I was getting ready to write a pretty specific post on selling collectibles on eBay tonight, but as the idea developed in my mind this section grew from a preamble to a separate post. I don’t know if how I list on eBay would be of any benefit to a commodities seller, but that’s why this is The Collectors Site–this is my perspective as somebody selling vintage collectible items on eBay.
I’ve mentioned this a few times recently, but I’ll put it in print here–I look to turn items over quick on purchase through the auction format on eBay, if an item passes at auction I relist it as either a Fixed Price (FP) or Store Inventory Format (SIF) listing and am happy to let it sit until it does sell. I do this because the collectibles I deal in are keyword rich and I find it beneficial to hold a number of items in stock for shoppers looking to fill their collecting needs through those keywords.
To simplify that paragraph, Fredric March does lousy at auction for me, but there are Fredric March collectors, so if my eBay Store carries a quantity of Fredric March items, then I have the potential for a multiple item sale at prices higher than I use at auction (more on why those prices are higher to come).
Another way to go would be to simply take all of the items that pass at auction, collect them into one big lot and auction that the following week. This is the way to go if you’re not looking to carry any stock. I prefer to grow my stock in order to fulfill the Fredric March order outlined above.
Thus I sell in auction format, FP format and SIF format. Furthermore for FP and SIF items I also selectively utilize the Best Offer (BO) feature and Markdown Manager (MM) for sales.
The next post is going to directly deal with how I decide on the format I’m going to use and what goes into pricing strategy. For the rest of this post I want to get away from the how and focus on the why.
Basically, even with 7 different potential listing formats mentioned above (Auctions, FP, FP w/BO, FP w/MM, SIF, SIF w/BO, SIF w/MM) from the customer’s perspective it boils down to four options: Auction, Straight BIN, Making an Offer, Straight BIN on a Sales Priced item.
I’ll discuss auctions more in the follow-up, but for now let it suffice to say that I mostly use the format when A) I think an item has potential to fetch more than my instinct tells me it’s worth, and B) to provide a boost to my overall body of listings simply by utilizing the format. From the buyer’s perspective I believe they only enjoy the idea of the auction when the item is truly rare, otherwise they wonder why they have to wait to buy it.
I’ve found Best Offer to be a very popular feature with buyers. It brings a little of that old wheeling and dealing feeling to an otherwise flat eBay platform by incorporating the most common trade show and yard sale technique: asking for a deal. Most people who have had a connection with the world of antiques and collectibles prior to coming online are very comfortable with making an offer.
Back when I did baseball card shows I can remember the meekest, quietest customers–people who I would see weekly for years at a time who still couldn’t bring themselves to make eye contact and say hello–ask for a deal before making their purchase. It is simply a part of that world. And it translates great to eBay, where buyers of this sort are comfortable asking for a deal.
Best offer is also excellent for making sales to other dealers as well as to people who only buy their collectibles on eBay–they’ve often come to the site led by the general perception of eBay as the place to get a deal, so they’re not scared to ask for one.
Still I do sell many items with the Best Offer feature enabled for the full marked price. These are buyers who want the item and want it without any back and forth interaction. Perhaps in some cases they just want the item regardless of price, but in other cases they want it quick and do not wish to partake in any back and forth, give and take banter.
But what about the items that don’t sell, even if you think they should? Items in a Fixed Price format either with or without the Best Offer feature enabled?
The only real way we as eBay sellers have to gauge interest in such items is the Watcher count on the item. And dealing from far at the end of the long tail I have items that never even see a watcher. Let me add something before moving to the next strategy though:
Every item I have listed on eBay will eventually sell.
I know it will. I’m working on the confidence that my eye, inside my niches, will not make a mistake. If I like it, so will someone else. My job is to make the item available at a price that best suits both myself and the customer. Am I perfect? No, and I will make the occasional mistake buying, which directly contradicts what I just said, but the key is to beat the mistake. That’s when you’ll see me lot something together to dump it or take offers far below what I’ll normally take. Some items will sit for a long time, but I can say this about my eBay sales–I’ve never, not since 2000, sold any item at a loss.
So how to best move those stale items? The ideas mentioned above (lotting and accepting lowball offers) are the final step. Markdown Manager comes before them.
By placing items on sale through eBay’s Markdown Manager, and I’ve used it to create sales from anywhere between 10-40% off, you are allowing the buyers who are either too meek or too busy to make a Best Offer an opportunity to buy.
Let’s work with a $10 item that you have 30% to move on. So you’d take a $7 offer, but nobody is sending you that offer. Why not put it on sale? Yes, you’re removing the possibility of receiving $7.01-$10.00 for the item through your sale, but you’re making the item available for a specified period of time at an amount you are ordinarily happy to accept when someone is bold enough to suggest it to you.
As you might imagine by how I’ve put this, I will not use Markdown Manager early in the life of an item.
eBay offers us all of these tools to sell — neither Best Offer nor Markdown Manager cost anything to use. By utilizing them, as well as the three basic selling formats (Auction, FP, SIF), I feel you are doing your best in attempting to gain the attention of the customer (through format) and make the sale (through style).
Next up, the idea this post grew from–I was pricing out several old movie star postcards that passed at auction in both FP and SIF format. I always find myself shaking my head when I do this because I know the items will eventually sell, but the buyers have missed out on my best prices. So I plan to follow up in two parts: first, on the VintageMeld I’m going to do a post explaining to buyers how to get the best deal from me, then finally, over here on The Collectors Site I’m going to explain to sellers why that is.