I personally have always used buy it now for the most part.
I started my second eBay account just for cards mainly and only do buy it now on there.
Once in a while, if I can’t find a clear value on an item I switch to auction, but very rarely.
The reason I bring this up is because lately I have been bidding on cards and they go over live buy it now listings sometimes multilpe listings.
Is it auction fever?
I am curious if you guys prefer to sell with auction or buy it now.
Thanks
For me I think a high BIN with best offer is the best way to do it. The cards that aren’t integral to my collection but are still nice to have can sit on eBay all day long and if the right person with the right money wants it they can have it. I won’t do auctions because I’m afraid of them not having adequate exposure (especially after my most recent card could be found with ‘PSA Skarmory’ but not ‘PSA 10 Skarmory’ whenever I searched despite it having PSA 10 in the title).
I prefer BIN with offers on as both a buyer and a seller. It sucks having to wait for auctions to end, I prefer to either buy right then or negotiate on the item. As a seller with offers on I’ll either get the price I want or a price I’m happy enough with through offers which is fine with me. The last thing I like about BIN as a seller is you can make payment required immediately on BIN so you don’t need to wait around and hassle buyers if they’re slow to pay when winning an auction.
The only time as a seller I use an auction is usually if it’s something obscure that isn’t in high demand, for example in MTG a non foil playable card that’s in a foreign language. Hardly anyone wants them, they’re a tough sell and almost always worth less than English copies so I’m just happy to get what I can for them via auction, and a 99c starting price is going to get people bidding and when people start bidding they often don’t like losing and the price goes up 
Part of the game is finding the right buyer at the right time in order to maximize your sale price (and ideally, profit). Thus, if I can wait, I prefer BIN listings (usually with best offers enabled) rather than auction in most cases. If I want to sell quickly, then of course, auctions and networking tends to work best for that purpose. In either case, be strategic about how you price and list the items.
Most of my “flipping” buys are auctions, most of my flipping sales are BIN’s. There is a reason for that… Pick things up on the cheap from poorly timed, poorly worded, or just poorly bid auctions. Turn around and list them as a buy it now for a profit. Works well with more obscure PSA 10’s that aren’t searched for as often.
But a well timed auction on a hard to find item can really fetch quite a premium and you can’t beat auctions when it comes to needing to move product quickly. I really can’t figure it out… I have literally had items up in the past for months at $XXX that once put to auction make 10%+ more than it was ever listed at BIN when it was in my store.
Buy it now is the way to go unless you can get a bidding war going between two-three different people. I’ve been seeing less and less of these recently in my auctions however. Auctions also aren’t guaranteed to go for any set price which can screw you over if there isn’t enough interest.
With buy it now you can reduce the annoyance of non-paying bidders using the immediate payment option, you can be flexible with offers to make items sell quicker, etc. If the item/card is rare enough to where there isn’t many listings up for it then on occasion you can be the only person with it available for sale which gives you leverage.
Overall, buy it now is the best option if you want a quick and easy transaction, isn’t that what we all want?
I usually sell via Auction with a starting bid at which I’m comfortable selling for. If you sell the item on a Sunday at evening I find that bidwars are still relatively common and can boost the price. I think BIN’s are good for higher value stuff, where it might be tougher to find a buyer for.
As a seller I prefer BIN. It will nearly always yield higher prices than auctions.
Most people who bid on auctions don’t want to drive up the price and snipe-bid in the last seconds, therefor the price often won’t go as high as with BIN prices.
As a buyer I prefer auctions as I nearly always get them cheap haha
Plus no waiting on ending auctions with BIN!