If nothing else it'll get you more watchers.

I think as long as you can get the title noticed and you take paypal and have good feedback with reasonable shipping and a good scan you're in as good of shape to get top dollar as you're going to be. Even stuff that ends in the middle of the day sometimes gets good money... I've tried winning stuff a bit cheaper earlier in the morning or in the mid afternoon and it seems that the prices are still commensurate with other similar cards.

Hope you do well with the auctions.

-Josh

BigRedMachine

Envoy
I have 450+ positives and zero negatives, accept paypal, went seven day auction, ends Sunday night. I've done everything I know from the advice on these boards to get maximum dollars. I've sold a few cards before but never gave much thought about the best way to do it.

Without getting accussed of spamming, I'll post a link to one of the auctions. I think picture is clear enough. Wish me luck, I'll let you know how it turns out

Shawn.Low Dollar Auction, don't get excited

joeyuk

Starting them at .99 is good also. I find you can have 2 identical items and start 1 at .99 and the other at 50% fmv
and the .99 one seems to sell for more. Good Luck

CopperJJ

From my ebay selling experience, I find small money items that end on Sunday night, usually get no bids even starting at .35 or .99 cents. I usually list for 7 days and they run Sun to Sun. I post with a pic too. I also do more buying than selling tho. Oh well just my experience.