Most of the auctions you find on eBay are reserve price auctions. A reserve price is a way you can protect your investment: it's a price you set that represents the lowest price at which you are willing to sell an item. Usually, your reserve price isn't disclosed to bidders, so they are encouraged to bid as high as they wish. If someone's bid goes above the reserve price you have specified, you are required by eBay to sell it to that high bidder. On the other hand, if the bids that have been placed fail to meet your reserve price, you aren't required to sell to anyone. Just because no one meets your reserve price, that doesn't mean you can't sell.
You and the high bidder can negotiate a sales price. You can send an e-mail saying, "My reserve price was $____ and I'll sell it to you for that much," for instance. Or, if you think you'll have better luck trying again, you can relist your item in a couple of weeks. Here's an example. Suppose you find a doll from the 1960s at an estate sale for $20. Naturally, you want to sell the doll for at least $20 plus your listing fees and any expenses you have incurred in obtaining the item (gas, time, effort, and the time involved in creating the auction listing. You put a reserve price of $25 on the doll when you create the auction listing. You also set an initial bid
- a bid at which you want the auction to start
- of as low as one cent, but more commonly, about $1. You do this in the Sell Your Item form. You have an additional option to consider
- whether you want to give bidders the option to stop the sale and simply sell the item for a fixed price that you consider reasonable. Suppose, for the doll in question, you've done some research through doll catalogs and completed eBay auctions and you have determined that it must be worth $100. You put a Buy It Now price of $100 on the doll, which gives bidders the opportunity to buy it immediately. You save some time and trouble, and you sell to someone you can be reasonably sure is going to follow through with payment.
The prevailing wisdom about starting bids is that, the lower the starting bid, the more likely you are to attract any bids at all. Higher starting bids scare off bidders who are afraid that the bidding will go too high and they'll never win. There's another consideration about setting the starting bid, however: The lower the starting bid, the more bids are required to meet your reserve price. This canwork to your advantage, however: a sale that attracts 30 bids or more is designatedas a "hot item" and eBay adds a matchstick icon to its listing. This tells bidders thatthe item is especially desirable and is likely to attract more attention.
When to Use Featured Auctions
Chances are you've spent a considerable amount of time finding, hauling,photographing, and describing your merchandise. You can go a step further andmake your sale items appear exceptional by placing them in special categories. Featuring an item in these specialized categories costs extra, and items offeredfor sale in those categories tend to cost more, too. But the merchandise in thesefeatured categories generally is unique and hard to find.
Featured Auctions
Featured Auction listings appear at the top of the main Listings page, which isaccessible from the menu bar at the top of every page on eBay. Additionally, someFeatured Auction listings are randomly selected to appear on the eBay home page. However, there's no guarantee when or whether a certain item will appear in thiswell-traveled, highly popular location. To create a Featured Auction, you need to meet certain requirements. Youmust have ten or more positive feedback comments, and the merchandise listedcan't include adult items or things that eBay judges to be "illegal, illicit, orimmoral. " Find out about Featured Auctions and Category Featured Auctions(more information on these in the next section) at http://cgi3. ebay.com/awcgi/eBayISAPI. dll?Featured.
Featured Plus! Auctions
Sellers must have a feedback rating of at least ten to list items as Featured Plus!Auctions, but they aren't subject to the other restrictions that apply to FeaturedAuctions (see the previous section). Featured Plus! Auctions appear at the topof the first Web page for the eBay category in which they fall. Paying the extra $19. 95 listing fee is a good way to get attention for an exceptionalitem, particularly if the listings in its category run to 30, 40, or even moreWeb pages. As with Featured Auctions, the seller decides whether an item is special enoughto fall into this category. Featured Auctions or Featured Plus! Auctions don't have to be moreunique or notable than other auction listings. In fact, they might beitems that need a little extra attention in order to attract bidders.
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1. The importance of time in eBay sales
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