Tuesday, March 14, 2006
eBay Experiences
After a hiatus of over a year, I decided last week to put a couple of things -- old electronics -- up for sale on eBay. The site now has a couple of nifty tools that I found helpful.
First is a much-improved My eBay page. The most fun thing: a column that shows how many people are watching your item for sale. I had a dead Apple Airport Base Station (Graphite model) that languished with no bids for five days, and then sat with its low opening bid of 99 cents for two days. (My sales strategy is to set a low opening price and no reserve, in hopes of getting people caught up in the hunt.) In the old days the lack of bids would have made me nervous, but now I could see that several people were watching the item, so I didn't panic. At least not too much. Anyway, the item sold for $5.51 -- lower than I wanted, but at least more than the opening bid. All of the bidding happened in the single last minute of the auction. By the way, the buyer got a good deal because I badly miscalculated the shipping costs. (Another of my rules is to set a flat shipping cost and not mark it up. My rules come from also being a buyer, I guess.)
Second is a nifty shipping label tool. When an auction is complete and paid, eBay (in cooperation with the USPS) can help you print a prepaid mailing label, charging the postage to your Paypal account. The label even includes free delivery confirmation. One thing I learned: if I'm going to sell more, I need to get a scale.
This second new feature is, I think, expressly made to help individuals who sell on eBay. It's been my contention for some time that the number of professional, bulk sellers actually hurts the community aspect of eBay; the site has moved away from its person-to-person roots. For a while I thought this presented an opportunity for an upstart, but now I'm not so sure; it would be hard for a startup to get traction against a company, and a brand, as huge as eBay. It's nice to see the company making things easier for individuals, at least.
First is a much-improved My eBay page. The most fun thing: a column that shows how many people are watching your item for sale. I had a dead Apple Airport Base Station (Graphite model) that languished with no bids for five days, and then sat with its low opening bid of 99 cents for two days. (My sales strategy is to set a low opening price and no reserve, in hopes of getting people caught up in the hunt.) In the old days the lack of bids would have made me nervous, but now I could see that several people were watching the item, so I didn't panic. At least not too much. Anyway, the item sold for $5.51 -- lower than I wanted, but at least more than the opening bid. All of the bidding happened in the single last minute of the auction. By the way, the buyer got a good deal because I badly miscalculated the shipping costs. (Another of my rules is to set a flat shipping cost and not mark it up. My rules come from also being a buyer, I guess.)
Second is a nifty shipping label tool. When an auction is complete and paid, eBay (in cooperation with the USPS) can help you print a prepaid mailing label, charging the postage to your Paypal account. The label even includes free delivery confirmation. One thing I learned: if I'm going to sell more, I need to get a scale.
This second new feature is, I think, expressly made to help individuals who sell on eBay. It's been my contention for some time that the number of professional, bulk sellers actually hurts the community aspect of eBay; the site has moved away from its person-to-person roots. For a while I thought this presented an opportunity for an upstart, but now I'm not so sure; it would be hard for a startup to get traction against a company, and a brand, as huge as eBay. It's nice to see the company making things easier for individuals, at least.
