How about when you list an auction and the item sells for only about 10% of the market value?
IMO that’s worse than buyers remorse, at least with buyers remorse you can just relist it.
But with this you have to let it go knowing you could’ve gotten way more for it…
This. Sometimes items just sit, even at a fantastic price. List a bunch of auctions at $0.99, not only do you get the exposure, but it seems to hit close to market value each time. I don’t do this for expensive items, but for $25-$100 it works well.
These experiences and opinions are good for me. Thanks guys! I’m just starting selling cards on eBay and it seems that peoples’ preferred tactics vary. Good to know some pros and cons of each.
Low starting auction are the only way to do auction. If you’re going to start an auction close to market value why do an auction at all? Just do a BIN.
I’m not going too much into eBays metrics, if you start an auction at low value you’ll get more watchers and page views in the beginning. This leads to higher search rankings which leads to more views/watchers which cycles itself. The ultimate goal of an auction is to get views from the people that will bid the highest, which is best achieved by more views. That’s why low starting auctions on average perform better then auctions that start near market price. It’s also why most of the major sellers start their auctions at $.99.
As long as the item is an in-demand item, I have never had a problem with a $.99 starting price.
I listed a sealed 1st edition Team Rocket box BIN at $1000 that was up for a few days.
I got impatient because I needed the money, decided to list it at $.99 and it ended up selling for $1150. $150 more than my BIN price!
On the other hand, I listed a played WOTC holo that is valued around $10 (don’t remember which card it was) and it only got one bid so I basically had to give it to the buyer for free.
Know the market i guess!
Also, on bid retraction: I only really find it annoying if they bid and then retract after a couple days. If someone bids and then retracts a couple hours later (as long as there is at least a day left) I really don’t care, or even notice.
As Gary said, by far the most annoying is buyers that don’t pay. No, NO… WHAT’S EVEN WORSE:
When the buyer doesn’t pay and they don’t respond to any messages. It’s like wtf, at least tell me you aren’t going to buy it.
I find this problem is ridiculously common with YuGiOh products, not as much with pokemon.
This forum can be hilarious sometimes. Just a month back the topic of BIN’s VS Auctions came up, and almost everyone universally agreed on BIN’s. And now it’s the complete opposite, heh.
I just had a bunch of 10-day 0.99 auctions end and ended up getting 40-50% less than market value on every single one of them. Not sure exactly what I did wrong, but it must have been something.
lol I’ve been wanted to ask this for a while now and your post reminded me. Day of the week/time. Is ending auctions Sunday evening actually the best for activity? Or does anyone else have a contrary opinion?