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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;afantiques, post: 2065179, member: 71234&quot;]Between 1998 and 2011 I sold over 40,000 ebay items with a 99c start. Almost invariably they fetched a good price and sometimes a remarkably large price. Now and again a trivial price but I had devoted buyers who usually hoovered these up, and I was happy that a regular buyer got an occasional bargain because it kept them coming back.</p><p><br /></p><p>There was no secret to this success, I just offered items that were worth buying (which is why I had such huge piles&nbsp; of mediocre stuff when I stopped ebay selling) and which were usually unique on ebay, or at least, in a category where everything found a ready buyer such as good coins and medals, as on topic examples.</p><p><br /></p><p>The key is in the buying, you do not buy piles of mediocre stuff, you just buy the good stuff and if it comes with a pile of junk, that&#039;s not factored into the bid price, it comes free or it does not come at all.</p><p><br /></p><p>Comments above by krispy are very pertinent. The low start bid meant the world and his dog would get a few bids in quite quickly, and by the time the bid level was what I&#039;d call reasonable, the item had maybe&nbsp; 20 bids. A moment&#039;s thought would show the rational that most of these bids were trivial,&nbsp; but irrationally, it created the impression that there were a mob of people after the item and for people who were serious buyers, they were more liable to up their final bids to beat off this imagined competition. Hence bidding wars were more of less self generating.</p><p><br /></p><p>Low&nbsp; starts for run of the mill stuff, often badly illustrated and with poor listings that deterred good buyers will not hack it any more, but for good items, well presented, and with minimal or no deterrents to buyers they should work as well&nbsp; as ever.</p><p><br /></p><p>Good ways to drive away buyers are blocking international sales, using the GSP, not offering a comprehensive returns policy (this need cost nothing if you never get any returns by getting it right in the first place) and having any other terms and conditions of a hostile nature. Needless to say, the poor pictures and illiterate and inadequate descriptions that many sellers seem to be satisfied with are also big no-nos.</p><p><br /></p><p>In short, low starts will work as well as the competence of the seller will allow. </p><p><br /></p><p>PS. All that junk that was not good enough for ebay provided a ready stream of cash at flea markets after I stopped ebay selling, and taking a second look at it provided quite a lot of really good items I had simply missed first time around,&nbsp; I found a $1000 Bulgarian coin in a box of a few foreign coins a first look had missed because it did not look like anything special, and only recently I fished a $400 18 carat gold necklace out of a bunch of costume jewellery that I had stashed away as next to worthless rubbish.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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