Mike:
Thanks for the illuminating response. As you said it's probably better to
spend time carefully setting up a bid that stops at the "buy it now" price
so that after a few auctions you get what you want. And for large ticket
items that makes sense. It's just the little things for a few dollars that
bug me when there is no "buy it now" button.
Silly question, couldn't a seller just put the buy it now price at the same
value as the reserve? That would kill off the auction aspect and make it act
like a store.
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: M Brooks [mailto:mike@gsta.net]
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 11:30 AM
To: triumphs@autox.team.net
Cc: Mark Hooper
Subject: Re: Need Ebay knowledge - Long
Hi Mark and Everyone,
I do alot of selling on ebay and I can tell that it can be difficult to
figure out what goes through people's heads - both buyers and sellers. You
may recall that I make some stainless steel hardware kits and other stuff
for Triumphs. I also have a website but I sell probably 50 times more on
ebay than off the site, even though most of the time people can get my stuff
off the site cheaper. I normally don't use a reserve price and I start my
auctions very low and most of my items also have a "buy it now" button
(which rarely gets used) for about the price on my site. Because of this
method, some people who have bought my parts have gotten a super low price -
much less than the website - while others have paid considerably more. It's
the nature of the ebay auction.
Even though some people do advertise their website on their auctions EBAY
DOESN'T LIKE IT and they'll take down the auctions(s) if they catch you
which they've become increasingly good at. Because of that most people don't
advertise their site so if someone finds a unique product on ebay they'll
probably just bid on it and not worry about whether they can find it cheaper
if they scour the web with a search engine etc... More on that later
The guy with the $90 tube shock conversion just wants to sell the item for
that price and not mess around. Maybe he can't afford to sell it for much
less and DON'T FORGET Ebay has a listing fee and takes a hunk of the final
price. He really should add a "buy it now" button for $90 but that's just
personal preference. Aside from my custom made Triumph parts I also sell
plastic motorcycle fairings that I pay wholesale for which is about 30% less
than retail. I run my auctions with no reserve BUT they start at about 5%
less than retail and have a "buy it now" button for retail price. Needless
to say on those parts, about 95% are bought using the "buy it now" button.
With these parts I simply can't take the chance of the auction ending under
wholesale + ebay's cut and it also has to be worth my while as far as profit
is concerned.
Ask anyone who's done it - keeping track of 20 or more auctions at once can
be a pain especially if you have a day job. I would MUCH rather sell only on
my website or mail order and never deal with ebay again but unfortunately it
doesn't seem to work very well especially if you have a non-existent
advertising budget.
Moral of the story for Sellers: The ebay marketplace is a great way to reach
customers that wouldn't normally find you. Moral of the story for Buyers:
Always take the time to research what you're bidding on to see if you are
really getting a deal especially if it's a new (not used or antique)
product. A few minutes with a search engine could save you some time and
money.
~Mike Brooks
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Hooper" <mhooper@pixelsystems.com>
To: <triumphs@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 11:45 PM
Subject: Need Ebay knowledge
> I understand how Ebay works as an auction. However I have seen many
objects
> in the TR6 category that are clearly people selling new items that they
are
> themselves manufacturing. How does this fit into the auction mechanism?
>
> For example, the gentleman selling the tube shock conversion for $90 on
his
> web site is also listing it in Ebay. His reserve is $90. This has
presently
> 4 bidders and the reserve is labelled has having been met with the present
> bid at $90. So did the first 3 people bid less than the reserve
(pointless).
> The same goes for the maker of Triumph cuff links at $7.99 and clocks
> (forget price).
>
> Why would I bid $90.01 when I know that he wishes to sell as many kits as
he
> can (by the way it looks like a nice kit) at $90.
>
> Perhaps I am being obtuse here, but could somebody explain the mechanism
at
> play? Surely I am not supposed to wait for days for one set to be sold at
> the "reserve" price and then hope to be the next in line to bid the actual
> sale price. Seems odd.
>
> Mark Hooper
> 72 TR6 (in need of a tube conversion) ;^)
/// triumphs@autox.team.net mailing list
/// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|