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My First eBay Auctions!

Started by Flaming_Telepath,

41 posts in this topic

divad

divad

Posted
Posted

FT,

 

I agree that your opening bids are too high. Nice books, but you have absolutely no client base (outside the boards) on eBay. You should also take note of the fee structure on eBay. For example, it costs twice as much to list a book at $25 than at 24.99. Ditto for $50 and $49.99. These fees add up.

 

Also books with bids tend to get more bids. I often will list a book at 49.99, and get no bids. I will re-list it at 24.99, and get several bids, with the book ending up selling for $75. Go figure, but it's the nature of the beast.

 

You need to be able to pull eyeballs to your auctions. I sold many a near mint plus Bronze books just to build a client base (now I wish I had started by selling solid mid-grades, cheap.)

 

cheers,

 

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jbud73

jbud73

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Ok comments.

 

Well by restricting your bidders to zero negative feedback, even as a buyer you limit the market there. I don't have a neg, but still that will hurt your initial foray. I also agree that these auction are kinda tough for an initial run, I realize that you are across the pont so to speak - my inital auctions were from Canada so I understand the issues with getting the US market. But I think the books selected definitely hurt you.

 

I would have suggested putting together some midgrades and packaging them, or other leader ideas. Another thing that might keep buyers away in the US is the lack of shipping quotes. Some leaders might have allowed you to find a shipping scale that works for you and list it. The determined at the end kind of leaves you at the mercy of the seller so to speak and US buyers might be wary of that from a UK seller. Those are my comments - the books are nice and I am in the market for one of them but those are some considerations that I had when viewing your auction as a potential buyer.

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Flaming_Telepath

Flaming_Telepath

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J,

 

Thanks for the input...it really is appreciated. The decision regarding what books to list was a real tough one. The 'big' market is the US and the only way to make it worthwhile for someone to pay the increased shipping is to list the 'higher ticket' items, or sell cheap books reeeeeeally cheap, and make the shipping a side issue in terms of the over bargain.

 

I think your idea regarding a lot of maybe half a dozen books packaged together is a damned good one, though, and I'll look to do a couple of these when I list this weekend.

 

And the shipping rates gave me nightmares, too. When selling from the US, 90 of your sales will be US based, so quotes are fairly easy and relevant. When you're selling from the UK, your buyers could be absolutely anywhere in the world and the thought of listing postal rates for 84 different countries sort of scared the living 893censored-thumb.gif out of me!

 

Great comments, though! thumbsup2.gif

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r100comics

r100comics

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Really nice scans - FT ! thumbsup2.gif

 

Have you considered changing your Ebay Username to FT create a recognisable "brand" ?

 

My main criticism would be the lack of airmail quotes which will definitely hurt you with the U.S. buyers. I have been selling from the U.K. for several years now with some great prices, and this is helped by offering a flat $8 / $15 charge for all uninsured airmail / Insured Royal Mail Airsure prices. This means I usually take a hit of $5 or so on shipping costs, but this allows me to be competitive in the marketplace and I usually more than make up for this with my totals.

 

One final thing (as mentioned by another poster). Is there really any need to tell people your feedback is purely from buying ? 344-0 is a great total, and if people have any concerns they can always check for themselves what your feedback is made up of.

 

Good luck anyway !

 

p.s. Could you PM me with any NM Silver and Bronze for sale. I am also based in London. thumbsup2.gif

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