Ebay Conundrum? What Should I do/Can I do?

Twon

I've got a book on ebay, currently at £30 with 8 days left

I've had a msg from someone offering y £80 for the book. I wanted to add a B-I-N option to the auction but it wont let me.

I've now got another book by the same author, the last one went for £100 on ebay!

He's interested in them both and is going to make me an offer.

BUT

I've got no ebay feedback on my new seller account. I really want to get some so what should I do? Cancel my current auction and do a new one with both books? Do 2 new auctions with a BIN option? Make an auction with 'best offer' (Do they do that?)? Do an auction with BIN but only with Pre-Approved bidders?

I want to get some feedback and start my selling life on Ebay (with my new account) but I'm not sure what I should or can do in this instance.

I checked out the 'Amazon sellers' thread with the link to book finder. The book he's offered me £80 is showing @ £155-255
http://www.bookfinder.com/

the other book isn't even on here!

So what do you think I should do? What are the options I've got?

Thanks,

The Twon.

robnye

strictly speaking and also if you want to build up your ebay account......

then stick with the ebay auction - otherwise ebay could get snotty and cause you problems....
also if you sell outside of ebay (especially for sums as high as £80) is a little risky as you have no protection at all.......

although if he pays you in cash......

alternatively start an auction/offer on amazon as well...... edit your ebay auction to state 'reserve the right to withdraw as this item is listed elsewhere'

smartie1976

Get the second book listed asap.
The people who are watching your first one will then see your second one (especially if you're using auctiva and get the scrolling gallery at the bottom), and interest will be maintained, possibly even increase.

be sure to mention in your listing if possible you have another book by the same author.

pulliptears

Let the auction run! 2 years ago I had a flurry of "off ebay" offers for a toy I was selling. The most I was offered was £100. The toy sold for £700.
People dont generally offer the true value, if he is offering £80 its probably worth £120 etc

winnie81

I too would definately let the auction run if he's offering that much! You may be surprised what it finishes at. All my auctions that go along those lines always do way better than I ever expect them too.

The last 12-6 hours is when the fun starts for sellers and buyers

Claire x

kittykirsty

I agree with smartie and pullip! Selling away from ebay can be a recipe for disaster, on ebay you're better protected. With 8 days left to go, it looks as though you have a good chance of getting more than the £80 this buyer is offering. It sounds as though the buyer is just chancing it, hoping that you don't know the true value.

I would definitely link the two books in the description of each one, and maybe even add that if one person is successful in buying both the books you would offer, say £10 off the final price? That might drive a last minute bidding war! Do you have many watchers already?

I wouldn't mention in your auction that you reserve the right to pull the the items as they are listed elsewhere. I've seen threads on here about pulled auctions for this reason. All it would take is someone (perhaps even the person who's offering £80) to report the listing out of spite.

BeardyBloke

I'd be interested to hear what this items ends up going for

I would also leave it running on Ebay. Feedback is important for Ebay buyers and by taking the transaction outsiode of Ebay then you will not earn any feedback.

sharon_currie

I would let it run too. The person must be very interested and clearly knows his stuff. I can understand why you can't add a reserve though when it still has a good few days to go. Good luck on the auction.

digerati

On one of the eBay Seller forum they posed this same question and the almost universal response was to ignore offers to end the auction early or add a BIN. According to the stats that veteran sellers supplied - only 1 in 30 (approx.) offers made were better than the achieved closing price. So Twon has around 30:1 odds that their book auction will close higher than £80.

You can often increase your chances by doing a little research and adding more info to your listing so it'll be more easily found in keyword searches. alibris.com is a good source of info on out of print and rare books.

Twon

Cheers for the info guys and gals!

He needed them really quickly and as I was taking too long to reply he bought them elsewhere.

£140 for the book on ebay.

£100 for the other book I have.

Glad I didn't take his offer.

I'll be posting the other book tomorrow (cheaper insert fees!) and they trying that auctiva too, should help boost the punters.



This way I get the feed back AND it goes for the highest price. At the end of the day I think the books cost me £25 each. So anything above this is a bargain!



Twon

FloFlo

Well done.