Hi.
I am not sure what occurred, but for some reason I missed your last email.
Possibly my wife clicked on your email and as a result, I did not answer it.
SOME OF MY ADVICE:
1. I would try to set the price at a common selling range.. A range that is a good price and it often sells for..
For instance, $39.95.. The idea would be something like:
$19.95 bid and $39.95 buy it now..
Here is my logic, which may or may not fully pertain to your situation..
If you have a buy it now, they more often pay.. I have found when people bid up, sometimes they don't pay..
Also, when it gets into the $100 range, you can have customers flake out either before or after they pay.. And
they can put in a dispute.. Disputes over $100 automatically freeze the amount in your account.. Under $100, and often it doesn't freeze the money and you have time to talk them out of it or put in that it is a digital item not protected by ebay's buyer protection policy..
The $19.95 to $39.95 range could be a good solution, as you can still get the low bidders with the $19.95 and you can also get those who want to buy it now..
But, I would just test it and work out the price over time..
It might end up no one buys it now this way and you would have to set it to either:
$19.95 bid and $29.95 buy it now..
The trick is to try to capture the most people's "effective high bid".. Mentally, people all have their range. If you can find the range, where you get tons of buyers, and the max price for
those buyers, you are making a killing..
With my ebook business, it was $39.95 for the minimum and $79.95 for the buy it now.. It worked out good..
PERSONAL VS. PROFESSIONAL:
You can't make broad generalizations like personal is good and professional sucks.. What's going on is you are learning who your customers are.. They are more personal oriented..
So, you are having more emotion and relation driven buyers than professional buyers..
So, play this to your favor.. If you get more sales when it is personal written, do it personal..
MY THEORY ON FEATURED AND TIMING OF AUCTIONS:
For some auctions, featured is the way to go.. For others, its the timing..
I look at it this way.. You have grab items or items
that grab their attention and you need to force them into a decision now.. Those are the 1 day or 3 day auctions.. This can be very effective for some products.. Could very well be the case with this one here.
Then you have the featured type.. This could also be a featured kind.. I don't ever do 10 day featured, as its just too long and you can get more sales if you do 7 days..
Sometimes, you can do a combination where it is timely and featured.. But, its a bit risky as the costs can start piling up quick.. You know, a 3 or 5 day auction featured.. I used to do it with my TV projector kit some..
I learned, though, that even though I did make a bit more money, there was too much fees going into the calculation which was making for risk.. The risk was that I could have a slurr of bad auctions ending and be caught off guard and
end up paying ebay a large portion of money..
You can do the stagger with the featured and the timing strategies I am talking about above.. For instance, you have one auction in one category starting on Monday and another starting in another category on Tuesday, etc..
Covers a lot of ground.. Each day or two has an auction end in different categories..
EBAY BUY PROBLEMS:
Could be foreign customers.. Or it could be your settings to keep out the -1 customers.. Or customers who have had strikes against them.. Keep in mind, these are ones you want to keep out..
BUT, foreign customers you do not want to keep out.. Maybe you have your settings wrong on the auctions? Could just be USA only.. You can make it world wide..
You can also check the settings in your my
ebay..
Tony
KG Lyon <kglyon@aaaa.com> wrote:
Hi - I wanted to send my questions to you again since its been about a week now
From: kglyon@aaaa.com
To: optasia_mail@yahoo.com
Subject: My personal questions for my ebay business
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 23:33:22 -0400
Tony: hi, I won Ebay # 290014176396 Top Ebay Seller Reveals All - SOurces, Strategies, More! auction. I have a few questions for you regarding my ebay business.
I actually already sell a stock system under another ebay id. Its a system that I use to trade stocks, and it makes works and makes money! I've have sold on ebay anywhere from $9.99 to $119.00. I know, large range! I was obviously testing the waters for the past year.
I've noticed that if I make my auction in the $50-75 range and have my auction ad really simple, almost like I just went into the description box, typed some paragraphs about it, made it seem really personal, that I sell more. Now here's my question, does this mean that for this type of auction that this is what I need to do - or does it mean that
my more professional ads suck?
Second question: I see that you talk about the times to list and when is good times, etc. And I've always seen ideas of when it is a good idea to end auctions. Question for you is if you think it would be better to set my ad up for a 10 day Featured listing, or to setup multiple non-featured auctions that end each day between that 8-12pm window? That way, one ends each day during peak times? I just see a lot of ebay 'gurus' that think its best to set up featured auctions.
Third question: I often have ebayers who come to me and tell me that they tried to purchase my item and it wouldn't let them purchase. I have no restrictions, that I know, on who can purchase. Most of these potential buyers are over 10 feedback and many times over 100. So I'm not sure why that would
happen. I am obviously concerned that I am losing out on a lot of customers who will not let me know. Have you come across this before?
I know this is alot of reading - I apologize. Hope to hear from you soon!
Ken Lyon
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O'REILLY: All right, Lis ... I sell bibles in Tarzana, CA. Lenny comes in, & he's got a ... beard. He's wearing a dress ... I have to hire him?
LIS WIEHL: You can't not hire Lenny.
O'REILLY: Yes, but ... Don't you see my business point here? ... the state of Calif .. is forcing me to hire people that may be detrimental to my business.
LIS WIEHL: appearance shouldn't matter. When you're selling bibles.
O'REILLY: Ms. Rivers, you understand ... better than Lis because she went to Harvard Law School, and that disqualifies her from common
sense.
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