I lose at selling on ebay way too often :(

[Zero Cool]

I sold on eBay full time for 3 years and have learned a lot. A lot comes down to Psychology. Think about this. What time of day or week is a person most likely to shop eBay? If you are selling an item an adult would buy. then the middle of the week, middle of the day is best. why? well evenings are out as most adults are taking care of the kids, running errands etc etc etc in the evenings plus they spent all day on the computer at work and the last thing want to do is sit in front of a computer at home especially when CSI is on....
During the workday. Mondays are crazy, just come back from the weekend, lots of stuff to do etc. Fridays are hurry up, get it done and get out of here days so those are out. this leaves Tuesday-Thursday and Wednesday most people are sitting at there desk bored, tired, middle of the week....hey lets shop some eBay for a bit!
and you have lunch on the east coast and lunch on the west coast and there is that golden hour right in the middle when the shopping traffic is the highest!

Now as for time of year. August is the worst month for sales. and memorial day is the best day to buy. August is the month where everyone is trying to get that vacation in and the last bit of summer fun in and few people are sitting in front of a computer. for 3 years we charted how sales went and every year we noticed these same trends.

Aug through Christmas would be a slow steady rise with a spike just before Christmas. then a sharp decline after as the sticker shock hits. from January to April sales would climb with April being the peak month every year. that disposable tax refund income always drove the sales way up. then from April to Aug there was a slow decline.

items that we could not give away in july-aug sold for record prices in april!


Also. somewhere i read an article that said something to the effect that the average person in the USA had the reading comprehension equal to a 6th grader! keep this in mind you write your eBay ads. Make ads that are simple. WELL written, clear, easy to understand and you will find better sales. I have seen so many poorly written ads its sad.

Item: car stereo
description. it works

and that's all! that was literally an eBay ad i once saw. from that you have NO idea what your buying. no brand, model, photo, nothing. car stereo. works...that is not enough to paint a picture to your potential buyer of what it is you have for sale. when i emailed that seller suggestion he put some relevant information in his ad. his response was "I don't have time to mess with all that" well no wonder his item didn't sell!!!

Ad's should be written like you are talking to your best friend. and what you DON'T say can be just as important as what you do say. I mean don't be deceptive but don't highlight the detractors unless it is something that really takes away from the sale of the item or is a major factor in the working condition of the item. up sell the positives!

Here is an unrelated but similar concept. how many people have watched that TV show cops? how many times have you seen the cop pull someone over and the cop asks "is there anything in the car I should know about?" the answer should ALWAYS be "NO" but 9 times out of 10 the dummy in the car says "well i gotz 9 pounds of dope in muh trunk" DOH! busted. going to jail game over. if he had said no the cop would have had no reason to look in the trunk and said dope head would have been sleeping at home that night and not in a cold jail cell.

People always star tout good. then walk one step too far. so think about the ad. think about what your going to say. speak clearly, describe the item in a positive way. saying things like "I just need to get rid of this" is NOT a good thing to say. state your terms clearly.

Flashy ads, ads that look like your a business or store don't work well. Reserve prices NEVER work well. why? because people come to eBay looking for a bargain. they want a deal. they want that 50" big screen TV for a Dollar. a reserve price tells people you want too much for your item. most people look at a reserve price and say "oh i don't have time to mess with that" eBay is a lot like gambling. people want to place there bets and take a chance they might win. a reserve price says the deck is stacked and your not going to win. a better option is just to used a fixed price sale VS an auction with a reserve.

The last 30 seconds of an auction is critical. don't judge how an auction is going until it's over. people will sit and wait for that last second to "snipe" a bid in and try and score the item for a bargain. waiting keeps the prices down low and hopefully a buyer can snipe a last minute bid in and win. placing bids early just drives the prices up. so auction pros wait till the very end.

also check out the compilation. you can look on eBay and see what items have sold for in the past. use this to price the item you have for sale. but keep this in mind. buyers want the lowest price + shipping. they will look and see who has the same item for the lowest price. YOUR item should be that item!

hope some of this helps

[Pano]

Very Good Z.C., thanks for that.

I've been on ebay for - jeez - almost 12 years! But that doesn't mean I'm good at it.
Got forced into sniping early on, hated it, but got sniped out of stuff too often. That's the only way I bid now. Have a pay service to do it. But also buy with "buy it now" and "make an offer."

I have to say, you guys are bumming me out about the time of year to sell. I was going to put a bunch of audio gear up in January. Looks like that might not be a good idea. Hate to wait until spring, but might be better to.

I actually like selling audio stuff on Audiogon better. Lower fees, better audience.

[Geek]

Originally Posted by lowpoke

Gregg, it seems as though you have it down to a fine art!

More like I spent a LOT of wasted time and listing fees on how NOT to do it

ZC, some great advice too!



Cheers!

[Conrad Hoffman]

I've never sold on eBay, but have bought a variety of things. I look for auctions that end at inconvenient times and usually snipe. I don't use a pay service, but just hit the return key at about 5 seconds before the end. A huge error people make is listing things with the wrong title and description. There are accepted names for things and deviating even slightly can make your item invisible to many potential buyers. For instance, General Radio Corp. test equipment had better be listed so a search of "General Radio" finds it, and ideally the model number "716-C" should be in there too. I recently bought a machine tool for work. If it had been listed as "Sunnen honing machine, MBB-1660" it would have shown up with all the other ones. Instead it was listed as "Sunnen rod hone". The difference seems to be minor, but there are so many Sunnen items that anybody looking for a machine would include "machine" in their search, or looked for the model number. It had a reasonable starting price and I was the only bidder. I spend a lot of time using off beat search terms hoping to find items that others have missed. There is no way in the world I'd consider paying more than 50% of the lowest discount new price for an item. That would go for any venue. FWIW.

CH