Anyone tried increasing their starting price??

helpaid

For the last free listing weekend, I decided to change the price of a few items that I had that had been listed and re-listed a few times without success.

Out of curiosity, I decided to increase the price from the starting price of 99p.

One item in particular I started at £5.99 and was amazed when they sold for almost £20 plus P&P. Couldn't believe it as a few weeks before they could have been bought for 99p.

Every item that I increased my starting price sold - not sure if this was a strange Ebay blip or if my previous starting prices were considered too low and put people off.

Anyway I'm pleased to say that I finally got rid of a few more items and wondered if anyone else had tried this strategy?


:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

sharpy2010

I increased my item prices (buy it now) by about 15% to cover the cost of recent postage increases, and I found that it didn't make any difference to the amount of items I sold. I tried increasing it again by the same amount, and found I sold almost no items. Its a bit of try it and see, I think.

Crowqueen

It's probably very dependent on category, who is seeing the item, and who is there at the end of auction.

I am not listing anything except on a free listing day at the moment, I've laid out about £15 including fees and packaging materials and only sold items worth £3 (most of which went to pay postage as I badly miscalculated the difference between large letter and small packet). I think - I could be wrong - that the buyers are just not looking at the moment; it's summer and people are not exactly out enjoying the sun, but in general they are on holiday and thinking about sport etc rather than indoor stuff. I think the general consensus is that autumn is a better time to sell things; the summer is a better time to buy.

If you have a hit item and found what works, then great, but I wouldn't put much store by just one variable.

porto_bello

I've actually tried looking through the telescope from the other end, so to speak - listing at a high price on a free listing weekend and gradually coming down until the item sells or creates enough interest to keep the price where it is.

poet123

I had a designer suit on for 3 weeks with no interest at £24.99, so I tried a BIN for £35 and it sold within half an hour I was gobsmacked!!

RFW

A while ago I had a load of items on Amazon (that I'd sent to them for fulfillment), and many sold quite quickly, the last one I was happy to just get rid of but no one would take it, I kept reducing and reducing until it was losing me money to sell and still nothing, so I put it back to higher than it's original price and it sold straight away.

There really isn't any rhyme or reason for selling stuff, price isn't always the issue. One sales guru says that you should never alter price and have a reputation for not doing so, it works pretty well for Apple, not so much for me.

Mistral001

Maybe it is like the story about the orginal mini car when it was produced in the 1960's. It did not sell well until they increased the price. That might be an urban myth or not, but I can see how you can price things too low and put people off.

sharpy2010

poet123 wrote: »

I had a designer suit on for 3 weeks with no interest at £24.99, so I tried a BIN for £35 and it sold within half an hour I was gobsmacked!!

It does seem surprising, but I think I can perhaps answer this particular puzzle...

If I buy something, I want to buy it immediately, I've no inclination to wait until an auction finishes, and then I *might* get it. Therefore, I personally only choose buy it now items. You might have sold your item to someone who thinks the same as me :-)

Crowqueen

On the suit, the BIN might have worked.

Someone might have seen it, thought 'I need that for next week' and bought it out.

If it had been on auction until the date that they needed it, they wouldn't have bothered bidding as they would not have received it in time, even if they were the only bidder.

Some items work very well on BINs which struggle to shift at auction. I have some books that I might well sell in the autumn as people go back to uni etc., I might try them on auction on FLWs over the summer and then risk BINs in the autumn when I might shift them better to pay for the 40p listing fee as well as FVFs. I don't think it would make much sense at the moment, unfortunately, as sales tend to be slow over the summer.