Selling on e-bay?

I've bought on e-bay but never sold before. Some advice needed please.

1. When's the best time to end a sale, I've heard people say Sunday night Pacific time?

2. Is there an ideal length, say 7 days, longer/shorter?

3. Do you use buy it now, min price etc.?

4. How do you decide a starting price in comparison to what you think it's worth.

New toy kitty is getting towards shopping territory, but there are items that haven't sold through CL and various forums. I want a car damn it!

Try selling on Amazon. Ebay nickle and dimes everything.

only exception is Ebay Classifieds.

I've sold a lot and don't worry about when it ends. Set your opening bid at an amount that won't kill you if it sells at that. I always set a buy it now that's a good price for both parties, that way it might sell right away. I do 7-day auctions. Longer gets you more exposure and might attract more bids but does cost a few cents.

The fees are ridiculous (10% or so final value fee now!!!) but you can get more money or even sell things that otherwise just won't sell. There's plenty of stuff I could list for months on CL and never sell but I get $500 for it on eBay. There's a big advantage to a national audience numbering in the millions. Don't be afraid to lose 10% of 50% more money!!

Grtechguy wrote: Try selling on Amazon. Ebay nickle and dimes everything. only exception is Ebay Classifieds.

Do people sell used stuff on Amazon? I hadn't realized that (comes out from cave) off to investigate.

I'm not selling much on ebay anymore, but I still do occasionally.

• I only use Buy it Now if I have an exact idea of the item's value. There is no point if having a BIN if it's too high and especially if it is combined with a reserve, it might actually put people off even if you have a reasonable reserve. Might be different for vehicles, been a while since I listed a car.
• It depends on what you're selling - I throw books, DVDs and CDs on Amazon.
• Make the end time sensible. An item that ends during morning or evening rush hour here out West is going to lose you that audience. That's especially important because most of the bidding happens in the last few minutes/seconds - I didn't bid on several items I thought about bidding on simply because I forgot to set the sniping tool and was on the way to work when the item ended. Also, ending it at 1am PT isn't that good idea either.

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

Grtechguy wrote: Try selling on Amazon. Ebay nickle and dimes everything. only exception is Ebay Classifieds.

Do people sell used stuff on Amazon? I hadn't realized that (comes out from cave) off to investigate.

A lot of my books and CDs come from Amazon "used" sellers. I've usually got some books and CDs listed and they sell occasionally, too.

I try to schedule auctions to end when I'd be able to place bids. Which means not when everyone is at work, or when everyone is out, or when they are likely all in bed. So 3:00 am or pm doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Nor does Friday or Saturday night. Don't know if it's worked for me or not, but that's my thinking.

I almost always let an auction end in the normal 7 days. But if it's something that's really weird, I may extend it.

I hardly ever set high opening bid, but I will sometimes use a reserve. I use the reserve when I'm not willing to let it get blown out cheaply. Similar, I'll list a buy-it-now price if I'm willing to blow it out without gambling for maximum profit.

co-workers wife does this (sell stuffs on ebay) full time to supplement his income. do you want me to pass the questions onto him?

she hits up the local pawn shops and thrift stores every day for new items. there's been a few times where she makes a couple hundred to a couple thousand on items that she bought for only a few bucks.

1) I end all my auctions on Sunday early afternoon PST. Seems to work well.

2)I do either 5 or 7 days.

3)If I see a trend of what I'm selling, selling at higher prices at a Buy-it-now vs bidding, then I do a B-i-N of the higher price.

4) I pretty much always start my auctions at 99 cents, no reserve. It gets a lot of people watching the auction early, and people think they'll get a great deal. I sell mostly cameras and lenses on there, and unless it's an item that has very limited appeal, the 99 cent rule works well, and things sell for $100-600. If it's an odd item that I think 1 or 2 people will be interested in, I start the auction at about 75% of what I think the item is worth, no reserve.

It surprises me how much people are willing to pay for a well-photographed, well-listed item. I'd certainly never pay that much!

Wow fantastic advice guys keep it coming. I guess I'll throw things up when I get back form my weekend away and try and set a Sunday 3:00pm PST time with either a $0.99 start and a resobale reserve, or a starting price near my pain threshhold and see what happens.

I've bought used books on Amazon, I might throw some back up there.

Years back, I used to sell a few car parts on ebay.
I listed a car there back in 2004 (MR2 SC). The high bidder backed out when he realized how expensive it would be to get the car from Ohio to Utah. A loosing bidder did follow up and the car went off to St. Louis.
I currently have an e30 up. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1987-BMW-325is-5-speed-manual-e30-/160895991157?forcev4exp=true I chose ebay because the value and price of the somewhat rare car was hard to determine and I wanted to try to get max dollars from the biggest audience I could find.
Mine will end at 10:30pm Sunday night (eastern time zone, 7:30pm pacific.) I don't however expect that it will be bought by someone in a pacific timezone. My logic was more to end the auction when people will be watching TV.
As mentioned earlier, snipping services seem to negate some of that.

I paid the extra for a 10 day because, like paying to run an advertisement, the price for the three extra days was cheap by comparison. Up on a Thurs night and down in 10 days on a Sunday also gave me two weekends to have shoppers over to the house to test drive the car.

