KtotheF

For you astute eBay speculators, do you notice any trends that result in higher selling prices?

Obvious, really good pictures and description are a must. But I'm thinking less obvious things, like:

-auction ending time, does it matter? I've seen auctions ending in the middle of the night still get huge last second bids

-title, cram as much info as possible into the title? keywords that will get more search hits?

-reserve, or high starting price? My thoughts were always that a high starting price scared people away, but do people generally avoid auctions with reserves as well? Is it better to just take your chances and do a .99 starting no reserve?

Anything else? If I had more time on my hands, I would like to do a study of ebay trends, it's pretty fascinating.

limeylew

Kind of what you seem to be asking here is what do other people find to work best for THEM.

There are a lot of variables to consider here and what you need is what will work best for YOU.

You're obviously an intelligent person and you might find that experimenting with fairly inexpensive items to begin with may enable you to develop a risk/reward strategy that you will be comfortable with.

(I have over 500 positive feedbacks and a 100% rating)

Hope this will help you.

old and new

Having read and pondered all you've stated as well as what the fellow above has, I'll say that you''ve thought it out well. Let's consider bikes or their parts; starting higher is better. One could argue that a low price is an attractant, it is , intitially anyway, unless it the item lingers and somebody snipes it. So it depends on just how highly coveted the item is. Astute buyers see through the 99 cent thing, so they're the ones you ought to "protect" yourself from. Think about it.

Pretend that you yourself are shopping for an item likes yours, find something, put it on your watchlist, observing the widest catagory it falls under. For istance, I've won bikes for five dollars on account of their being listed under "transportation" OR overly specific cats. such as "Vintage Schwinn" and ONLY "VS".. These particular items held no appeal as such but would've fetched more had they been listed as bikes or road bikes. You get the idea and you know the "obvious" points that can escape us.

Some of this might be apparent already. What might not be is the freight. Again it depends on the item; if it's cheap and or light, it bennefits most sellers to pack-on the Frt. chgs. HOWEVER.. with pricey or pricey to ship stuff (like bikes) . Folks get real touchy over frt., now THAT 'll scare 'em off !! Keep the freight artificially low and cover your ass in the price. I've seen stuff, all kinds have free or low freight that disappears (including com. machinery) while its counterpart will linger simply because the frt. "seems to high "... it's a head thing.

dbakl

My thoughts:

Most bids come in the last few minutes, why drag it out? I always did my auctions for 3 days.

A good item will bring a good price. An ordinary item may go for nothing. If you have a certain amount invested, start there but don't be surprised if no one bids. I've seen starting bids of $350. on items worth that, but no one wanted to start there, so there were no bids. If it started at 99. I bet it would have gone over 350.

Good pictures and accurate descriptions are a must.

Desirable items are bringing top dollar, maybe over top dollar. Ordinary items can still be had for cheap. I wouldn't say prices are necessarily all up.

KtotheF

I would say that good items will always sell, but I've seen near identical items vary by hundreds of dollars, even so much as $900, its baffling.

tmh657

It can be baffling. I have sold non-bike items and expect $200 for it and it bids up to $600 most likely because the guy in Taiwan REALLY wants it and he isn't going to find it on his Craig's list.

Then bike goodies I expect to go for $100 stop at $56 with great pictures and description. No rhyme or reason.

kendall

Agree with that, I needed some parts for a lathe, found two listings for the parts. One I bid on early while the price was low, but it went well over $500, and the other I found right after my first bid, I ended up getting for $45 total shipped. Same identical items, both correctly listed and well described.
It
's been a while since I've used bay, but as long as the item is described correctly and named in the title, and everything is CORRECTLY SPELLED people have no trouble finding them.

Normally, if I see too many key words in the title/description (single speed singlespeed fixie fixtie fixed gear track bike trackbike ten speed tenspeed 10speed streetbike street road bike roadbike bicycle etc etc etc) I look elsewhere because the guy obviously can't make up his mind what the hell he has and just wants to make the sale, so why should I deal with him?

Ken.

KtotheF

Wow, that's a good one.

A while back I saw two ~03 litespeeds, same size, same model, go for $450, and $1600. The $450 had that sort of half paint job, where the front end is black, and the other one was unpainted. Obviously looks make a difference, but that much?!

20grit

don't end an item on a holiday, ever.

actually, do. i love it when something ends on a holiday because typically people are too busy to watch the item. i've gotten many items at low prices that way.

the description should tell me enough to let me know i need to check, i.e. Peugeot Ventoux, 60cm. that alone would catch my attention, it gives me frame, model, and size. save the details for the ad. WOW!!!!!!! or !!!!EXCELLENT!!!! does nothing for me in a title. i have been known to ignore those ads.

