Everyone: My boss at the coin shop has given me another opportunity to make some money. This time on eBay. The problem is, I don't know a lot about selling on eBay. I have over 100 feedback, but almost exclusively as a buyer. I know that many here sell on eBay and I would like to glean some of the best auction listing tips. When to list, how long to list it for, long or short descriptions, pictures, you know, the whole nine yards. I'd like to impress him when I start and figured that if I could eliminate some of the trial and error, that would speed up my learning curve substantially. What can you tell me that will help me to maximize the sale prices? Noodle
I list Mon- Thur (people out and about on W/E). I list for one week. Short description, so they don't lose interest. But enough info so you don't get a million questions. Use subheading as it grabs the quick purusers. If necessary, Take 20 pics to get the right one. Pics sells the item. Start @.99.
yup, take GOOD pictures. A short, informative description. One that can be read easily so that the buyer (assuming he/she actually read the description) will not be at all confused at what you are selling.
Not sure if you are talking certified or raw, but the most important thing for any e-auction is the picture. The problem is that I have not yet figured out just how they handle them since they revamped their system. They say something to the effect of "for best results, one dimension of the picture should be >1000 pixels". Do it! But there is something else that I have not yet figured out. Here are two of my recent listings. I know the second is not a coin, but look at the size of the pictures when you enlarge. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140365752945&ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140365751504&ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT They were both over 1000, but yet the second is twice the size of the first. I need to play some more before I know why for sure, but the only difference I know is that the first is 1000 X 1400 while the second was 1700 X 1700.
I'm not a big time seller Mike so take for what it's worth. From what I have seen over this past year or so is that prices are down and everyone wants a bargain. The best that I have done is going with the "buy it now" or "best offer". I've taken a beating on auctions. Figure out what you have in the coin, the paypal and ebay fees and the shipping. From there you will get your best offer price and it wont matter when you end the listing. Take great photos, keep your listing simple, don't over charge for shipping, offer a refund, and send the coin out within a day. Good luck.
I agree with almost everything that's been written here -- good pix, good return policy, immediate shipping, super customer service (to keep ratings up), etc. Also, I think most buyers are savvy enough that you don't need to oversell (e.g., avoid crap like "this is a great investment opportunity!!!!!", and the like). BTW, nothing depresses a coin more than a bad pic, because the buyer has to discount the probably that he's getting a bad coin. The pic doesn't have to be beautiful -- but, rather, it needs to be large/detailed enough so the buyer can see details. I can't tell you how many old Lincolns I've seen where, even with a pic, you can't even tell if the wheat lines are there, and so you don't even know if you're bidding on a G-4 or a VF! Invariably, these coins command a G-4 price. Compute ahead of time what all your expenses are going to be: shipping, eBay commission, paypal commission, to see what you need to sell it for to make any money. Then, go to "completed sales" to see what your item typically sells for. If I recall correctly, "Buy-it-now" has a much higher commission than auction sales. (Obvious comment: for packages, use paypal or usps.com to print the shipping label, it's cheaper and easier than the post office, with free electronic tracking). I've also found that on some coins where there is obvious demand, the price ends up going higher when I start the bidding at .01 (!!) Perhaps it's because once people start bidding on an item, they feel invested in it. I dunno. But that's not for the faint of heart. I've had some auctions where I thought I'd take a big loss, but the selling price increased 50% in the last 10 minutes. If you anticipate a lot of sales, you might consider using a place like Auctiva to store pix, html, and the like. They have nice management software, you can schedule postings, etc. OTOH, it costs $9.99/month. If you have an item that is frequently sold and there is a clear supply and demand -- I'm not sure listing it for more than 3 days is worth anything (or even more than one day), because most people search by "ending soonest", and your item won't even show up on the first page of hits. With common items (I was selling a lot of proof singles right when they came out) my listings were for a single day. The strategy might be different for selling a higher end or rarer item. The one thing I disagree with from the thread so far, is the timing of your sales. I find that my best prices come when my auctions end on Sat, Sun, Mon evenings. But I haven't studied that with any rigor, and my impression might be wrong. (I've also gotten some of my cheapest bargains at auctions that end at weird times -- like 5am on any day -- or 8am on a weekday). Finally, I'm pretty impressed with the ebay market. In my experience, most (with tons of exceptions of course, but most) of the items I try to buy or sell end up selling at a very fair price (around greysheet or so). There are plenty of exceptions, and my experience limited to a certain segment of the market (low end items). I'm also convinced that with research I could figure out which certain types tend to undersell and which tend to sell higher then they should -- but that's just a hunch. Neverntheless, searching on completed sales can get you a decent idea of what your item may sell for. I enjoy selling on eBay, and sometimes I feel like I'm helping out low-end collectors. I often get statehood quarters on the day they are released, and people like to purchase them asap. Where else can a guy who lives 2000 miles away from me purchase a P&D of a quarter that came out yesterday at a very fair price with only $0.44 shipping? Of course, your mileage may -- indeed will -- vary. My experience is limited to very small time stuff, and I suspect that your employer has larger things in mind. Keep us posted!!
I will agree with the time of day being important, but the day does not seem to matter at least that much. Granted, it was some time ago (3 years), but there was a seller who used to sell on Thursdays and Sundays. He used stock photos and sold a line of red raw Lincolns basically from 1930 through 1955. Both ends were kind of splotchy, but the middle coins were always there. I averaged the closing prices for 1934 - 1939 dates for 3+ weeks. Thursday $185.19 Sunday $152.11 Thursdays 20% higher than Sundays? I am not sure the data is that valid, but I am reasonably sure that there is little difference between the different days.
Fascinating! I've found, continually, that the stuff I sell (I almost only sell for auctions that end on Thrs thru Mon), Thrs stuff got the lowest price (compared to Fri/Sat/Sun). OTOH, I don't think I've sold enough of the same thing to really get an accurate measure -- and I'm enough of a numbers guy to know that impressions don't always measure accurately compared to reality. In any event, RLM -- what would you say the best _times_ are -- for weekdays and for weekends (if any difference)?
I have never been able to isolate a time, but evening. Something between 8:00 and 10:00 CST seems to be the most popular. I have not noticed any dramatic change from late afternoon until after maybe 11:00 PM. Most any AM time is a good time to buy - i.e. a bad time to sell. As for days of the week, it used to be that Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays were the deadest days. Fridays and Saturdays have picked up a lot, but Mondays are still kind of dead. However, I will bet you that they both fall way off in the summer - even more so than the rest of eBay sales.
You can try auctiva, they give you up to 24 supersized pictures for each auction, unfortunately, they charge a small fee now, but there's a 30 day free trial and the lowest membership is about $2.50. Also, they have cheaper insurance, and you can make a few cents on it.
