Pbay really sucks now the way it's set up! I'm calling it pbay because they're new way of doing things is robbing me of my profits! I'm still in learning about the changes and I really got gypped on at least two tokens! I should have just put a price on them and waited! Anyone else getting gypped?? And my stuff is good and I had a bunch of people watching my items but at the end of my auction, one person paid my bottom price on at least two really good tokens! That's infuriating!? They're giving free listings to anyone who has a computer and half a brain really and there's so many listings it's close to impossible to get the profit I once banked on. The only up side is that mostly all of my stuff was bought years ago, so I'm still making a profit most of the time, just not as much as I planned on. So I have a few questions here. Number one is, is it still a good idea to place a reserve or not, and why? Is it wise to list auctions for 10 days or not and why? Is it better to give free shipping or charge for shipping? And what's this shizzle about bonus coins? Is it really better just to post a BIN and wait? Do you give a bonus coin, and if you do have you gotten more business? Anyone?
Set your starting prices higher, your listing might not be getting a bunch of bids because of a lack of demand. I don't see how this is eBay's fault. Free shipping over charging shipping, I personally would purchase a coin with free shipping over a coin with charged shipping even if the two coins are priced the same after shipping. Set a BIN and a auction at the same time.
You're at the mercy of the masses in cyberworld. Nobody wants to pay fair market value anymore and this is the result. You have a few choices... Raise your starting point of your items? Put a reserve on them? Go "buy it now" instead of auction with a best offer option and set that at the lowest you'd be willing to accept? You might not get as many watchers or bids, but you also won't take as many hits to your bottom line either.
Post at auction, and you're counting on two or more people who care about your item finding it during the 7 or 10 days the auction is up. For unusual items, that's risky -- and an awful lot of coins count as "unusual items". I'd recommend Buy It Now/Best Offer, 30-day.
I would say no due to the cost a true reserve costs now. You can always start the auction at your minimum acceptable price though as a reserve. It if an incredibly rare in demand thing then 10 day may be okay. In general I always though 3 was the perfect time but now they charge extra for that. A lot of times it seems like people find auctions early and then lose interest or find a different one instead of having to wait a week or more for your auction to end With the current environment of promoted listings and everything else generally I believe yes BINs are the better way to go. The problem is that with listings the promoted and big sellers get preferential treatment in the search results and order they're displayed in so it's very easy for auctions to slip through from small sellers.
Yeah, I raised my prices on a number of items and I have a couple of BIN's and a reserve. Another thing I have to realize is pictorial tokens, not everyone likes them and they're very trendy, sometimes they're hot and sometimes, they're not. Yep, I'm still living and learning on pebay! Cheers!
Are you saying there are multiple listings of the same item you're trying to sell which is driving the price down? Unfortunately that's just another example of the internet revealing true rarity. Sounds like you may have bought these quite awhile back and thought they were rarer than they actually are and thus they're not worth as much as you hoped they'd be. Solution if you are okay waiting is to go the BIN route. If poor auction results are painful then this is the way to go. If the masses refuse to pay what you believe to be fair market value then what you believe to be fair market value is incorrect since the masses help determine the value. If you think something is worth $100 and no one will give you $100 for it, is it really worth that much?
The question then becomes is it really that no one will pay $100, or is it a niche item where it takes time for an interested buyer to appear
There are some items like that but the OP made it seem like there are tons of listings for the stuff he's selling with the "They're giving free listings to anyone who has a computer and half a brain really and there's so many listings it's close to impossible to get the profit I once banked on" part of his post. There are definitely certain errors/varieties that are best set at BIN waiting for the perfect buyer who needs it to come along. Common stuff doesn't fit that mold though.
I read it more as just that there are so many listings in general which is certainly true since at any given time there is usually 2 million or more coin listings. Even then though actions can create more problems than a BIN such as what time should you end the auction. A lot of people swear by Sunday night which logically makes sense until you consider that A TON of other people believe in it too and you are also competing for eyes against GC and DL auctions. Then you have the buyers that only buy when they get an eBay bucks promotion or a coupon and auctions basically make it impossible to catch that market. Yea if you're selling a common bullion ASE you'll probably get about the same price no matter when, but even on common stuff auctions can have huge price discrepancies that involve a lot more than just the quality of the item
No, like take that Billiken token up there, Billiken tokens are fairly hot right now. I probably could have gotten $30 or $40 bucks for it if I would have started at a higher price or sold it as a BIN. I sold for $20.50 because I started with only a $9.99 start, my bad, lesson learned. I know what I'm doing here but I haven't sold on ebay for a long time, so I'm just getting used to the new set up and realizing, I gotta be more careful with what I list and how much I list it for. Nothing more than that fellas and I know what rare is and if I don't I always look stuff up on ebay to kinda get the feel for how much stuff is selling for. Like I said earlier. Cheers! I'm outta here!
See, I didn't do too bad on this token at all! It sold for $124.39 last week as it was a rare one! I didn't even know it was rare unt il I looked it up on token catalog website. Now my pics are on their website. I know lousy pics but that's ok. If nobody knew it you can contribute to their website, you don't have to be anyone special if I did it. http://tokencatalog.com/token_recor...=430086&attribution_id=564090&record_offset=0
I'm often disappointed at the results I get when I list something at auction, so I've learned that I have to start the listing at the lowest price I'm willing to accept. Some people will tell you to start all your auctions at 99 cents, but I think I'd end up selling a lot of items for 99 cents if I did so. For whatever reason, some seller's auctions simply get more bids and higher bids than other people's. If I'm not sure how much something is selling for, I'll search for the other listings of the same coin, both active and sold, and I usually start the bidding toward the bottom of the spread just because I want it to sell. I mostly do buy it nows, but if I'm just not sure how much the coin is worth then I'll do auction. If the auction doesn't sell then I usually relist at buy it now at the same price, and often it will sell the first day. Go figure.
I've seen that happen countless times and even with higher BINs. Most people just don't want to wait on the auctions it seems
I buy a lot on ebay, when I see a reserve on an auction, I pass right by it. I don't want to waste my time playing some guessing game.
