Does anyone have any good info on the psychology of Ebay buyers?
I tend to list my items as "Buy it now" with the option to submit a best offer. I am wondering that if I do not allow best offer, will I lose sales? Best offer usually results in a lot of lowballs offers.
Yeah usually it does result in lowball offers but just set your auto-decline for those offers. Also completely matters on what your selling.
I am mostly selling electronics
Last time I checked, even if you don’t allow offers, buyers can still offer in a “message to seller” and you can accept or counter offer from that.
I have done a lot of selling on eBay. There are a couple ways to approach things.
If you're in a rush to sell, your best bet is to do BIN at a penny or two below the lowest other BIN. Electronics can drop in price quickly as new models come out, so make sure to account for that.
If you're not in a rush, I still recommend BIN. Set your price a bit higher and just wait. You still will have to check to see what your competition lists. If you have better photos and a better description, this can help. I once sold a used item for more than I originally purchased it based on an amazing description and some luck.
The best offer option is largely a bunch of shit. You only get low-baller a-holes. Either turn it off, or set the limit to $5 less than the BIN price. I sometimes set the offer limit to what I want, then increase the BIN price. This lets the low-baller idiots think they scored a better deal.
I usually offer free shipping, but I'm finding that it doesn't always help sales. Sometimes having a lower BIN price will sell the item for you quicker even if the price + shipping is actually higher than the competition.
>seller lists an item for $200
>i know for a fact he paid $90 for it a week ago before it sold out
>i offer him $150
>he responds with $195
Was he really expecting someone to offer him $195?
If you set really low bid starting prices but above average buy it nows buyers will be more inclined to use buy it now because they don't wanna fight a bid war. I've made about $300 selling old games like this.
Is eBay worth it anymore? Google trends shows a gradual decline over the years.
If it's sold out he very well might get it. It doesn't matter if he paid $3 for it. It will sell for market price.
thanks for the thoughtful and informative post.
I try to set my BIN for slightly less than similar items and I find that helpful. I tend to take a very basic picture with my phone that is clear, but I dont really go the extra mile. I also dont spend much time on the description. I think that if a customer is seatching for an item then they probably already know what it is. Do you find that the description is very helpful?
I never offer free shipping. I usually look for the lowest price that will arrive in less than a week.
some dickwad probably bought it.
i was looking at guitars and I knew for a fact that the guitar was $200 in a store. I offered a guy selling a "barely used" one for $195 that I would buy it for $100. He responded $185. lol no thanks
yes very much so
nice idea, but then what if my item sells for like $1?
I used to do very in-depth descriptions, and I don't think it made that much of a difference, so I do shorter descriptions now. I just list basics, and if it's used I say it's in perfect working order and guarantee it will not be DOA.
Only on some items does the description matter. When it is a difficult to acquire item with a value that is more open to debate, then the description matters more. If you're just selling a consumer good, then all the buyer cares about is the condition and price.
i have sold $600 worth of crap in the past 2 months. mostly stuff that i find or get as gifts, but sometimes i buy stuff to resell.
where are people buying instead of ebay?
Buyers think differently to everything you said. They don’t know what they are looking for until you tell them with nice pictures and a professional description. They love free delivery so just include it in the price. They want stuff to arrive in 3 days or less.
I have never found a way to make an ebay business profitable. I use it like a really shitty flea market / yardsale and that's it. I can't imagine how anyone is profitable with this trash website.
>fees and shipping end up amounting to like 15-25% of any item that sells for between $50 and $500
that alone kills it for me
cancel the listings when they're not hot
meant to reply to
oh, some tips for people who care, it's easy to make two accounts and just shill bid on your own shit, I do that all the time
I also make a bunch of really high offers on an item and then cancel them at the last second and snip with my legit account using a script I wrote, so people stop bidding since the thing is like $500 even though it's only worth $200, but I end up getting it for $100 because nobody else bid after I bid the price up to $500 and canceled all of them at once
this is against the TOS and they'll flag/ban eventually but you can just make unlimited accounts so I get like 10 feedback on all of them and just rinse/repeat, great way to get cheap electronics
But this isn't really a sustainable business model, more like Jew bullshit
snipe*
and protip for the plebs who can't code, download jbidwatcher and use that instead
I only know one guy who made an absolute killing on eBay. He would purchase broken electronics for cheap, then they would sell them on eBay as “untested”. He’s a piece of shit, but he got away with it for a long time because his descriptions had a big disclaimer.
Really? I've had the opposite experience selling trading cards and figures. I'll put something for a reasonable buy it now pice and it will just expire multiple times, then I put it as an auction and it ends up selling for more than the buy it now price it was sitting at for weeks