Playing The eBay Game


Money Making Challenge!I thought I was going to wait until the first to start in on the Money Making Challenge full steam, but good old eBay sent out their notice that tomorrow (2/28) is a $0.10 fixed price day. Although I don’t like it as it usually disrupts my plans, when these sales come around I usually jump full into listing as many items as I can. I shooting for a minimum of 50 by midnight March 1.

These listing sales make sense and can save you a lot of money if you know the price something should sell for. This is especially true if you are selling expensive items where you may pay several dollars just to list them. My basic strategy has been mapped out over many previous times – this is what I’ll be doing:

1) Move all the items out of my eBay store and onto the fixed price platform. This allows all of them to be searchable for the $0.10 and heightens the likelihood they will be sold.

2) Go through all my listings to see if I have auctions already written (or at least fairly close) that I can put on quickly.

3) Look through my expensive items and list as many of those as I can.

Depending on how I’m feeling, I may just list items with a photo and no explanation. This allows me to get a lot more on during the 24 hours the sale is on and then I can go back later and fill in all the details of what is being sold. I can do this since most of the items I sell, collectors pretty much know what they’re looking at so items will sell even without a full explanation.

I will be putting up the 10 photos and 1 book that I have as inventory. I will also try all those items that I can get at the hobby shop if they sell. I may even take a quick trip to see if I can find anything else to sell depending on how the listings go.

While I’m not big into this these days, one solid day usually means I can spend the rest of the month working exclusively on the websites so I can’t complain too much. Off to preparations…


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February 27th, 2006
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
samerwriter
Posted on:
February 28, 2006 at 12:14 am

With a lower listing price, wouldn’t you expect there to be a lot more items listed in competition with yours, thus potentially driving down the sales price?

I’m curious if you’ve tracked this in the past; obviously it’s tough to get an exact figure, but does it seem like you come out ahead?

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
pfadvice
Posted on:
February 28, 2006 at 12:20 am

This promotion is a fixed price promotion – so there is no actual auction (although it shows up in the auction listings) and the reason you need to have a good idea of what things sell for.

I deal mainly in Japanese antiques and other collectibles so there isn’t a lot of competition — so even when they are auction promotions, it has little effect on the items I sell.

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Wandering Indian Monk
Posted on:
February 28, 2006 at 10:32 am

Hi, How do you get informed on these $0.10 deals? I looked at the eBay webpage and could not find any news on the same.
Thanks.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
pfadvice
Posted on:
February 28, 2006 at 10:40 am

You can see all the information here

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Jonathan
Posted on:
February 28, 2006 at 1:02 pm

I’m sure you don’t want to share what you sell, but it is a commodity (like 100 of the same item), or do you buy separate items cheap somewhere and then sell them back on eBay?

Am I also correct is assuming you would rather work on the website because they are more of a passive income? Since it seems like you could do very well just doing eBay all the time. (I’m sure you have more passion for the sites too.)

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
pfadvice
Posted on:
February 28, 2006 at 5:45 pm

I’m sure you don’t want to share what you sell, but it is a commodity (like 100 of the same item), or do you buy separate items cheap somewhere and then sell them back on eBay?

Am I also correct is assuming you would rather work on the website because they are more of a passive income? Since it seems like you could do very well just doing eBay all the time. (I’m sure you have more passion for the sites too.)

No problem at all sharing the things I sell (which I will be doing), but mainly because even if I share, it would be difficult for anyone to copy (or compete against me) unless they were living in Japan. If I were still doing this full time, I may feel a bit differently, but since now it’s basically a part time activity, it’s not a big deal.

Correct on the passive income. I was making quite a bit more doing eBay, but it’s a job where if you stop putting things on, your income also stops plus there is no value created in the business when you’re finished – I could sell the remaining inventory, but since most people would not be able to continue to obtain the items I sell, there really isn’t a business to sell (except maybe a bit for my customer lists).

The websites will eventually let me be able to take a 2 week vacation and still bring in daily income. It was a tough decision to make considering the money I have given up, but I think will pay off well in the end (at least hoping)

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
Scruffy Moo cards
Posted on:
July 2, 2007 at 2:16 pm

Is it better to start the bid low on ebay or to set a mid priced starting fee. I also see many items on there now that are fixed price. Will just have to give a try. Trial and error as they say.