Should you start an ebay auction at 99p

WLM21

A friend who is new to eBay asked me if he should start his auctions at 99p or start with a slightly higher price. His items are probably going to be selling in the £10 - £30 range.

I advised on the latter, after all, the eBay insertion fees are pretty cheap really and you wouldn't want something, say valued at £10, going for 99p.

I am just wondering what other, far more experienced sellers think.

I'm sure I read somewhere, that it has been proved, many items with the 99p start, attract more watchers and quite often end up with higher selling prices than those, which started off above the 99p value.

thanks in anticipation.

Del_Astra

Depends what they are selling. Is it a sought after item that will attract bids or is it a specialist item that will only attract one or two bids. Research what is being sold and see what similar items have sold for when starting at 99p.

steveo3002

often works out well as it will come up early in searches for cheapest first and start off a bidding war

just be aware it might go for 99p so your taking that chance , maybe start it whatever the cheapest you can afford to sell it at

charlesb

Should you start an ebay auction at 99p
only if you can live with the risk that it might sell for 99p

Alisha2008

I would say just do some investigation first... some items does not matter, as it's 100% sure they won't sold for 99p, but others might be risky...

POPPYOSCAR

Only if you are prepared to let it go at that price.

I find Ebay to be a strange beast. The same thing that sold for £s
one day can the next day sell for pennies.

I usually wait until the free listing weekends and then price things up for the minimum I really would like.

sam.4000

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

Only if you are prepared to let it go at that price.

I find Ebay to be a strange beast. The same thing that sold for £s
one day can the next day sell for pennies.

I usually wait until the free listing weekends and then price things up for the minimum I really would like.

I totally agree prices for items are up and down like a yoyo. Things seem to be selling for less and less, great as a buyer but not so good for selling unless you set your own price.

poet123

Does anyone know when the next free listing is likely to be?

POPPYOSCAR

sam.4000 wrote: »

I totally agree prices for items are up and down like a yoyo. Things seem to be selling for less and less, great as a buyer but not so good for selling unless you set your own price.

Yes, and I think it will only get worse with the postage increases coming up.

POPPYOSCAR

poet123 wrote: »

Does anyone know when the next free listing is likely to be?

They seem to be quite frequent at the moment.

The last one was just over a week ago and the one before that was about three weeks before.

RFW

It used to be that 99p auctions were a good idea if it was a relatively saleable item, that hasn't been the case for over 18 months. I still occasionally do them to stimulate some interest and there are certain items that will still do well, but even then it's not always as certain as it once was.

I've picked up a fair few good deals following low start auctions and where we used to do 50-100 a month we rarely reach double figures for them now.