Auction, BIN, Amazon or Web site?

champagne_charlie

I have been using ebay for a number of years, firstly buying then moved into selling. I still to this day can’t understand buyer’s mentality. I can run a BIN price along side an auction listing and people pay (a lot) more for the auction listing!!
I find it hard to get anyone to buy on the BIN option. I really would like to have all listings as BIN and know what I’m going to make. At present my ebay business is more like a roulette wheel than a business. Does anyone else have this problem?
I don’t have an ebay shop and was wondering does having an ebay shop help with this problem? Is there any benefits to having an ebay shop apart from a few software tools?
What is the best way to list?
Or maybe its time to move on to Amazon or develop an ecommerce web site. What do you think?
Thanks for any replies

terra_ferma

Hello
If you don't tell us what type of items you sell it's very difficult to advise you.
There is a huge difference between selling collectables, NWT clothing, or mobile phones for example.
Some items will sell better as BIN others as auctions, there is no common rule on this.

Any response would apply to our own business, but they may not be relevant to yours.

champagne_charlie

My business has changed a lot from when I first started out. I sold antiques and collectibles, which I have always listed, auction style. I can fully understand auction style being better for these types of items.
I’m now selling brand new clothing with quite a few competitors. I do watch what they are doing and I know they are in the same situation as me.

soolin

champagne_charlie wrote: »

My business has changed a lot from when I first started out. I sold antiques and collectibles, which I have always listed, auction style. I can fully understand auction style being better for these types of items.
I’m now selling brand new clothing with quite a few competitors. I do watch what they are doing and I know they are in the same situation as me.

Clothing is difficult as many people prefer to go and try on clothes rather than bothering with a small seller online. Even buying from say M and S online you'll find a lot of people will over order so they can take back the ones they don't want direct to the shop. Make sure you have a good solid return policy so that people are completely reassured that they can return everything to you just like they would any other shop.

Clothes will obvioously not be a logical item for Amazon so it looks like you are stuck with either ebay or with trying to set up your own site, and that itself may be problematic as you'll need something special to get them to buy from you rather than from a mainstream shop.

Crowqueen

Auction listings may be more visible than your BIN listings - check your position in general searches as most people would use the default Best Match and that prioritises some sellers' BINs while auctions are not sorted in the same way and appear in search in chronological order of end time as usual. Even though you may not use Best Match, people who only buy may never bother to alter the defaults (I used to, but no longer do since most of the stuff I buy is media stuff like DVDs and CDs so there's no advantage to looking for smaller sellers, like there might if I was buying one-of-a-kind bric-a-brac items or collectables) and therefore that might explain things if your auctions are more prominent in search than your BIN items.

eBay keep the Best Match criteria a secret because they don't want shonky sellers trying to game the system; much of it is tied to things like seller performance and buyer preference, but generally speaking I've heard using free postage and being a business or TRS gets you some priority. Also if you have multiples of the same item you might want to consider using multiple BINs or multiple variation listings, as the more people buy from a listing, the higher it is in search.

toffe

you just have to try out different listing methods with different products until you find what works.

i have had the same problem myself, just the other day i decided to change one of my items from a BIN only to an auction with a lower start price with the option to BIN at the original price.

this product was one i saw several of my competitors selling in their droves and decided to get in on the action so i sourced some, same product my competitors were selling, listed at the same price as my competitors, i'm a TRS stars at 5's and 4.9's offer free postage have a shop, no reaon why i shouldn't sell a fair few, but i couldn't shift a single one.

Worse still when i paid for featured first i still only sold a handful and nowhere near enough to cover the featured first cost.

but since i changed the format as described above a few days ago i've so far sold every item i've listed, for a decent average price overall, and am considering increasing the amount of items i have ending per day.

i'm using a one day auction format just for your information.

if you have an item that isn't selling on BIN try a few different ideas and usually you'll find something that works.

terra_ferma

toffe wrote: »

you just have to try out different listing methods with different products until you find what works.

i have had the same problem myself, just the other day i decided to change one of my items from a BIN only to an auction with a lower start price with the option to BIN at the original price.

this product was one i saw several of my competitors selling in their droves and decided to get in on the action so i sourced some, same product my competitors were selling, listed at the same price as my competitors, i'm a TRS stars at 5's and 4.9's offer free postage have a shop, no reaon why i shouldn't sell a fair few, but i couldn't shift a single one.

Worse still when i paid for featured first i still only sold a handful and nowhere near enough to cover the featured first cost.

but since i changed the format as described above a few days ago i've so far sold every item i've listed, for a decent average price overall, and am considering increasing the amount of items i have ending per day.

i'm using a one day auction format just for your information.

if you have an item that isn't selling on BIN try a few different ideas and usually you'll find something that works.

one day only? I've always wonder who uses them?
what is the rationale for using them (genuinely interested, not criticising - for once )?

when I use auction for advertising I do 10 days, with conspicuous links to my shop/items. Try to get as much exposure as possible for the same money.
I do it because my items don't come up high on searches for one of my shops, they do for the other.
Also try and list items that not many people sell, but are still desirable, like awkward sizes/colours/models, items where there is little margin.
Repeat custom from buyers you find this way is worth the extra cost.

burtons

I'm just a buyer and i was looking to buy a item the other day and there was loads selling the item i was after on buy it now but i found one with a auction so i placed my bid and after a few days i got outbid so i checked the final price when the auction ended and the price went over what others was selling theres on but it now. So it makes me think people has to much money or the sellers are using different id's to bid on there items to make the price higher.

soolin

burtons wrote: »

I'm just a buyer and i was looking to buy a item the other day and there was loads selling the item i was after on buy it now but i found one with a auction so i placed my bid and after a few days i got outbid so i checked the final price when the auction ended and the price went over what others was selling theres on but it now. So it makes me think people has to much money or the sellers are using different id's to bid on there items to make the price higher.

Shill bidding is not allowed on ebay and it is nowhere near as common as it used to be.

I often have my auction items outsell other sellers on BIN, and I can assure you that I do nto shill.

champagne_charlie

I do not shill bid neither, but I do have my auction list style sell for more than my parallel listed BIN. I’m sure I read somewhere about ebay prosecuting someone who was bumping the price up. Interesting point is I have been to many auctions where it has been standard practice to bounce bids of the wall.
I have not got an ebay shop but the comments made by terra_ferma (thanks) were very informative. I can now see benefits to having an ebay shop, but do ebay shops have regular customers?
I understand that specialised stock will pay a premium, but if the margins are right can an ebay shop have multiple types of items?
Has anyone have an opinion on ebay shops that do different types of stock or is it better to have a specialized stock?

Pembroke

As you can have multiple ID's you could have one for the BIN's and one for the auctions if you want to separate your selling. I tend to sell collectables on auction with calculated P&P but BIN's with free P&P.

I've looked at shops but you need to list quite a few items to make it worth while. I think it's something like 75 separate items (on BIN's) to make it work for a basic shop.