I have 105 watchers, which I think is good and I expect all the real bidding to happen in the last minutes/minute.

JohnRW1621 wrote: I have 105 watchers, which I think is good and I expect all the real bidding to happen in the last minutes/minute.

I'm one of those 105, but your way beyond my price range. Good luck

bastomatic wrote: 1) I end all my auctions on Sunday early afternoon PST. Seems to work well. 2)I do either 5 or 7 days. 3)If I see a trend of what I'm selling, selling at higher prices at a Buy-it-now vs bidding, then I do a B-i-N of the higher price. 4) I pretty much always start my auctions at 99 cents, no reserve. It gets a lot of people watching the auction early, and people think they'll get a great deal. I sell mostly cameras and lenses on there, and unless it's an item that has very limited appeal, the 99 cent rule works well, and things sell for $100-600. If it's an odd item that I think 1 or 2 people will be interested in, I start the auction at about 75% of what I think the item is worth, no reserve. It surprises me how much people are willing to pay for a well-photographed, well-listed item. I'd certainly never pay that much!

Bastomatic. You mention camera's. Is there much call for used 35mm bodies and lenses?

failboat wrote: co-workers wife does this (sell stuffs on ebay) full time to supplement his income. do you want me to pass the questions onto him? she hits up the local pawn shops and thrift stores every day for new items. there's been a few times where she makes a couple hundred to a couple thousand on items that she bought for only a few bucks.

Damn. That's a really good idea! I'd be interested to know if she's buying specific items or just going "Huh. This looks cool." Gotta love smart phones for checking the value on stuff too.

As much as I want a good price, I also want it to really sell.
I got a series of questions from someone in CA.
I provided brief answers but also asked him to call me directly. In what I wrote to him, I asked that he reply back with his plans of getting the car back to CA and how much he was budgeting for that. I also asked him of his familiarity with cars from the rust belt states where no smog testing is required.
That was two days ago. I have heard no more from him.

I am doing my best to present the car truthfully and I would like the buyers to do the same.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: Bastomatic. You mention camera's. Is there much call for used 35mm bodies and lenses?

A great many of the 35mm lenses still work on DSLRs

BAck to the 35mm camera thing. I have a Minolta 7700i with several lenses. I guess I should offer the lenses seperatly (or keep them) is the body worth anything these days?

I save general merch for winter time auctions unless it's a hot seasonal item, I figure more buyers will be online during the winter months. Seven day auctions have worked fine for me, minimum bid start as well but if you feel a special item may be underbid I'd raise or reserve price it JIC. Select the best category too as an item may not get noticed. I won't use auction end dates of Monday, Friday or Saturday. End hours 8-9 pm PST. I restrict bids to US/ NA but for car parts I've opened to NZ and PR upon request w/ great results.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: BAck to the 35mm camera thing. I have a Minolta 7700i with several lenses. I guess I should offer the lenses seperatly (or keep them) is the body worth anything these days?

The body is worth very little. The only semi-common 35mm bodies worth anything are fully-manual all-metal bodies, like the Nikon F, Canon AE-1, Nikon FM2, Olympus OM-4, and a few others. And even those are not worth much.

The lenses can be worth a bit, depending on the lens. eBay is a good indicator. Most of the AF Minolta stuff was consumer-grade low end lenses, and while it works on modern Sony bodies it isn't particularly desirable. The Minolta "Beercan" zoom, a 70-210 f/4, is one exception, it's worth about $200 last I checked. (edit: apparently now about $100. Nice lens.) Some of the higher-end AF minolta lenses might be worth a little.

Basically, any of the classic fast-aperture lenses are still worth a bit of money. Nobody makes them like that anymore. I sold a small number of Olympus OM macro lenses for about $1600.

Best to sell everything separately. Body in one auction, lens in another. I've even disassembled a camera down to the smallest parts and made money that way.

Back to the top!

OK I took the plunge and started some auctions on Sunday, to finish this coming Sunday. Stupid me didn't put a reserve and now I'm sweating bricks that some parts will go for less than peanuts. What's the protocol on adding a reserve after the auction has started.

Figure the dollar amount where you would rather still own it than sell it.
Have a friend place a bid at that amount. If your friend wins, you are buying it and paying an ebay fee. If someone else outbids your friend then you have gotten the minimum price you want.

JohnRW1621 wrote: Figure the dollar amount where you would rather still own it than sell it. Have a friend place a bid at that amount. If your friend wins, you are buying it and paying an ebay fee. If someone else outbids your friend then you have gotten the minimum price you want.

Douchebag way to do it, but IIRC thats the only way to "add a reserve" after the auction started

Can't you just end the auction now and start a fresh one with the reserve?

I think I'll hold out and consider the friend bid option. There are at least 2 people watching all of the items so there is interest.

If there are no bidders, you should be able to edit the auction and add a reserve. If there are bidders, you can end the auctions early and re-list with a reserve. If you do the "have a friend bid" thing, remember the final value fees are pretty steep now (like 10%) and you'll be paying it.