Reply With QuoteI gave up using ebay when the number of scammers out-numbered the genuine buyers and sellers.
Shame really, because it used to be a good way of off-loading unwanted stuff. Now it's just a hassle.
It's been ages since I sold on eBay. I just discovered that they've changed the rules on selling by BIN. You used to be able to select various time frames for BIN sales (e.g. 7 days, 1 month, etc. just as with auction sales) but now they've changed it so that BIN sales are set to renew perpetually on a 'good until cancelled' basis. You can't change it, other than to cancel the item.
On the face of it this sounds great. Why would you not want your item to be renewed perpetually until cancelled or sold? Well, the reason is that more people notice and react to an item that is coming up to the end of its availability period. When I last sold items via BIN I found that I sold more if I put them on a 7 day period than if they were on a 1 month period (I seem to remember perpetual BIN cost extra back then). The immediacy of the 7 day availability period made the items more desirable. But no, we can't do that any more. :-(
Of course you can put an item on a 7 day auction (with a BIN or Best Offer option) but this too has a different dynamic that might not work well for all types of item. And the BIN option or Best Offer option disappears after the first bid (unless you use am expensive reserve), so it is of limited usefulness.
I gave up using ebay when the number of scammers out-numbered the genuine buyers and sellers.
Shame really, because it used to be a good way of off-loading unwanted stuff. Now it's just a hassle.
The “good til cancelled” on BIN is now free, you only pay final value fees but if you listed it on a £1 final value fee offer that only applies for the first period (30days).
The clock still ticks down from 30 days to zero but then automatically re lists. It’s very easy to end the auction and relist if you want to though.
I find it very useful selling bike parts but always list with free postage for the first 30 days (and add the postage cost to the BIN) because you’ll still pay 10% final value fee of the postage otherwise.
If it doesn’t sell within 30 days, I’ll lower the price, add a postage charge (psychology, it seems to attract more buyers), take the hit that it’s now going to cost me 10% and let it run until it sells.
Yes, but as I mentioned I don't find this to be an advantage in practice. It's much better to run BINs on a 7 days basis, in my experience. The short timeframe seems to increase desirability. No one seems to notice a BIN listing until the last few days anyway, so you might as well only run a 7 day BIN listing (in my experience).Originally Posted by Dave+63
Interesting tactic.
I understand your point and have seen it with auctions where the one day auctions seem to do better than the seven day ones but haven’t personally noticed it with BINs. Based on the auctions though, I can see why this mentality can transfer to BINs although logically it really shouldn’t. Logic rarely has any relevance when dealing with the general public though.
WRT changing the price and putting postage separate, I think folk decide what they’ll pay for an item and not the total cost including delivery so will often pay more overall if the item itself is cheaper. Again, there’s no logic but it’s just what happens.
I haven't quite given up on them yet, but I agree that every time I sell anything on there I feel like the amount of stress it causes outweighs the value in many cases. I wish there was a better alternative.
I did buy a couple of items from eBid before and have considered giving them a try in the future. It's a much smaller site so less of a target, although I daresay it isn't completely scam-free by any means. Their fees are a lot better though. The main downside of course if the significantly smaller audience. They do list items on Google shopping, so for BIN items it might be worth a try.
Buy it Now listings do better early on in their listing regardless of listing duration, especially if priced right. The reason it feels like they sell better on 7 day listings (in my opinion) is because they refresh and go back to the top of "newly listed" once a week instead of once a month - it's nothing to do with them ending soon, it's simply that they stay close to the front of the newly listed pages.
Buyers will hunt through auctions "ending soonest" and buy it now listings "newly listed". Always been the way.
Personally I have seen a massive slow-down on eBay this year, and it had been my biggest revenue stream for a couple of years now. This year I am between 70% and 90% down on last year depending on the month. Same stuff for sale, same prices (cheaper in some cases) and the same descriptions but almost no complete sales - I've gone 9 days without a sale, unheard of last year!
eBay have got even greedier than usual and are now charging commissions to bump listings to the front page (sponsored listings). Great for the big companies but crap for independent sellers like me. My sales have dwindled to the point where this month I can't even pay my fees.
Yup, it's illogical but, as you say, human aren't logical. Sales is all about emotions.
I suspect it also depends on the type of item being sold. I was selling NOS Atari Jaguar game cartridges. I can well imagine that a different product with a different target demographic might have a different sales profile.
Yup, I think you're right that people forget the P&P.
I've also noticed that some people (many, as far as I can tell) appear to ignore everything except the first very picture: They don't read descriptions, don't look at high res pictures, and so on.
I can only say that that was not my experience (with the items I was selling). I was not (and am not) a big eBay seller: I gained this experience a few years ago selling NOS Atari Jaguar cartridges. At first I put them up on a one month BIN but, to my surprise, nothing sold until the last seven days or so. After a few one month listings were in effect wasted I simply switched to seven day listings and, overall, they sold much more quickly and easily. I'd say that my prices were right since the cartridges did sell, but only in the last seven days.
In principle I agree that things surely should sell well at the beginning of a BIN listing because the new listing should appear in people's saved searches but it didn't work that way for me.
Ah, but people sort by 'Ending Soonest' too. ;-) I know I do, and it seemed to me that the buyers of my cartridges were probably doing something similar.
In the end, I just didn't have enough of the cartridges to sell to do any kind of market research. All I knew for sure is that when I listed them on one moth BIN listings I didn't get any sales until the last week or so.
Well yes, and it's the 'Ending Soonest' people who seemed to want to buy my (somewhat esoteric) NOS cartridges. :-)
Wow, that really surprises me. Do you think that the sponsored listing are the cause of your drop in sales? Or is it increased competition overall, or something in the economy as a whole? Could it be Alibaba taking your sales?
Depends what you're selling of course but I've seen complaints from eBay sellers that direct-from-China sales (complete with Chinese government subsidised postage, of course) are taking more and more sales from UK sellers.
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