I hate, hate, hate people who won't ship. it's not that difficult. put it in a box, take it to ups/fedex/usps.

i'd say more than 3 days, just so it has time to pique the interest of buyers who may not get to search daily.

start the bidding at a price just below what you'd be willing to take if all else fails and you really wanted to get rid of it. set your reserve accordingly if you feel you must have a reserve. .99 starting bids just take longer to get where you're going. however, something starting 3 dollars under the expected buy price is equally irritating. Auctions are addictive, people are competitive. give them some room to get carried away and make a few mistakes.

a mix of photos should always accompany an ad. close ups and full view shots should compliment one another giving the buyer a complete look at what they're seeing.

TURN OFF THE FLASH! find a place with good lighting and turn off the dang flash. it's nearly impossible to see detail with a flash. i hate not being able to see anything in a picture because of the flash. i see this all the time on gunbroker too. (i have several addictions)

r0ckh0und 

Several good points made above........I have had some luck with a starting price I feel I must get and a BUYitNow slightly below or at what I believe it's worth.

A lot of BuyItNow prices are over and above online retailer prices. I usually research a buy....ie; shop around for the best price with shipping taken into consideration and I think most smart shoppers do the same.

I feel I have been duped a few times as a buyer.........in one instance I was the winning bidder on an MTB wheelset at a great price and the seller claimed the wheels were damaged by the garage door and he returned my money.

In another instance just a few months ago I won a Gunnar RockHound MTB with full XTR for $250 because the seller listed a $150+ shipping charge and very few bidders would touch it. After about 6 weeks of prodding them to ship it they claimed it had fallen off their car and was badly damaged, they failed to provide pics of damage upon request.

I have also seen sellers pull their items within the last few hours because they've offered free shipping and only get a few low bids that clearly would'nt even cover shipping costs.

To be fair as a seller you need to do your research and set limits to avoid getting stung and above all be honest about your item and the condition. Also, if you've never shipped a complete bike before, it helps to research that as well.

redxj

I always have items end on weekend nights. Most bidding does come at the end so you need to make it easy for most people to bid. You are on the west side of the country so I would have it end at 10-12PM EST so list it at 7-9PM your time on Saturday or Sunday.

Are you listing bike parts or complete bikes? If bike parts I would also suggest doing worldwide shipping. It is a little more of a hassle to ship internationally, but I have often got much more for an item because of the international bidders. Japan and Australia have a lot of bidders interested in nice vintage bicycle parts.

EDIT: I see the title listing now, oops. Shipping a bike overseas is extremely expensive every time I have checked. I don't know of a reasonable way to ship a frame or complete bike international. For parts USPS can be $10-30 for most items First Class or Priority.

Rabid Koala

I have done pretty well with my auctions. I always schedule them to start/end on Sunday afternoon, about 2-4 pm Pacific time. I place the listing earlier as it gives me time to reconsider my listing, both pricing and wording. I think they charge a dime for a delayed start. I use lots of photos hosted on Photobucket and detailed descriptions.

I have been occasionally disappointed with some listings, others very surprised at what someone was willing to pay.

Ex Pres 

I've sold somethings for well below what I wanted, and have also sold an incomplete Cinelli panto stem for 10X what I thought it would go for. If you're not selling a lot of items where the law of averages helps you absorb the bad sales, then put a starting price where you are comfortable selling to the one and only bidder. But don't have an inflated value in your head when setting that price.

If it's an item that you can get a good handle on what it "should" sell for, then sell it for that. For example, I'll see that an item has been selling for around $55-$65. I'll stick it on auction $42 open, $63 BIN, and it'll generally sell within 1-2 days of listing, often the night I list it.

StephenH

Consider who your audience is. If you're selling an $8,000 bike, your potential buyers are likely to be really bike savvy and a list of components will be meaningful. If you're selling a $250 bike that's 30 years old, half your potential buyers are going to be looking for "a bike" and won't know what a derailleur is, what 58 cm means, etc., and a bit of customer education could be helpful to them.

Stuff can sell for good prices in the middle of the night because of the automatic bidding that ebay does.

I have seen people here being very very wary of sellers with no feedback or very little feedback or feedback on items unlike the object in question. That could be the difference in those cases cited above where one item went for big bucks and an identical one didn't.

When I search ebay listings, the major problem I have is finding too many listings, so I have to start excluding a bunch of terms. So if I'm just looking for a single-speed cruiser, I might put in single, speed, cruiser, and then exclude the terms BMX, fixie, fixed, etc. I don't know how many people work it like that. But because of that, it might not be prudent to throw in a bunch of extra keywords, especially if they aren't really applicable to the bike.