Ensuring the Success of Your eBay Auctions

When people first starting selling on

eBay

, it's uncommon for them to fail. And when people don't learn from their failures, don't understand what went wrong - and sadly there are many people like that - set themselves up to fail again and again on a repeated basis.

By "fail", I mean this disheartening experience: First, doing hours of research looking for the perfect item to sell, then getting the auction set up, and wait for the bidding to begin. And then, as the hours and days go by, either no bids at all, or just a few very low bids, are placed. Eventually, when the auction ends, it's a total failure, with the item either being sold for a ridiculously low price, or not being sold at all.

So what cause this type of auction failure? As you might expect, there are many reasons why auctions can fail.

The most common reason is that the item is not in high demand. This problem can be avoided by doing the necessary research to determine which items sell well, and which items should be avoided. This research can take a great deal of time – but when you consider what can happen if you don't do the research, you will surely find that it is time well spent.
Another reason that auctions fail is pricing:
- Regardless of what your reserve price is, your opening bid price should never be more than about $50. If your opening price is too high, it will simply drive people away: they won't even click the link to read the description. Conversely, a low initial price can generate lots of interest and attract many bidders.
- Another common pricing problem is lack of research. Before you set your reserve price, you really should know what your item is worth, and how much this type of item tends to go for on .
- Shipping and handling prices are another thing that can scare people away from auctions. If these prices are too high, even if they are a small fraction of the cost of the item, people tend to feel they are being taken advantage of. It's therefore best to hunt around, so that you can offer the lowest shipping prices that you can find, and even consider paying for the shipping yourself. Additionally, you should not charge handling fees - and make clear in your listing that you are not charging handling fees.
If your description is poorly written, this is another thing that can put people off. Poor grammar, misspelled words, and unclear explanations, simply drive people away. Remember, your item description is the key to getting people to want your item: and they won't want it unless they know exactly what you are offering. Finally, don't forget a picture is worth a thousand words - and a good quality picture is worth many times more than poor quality ones.

You should also ask your buyers to give you feedback. Provided you offer great customer service, and the item is everything that you promised it would be, your customers will give you wonderful positive feedback. Accumulating positive feedback, will help ensure the success of your future auctions.

With any business, it is up to the individual owner of said business to ensure the success of the business. You may make more or less than any sample figures or results that might be quoted on our web sites or other publications. All business involves risk, and many businesses do not succeed. Further, Answers 2000 Limited does NOT represent that any particular individual or business is typical, or that any results or experiences achieved by any particular individual/business is necessarily typical.

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