There are many ways to price your items on eBay to make
money. Not all strategies will work for every type of
product. This article strives to describe the various
pricing methods that are available for eBay.
Low Starting Price: Items that are popular generally do
better price wise if they start out at a low bid price. By
popular items, this means iPods, name brand clothing,
digital cameras, etc. By starting at a lower bid price,
the item's final sell value will be driven higher because
there are more bidders vying for the item. By starting out
with a low starting price, you will also save money on
listing fees. For expensive items that are not popular or
are specialized, this might not work. You might not get
enough bids to even reach your cost and you may lose money.
A possible solution is to place a Reserve Price on the
auction. A Reserve Price is the minimum price you are
willing to accept for the item. You set a reserve and then
start the auction at a low price. Bids will be posted, but
if the bid is below the reserve price, they will be
notified in their bid confirmation. New bidders will not
see a notice about a reserve price unless they bid under
the reserve price. They will see the current bid price,
however.
Cost-Based Starting Price: This is just starting your
auction at your cost of the items you are selling. This
way you won't lose money if you don't have a lot of bids.
The disadvantage to selling at cost is the higher listing
fees and you will not attract as many bidders.
Buy-It-Now Pricing: The Buy it Now price is the lowest
price you are willing to take for the item during the
auction. After the first bid is placed, the Buy It Now
price will disappear. This is a good way to turn over
inventory quickly and allow you to grow your business. Buy
It Now seems to work best when you list in conjunction with
cost based pricing. If you start too low, you will attract
bidders quickly but lose your Buy It Now(BIN) price.
Because the main advantage of BIN is faster inventory turn
over, it is best to set your BIN price at an average level,
not the high end. This will encourage more impulse buyers
and more sales. Another way to encourage buyers to use BIN
is to offer an incentive for them to use BIN, such as free
shipping.
Second Chance Offer: A few years ago, eBay offered a
feature called the Second Chance Offer(SCO). It was
designed to allow the second highest bidder a chance to buy
at their losing bid in the event the winning bidder did not
pay. It was very successful and was modified so that
sellers could offer an under bidder a chance to buy at
their bid price if you have more than one identical item to
sell. Simply put, from one auction you can make multiple
sales and more money. The best thing is you do not have to
pay any additional listing fees even though you will pay
the final value fee.
There are without a doubt more ways to price your items on
eBay, but these are some of the better ones.
----------------------------------------------------
Allen Owen is an enthusiastic home business entrepreneur
and engineer. Have a look at his eBay tips e-zine:
http://www.thedigitalresevoir.com
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