Ebay Sellers - To Feature or Not to Freature?

frankhardy

When do you (if ever) pay $19.95 to "feature" an auction. In the past, I have had a general rule that if I expect an item to go over $500, then I feature it. Do y'all think it makes 20 bucks worth of difference? Would you come out ahead or behind?

Opinions?

BigRedMachine

That's a great question and one I was recently contemplating. I have never used featured items before, even when I was selling cards I thought would hit $500. I mean, most high dollar cards will be found if you just use a 7 day auction. I think you gain more with a good scan, perhaps a bold listing, have a good feedback, accept paypal, etc. then you would be just throwing something in the "Feature Listing"

However, I just listed a 400 card lot of PSA cards, game used, autos, refractors, stars, etc. etc. etc. I was tempted to use the "Feature Listing" for this one because I didn't want this to get lost in the shuffle and end up giving away a nice amount of cards. In the end, I just listed it in the middle of everything else, keeping my fingers crossed that $1000 book value of cards doesn't get lost for $50.00.

We'll see. Let us know what you decide and how it turns out. I'm looking forward to seeing what some of the big sellers on here think. I wonder if I can go back and edit my item and move it now???

Shawn.

MuckyMutt

I think all the "extras" that Ebay offers are for one reason only - to make extra money for Ebay. The only "featured" items I ever see are scammy type crap. I have learned to ignore (on purpose) the featured items. I really believe that a good item will be found and in 98% of the time, bring a fair value or better. Your time - not money - is better spent on presentation. Good, no great scans and a nice description that doesn't go on & on about terms and conditions.

Good Luck.

SoFLPhillyFan

I too have featured higher priced item and I believe it works. When someone searches for a particular type of item it will filter out some of the scam junk.

The new Ebay fees and Ebay Express will offer a feature package that gives you more additions like bold, etc. for less.

frankhardy

Thanks for the opinions guys. I have about 4 or 5 items that I am listing in the coming weeks that will go over $500.

More opinions needed! Chime in guys!

wolfbear

I accidently skip over them a lot because they don't look like regular listings.

Also, since many times the more the featured an item is, the junkier it is,
when I do open a featured auction I already have a prejudice against it.

Given 7 days, people will find the good stuff easily enough without all of eBay's extra bells and whistles.

bsfastball

Using featured is a great idea when you have a whole bunch of auctions ending in a short time and you have a few high dollar items. Last week I put a 1982 Donruss Cal Ripken PSA 10 up on featured. I paid $250 for it on ebay about 3 months ago, and sold it last week for $335. Besides the profit, it helped drive buyers to my other auctions. So I would say go for it

zef204

I never feature an item. When I think the item may hit the 500+ range I will pop for bold and maybe a border. But people that are looking for a $500+ card are looking for that card. They aren;t the people who see it if its featured and say "Oh, I've been looking for one of those."

I think featuring your card is a waste and bold or highlight may be appropriate if there are several other same or like items to set your apart. Just my $.02, and I hope it helped.

sagard

Featuring auctions is good for collections or other groups that are hard to put keyword descriptions for. Featuring a 1959 PSA 8 Mantle would be simply taking $20 from your wallet and putting it into Ebays.

However featuring "Massive old Baseball Card Collection!" will get far more views than not featuring it.

frankhardy

Thanks for all of the opinions. It looks like we have two even sides.

Here is what I have. I have bought a collections of sets (Topps - 1970 to 1994, Fleer 1981 to 1994, Donruss 1981 to 1994, among other things). Also, I sent 36 cards to PSA (mostly from those sets). The 1984 Donruss Mattingly, as many of you know, got a PSA 10.

If I were to feature any, I was thinking the Mattingly, the 70, 71, and 72 sets. Now, I am torn completely as to what to do. So are saying not to feature, some are saying to feature. If I feature those four items, I am looking at an exta $100. Those are pretty mainstream items, so, like some of you were saying, it may not be worth it.

To those that say TO FEATURE - would you feature all four items, or just one of the items so that I could get more people to look at my other auctions?

bobwilley

I have tried featured a few times, but have not found that it seemed to increase the bid much (or at all)?

I have used it for vehicles to make them stand out, when my consignors were footing the bill. !!

I just put up a Complete Set of 1954 Quaker Sports Oddities and contemplating using Featured, and decided against it, and it is finding its own level and is over $500 now, almost at the reserve,
1954 Quaker SPORTS ODDITIES PSA Graded SET 27 cards
8 PSA Gem Mint 10's, 13 PSA Mint 9's, 3 PSA NM-MT 8's
Item number: 6245706707

sagard

Under your circumstances Frank, I would feature one of the early seventies sets and use the subtitle on that auction to advertise the fact you are auctioning complete set runs from Topps/Fleer and Donruss. Offer a nice combined shipping rate. Every three sets should cost you $7.70 to ship using the flat rate USPS priority mail.

Include a link in every auction description to your Ebay list as well. Don't just rely on the "View Sellers Items" link.

earlycalguy

I would not feature. there aren't that many complete early 70's set on at one time. any one looking for one will find yours. it's not like there are going to be 25 1970 compete sets at the same time and a buyer won't be able to find yours.

spend the .50 cents on a subtitle and spam your other sets - make this be the first set you have listed (set ending first)

spend the extra money on supersized scans of the key cards.

the psa 10 mattingly is nice but spending $25 as a percentage of what it will go for may not be worth it.

i would list them all to end on the same day and space 5 minutes apart. combine on shipping to encourage the same bidders. will be a lot to ship but may increase your ending prices.

tedh111

I have a book that was put out by channel advisor. Iti s a very good book that breaks down a lot of the advanced selling methods. They say to not use the featured or bold because your auctions dont really stand out all that much. The only time they say to use any featured type thing is when selling dutch auctions with generic product.

bsfastball

I guess I'm in the minority here, but I almost always spring for the upgrades on anything that might be interesting OR anything that should go over $100, and I always seem to get higher prices when I do. Bold seems to work especially well, and its only a dollar more. If I were you, I would feature the 1984 Mattingly PSA 10.

BigRedMachine

This one doesn't make much sense.

Featured Auction

With an opening bid of $30+ and a BIN $75.00, why spend $19.95 to put it on the front page??? Kind of blows the profit a little, huh?

In my case, I wish maybe I would've. I've got a 400+ card lot of GU'd, autos, PSA, Bowman Chrome Uncirculated, etc. and probably would've gotten the extra exposure I needed for a lot like this by using the "Featured" Option. Live and learn.

Shawn.