This week, in our daily financial blog reading, we came across a great post on Beingfrugal.net. The post lists, in glorious detail, how to create an Ebay post that will help your get top dollar in an auction. Here’s what was explained, and be sure to check out the whole post here:
Step 1 Get Out Your Ebay Detectives Kit
Search Completed eBay Auctions
To find completed auctions, click on “advanced search” from the eBay home page. You will need to sign in first, if you haven’t already.
Pay attention to those that were selling the exact (or close to it) product that you’re trying to sell. You want to pay close attention to the auctions that ended with the highest bids!
Step 2 Analyze
Analyzing the Results of Your Completed Listing Search
No matter what you’re trying to sell, peruse the completed auction listings to see what the sellers did. If there are too many listings to read, pick a few auctions that ended high, a few in the middle, and a few at the low end. Look for obvious similarities and differences. You want to emulate (but not plagiarize!) the eBay auctions that ended high and avoid the mistakes of the auctions that ended low.
Here are a few interesting things noted about the listings I looked at
- They were all listed in the same category.
- They all had pictures of the actual items (as opposed to stock pictures).
- The auction that ended for the LOWEST price had free shipping.
- The lowest ending auction was also the only one that accepted returns.
- The lowest ending auction had a starting price of $20, and it received exactly one bid.
- The other three auctions had similar shipping rates, a “no return” policy, and all started the bidding at 99 cents.
- Two of the three highest priced auctions described the books as “good”, while the third described them as “like new.” One of the “good” books was the auction that ended the highest.
- The auction with the “like new” books had a tiny description (unreadable without my reading glasses). The description stated that there were several marks in the book…in other words, it really wasn’t “like new.”
- The highest ending auction provided a clear description in fairly large type, and noted the problems with the book (in this case, dog-eared pages).
- The highest ending auction described the books as for elementary school. All other auctions described the books as for middle school.
- The auction with the highest ending bid was also the only auction that offered a shipping discount for bidders that won multiple auctions from the same seller.
Step 3 Pay Attention to Titles
Perhaps the most important thing to note is titles. Many people search, rather than browse, eBay. Thus, it’s important to get the title right, so people who are using the search box can find your auction.
In the case of the Rod & Staff English books, the titles of the four auctions, from highest ending bid to lowest, were:
- Rod and Staff English 6 Progressing With Courage Set
- Rod and Staff English 6 – Progressing With Courage
- Rod & Staff 6 English Progressing With Courage 6th home
- Rod and Staff English 6 Progressing With Courage
The one notable difference is that the auction with the highest ending bid included the word “set” in the title. It makes sense that people searching for a set of books would search for the word “set.”
If you’re selling your stuff, its Smart Cookie approved to get top dollar!
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