Which eBay Auction Type Makes More Money?

January 11, 2010 · Filed Under Making Money

Which Type of eBay Auction has the Most Profit Potential?

Once you’ve chosen what you’re going to sell on eBay, the next step is to choose how you’re going to sell it. There are basically two main types of auctions, although these can be further broken down. The two main types are the “Buy It Now” and the “Auction” options.

Buy It Now isn’t really an auction, but it allows people to purchase your product on eBay at a fixed price. The auction price allows people to bid – and after the bidding period ends, the highest bidder gets to buy your product. You may choose to list your product in such a way that it takes advantage of both of these options – so if people want to pay the “Buy It Now” price, they can just pay that and get the product, or they can bid and see if they wind up the highest bidder.

In order to sell an item on a fixed price or “Buy It Now” basis, you’ll either need to have a feedback score of 10, be ID verified, or accept PayPal as a payment processor and have a feedback score of 5. This is one of the many advantages of being ID verified. If you aren’t ID verified, you won’t be able to use the “Buy It Now” or “fixed price” option for your first sale. “Buy It Now” and “standard auction” refer to selling individual items in a listing; however you may also choose to sell multiple items in a single listing with “fixed price,” known as a “Dutch auction” or “lot” listings.

In the Dutch auction option, you specify a starting price per unit as well as how many units of your item you have. Bidders then bid saying how much they’re willing to pay per unit. At the end of the auction, the items will be distributed between the winning bidders according to how many they wanted at their winning prices. If there isn’t enough and someone is only awarded part of their requested number of units, then they can choose not to take any.

The Fixed price option is similar to the Buy it Now option but for multiple identical items. The fixed price option means that you specify a fixed price that you want to sell your items at and the bidder simply pays that price multiplied by the number of that item that they want to get. Lot listings mean that a number of identical or similar items are sold to one buyer.

eBay Listing Tips

The eBay website is divided into a number of different categories, and when completing your listing, you’ll need to choose which category yours will be displayed under. The category you place your listing under is important to the success of your listing, but how do you choose how to categorize your product? When choosing a category for your product, first look at the categories that other people are placing your type of item under. When evaluating these listings, consider the number of bids and the number of times the page has been viewed. If there’s a high bid number and a high page view then this is a good category to place your product in.

Once you’ve chosen your first category and entered it into your listing, you’ll also be given an option to choose a second category to place your listing under and eBay will suggest a couple of recommended categories. Of course, this costs more, but it might be a good idea to test the waters if you’re torn between two similar categories. There are other components to creating a good listing than just choosing the right category. Once you’ve filled in some general details on your listing form, such as the type of auction you want to run and the category of your product, it’s time to write the ad copy for your item.

Most eBay users simply type in some bland and boring facts about the product, like whether or not it’s used, has any scratches, comes with a warranty, etc. To make your listing profitable, you have to master the art of writing compelling copy. Your ad copy needs to start with a catchy title that’s going to encourage people to click through from the search pages on eBay to your listing. A mistake a number of newbie sellers make is to just say what the product is without giving much information – such as, “car,” “jersey,” or “kid’s clothes.”

When creating your listing, think about what other people will ask for when trying to find your product, the keywords and phrases that they’ll use in searching for your product. Give details such as, “Blue rugby jersey size XL New.” The more detail you can include in your title, the better. There are also a number of ideas you can use to grab people’s attention when creating your title. If you want to grab people’s attention, try using asterisks in your title or use the option to put the title in bold (this costs $2, so only use it for items over $10). Items where the titles are in bold often sell 50% better than those not in bold.

Once you have your title, the next thing is to create the ad itself. You can either create the ad using the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor or use your own HTML. In order to get the best results, it’s best to learn some basic HTML and use your own HTML to enter your ad. When creating your ad you can use your own customizable background by using the <body background=”picture.gif”> tag.

You should also use pictures of your product (which can be added separately on the listings form) and even relevant clip art could help improve your listing and get higher bids or more bidders. The best ad copy uses short sentences. Although the sentences you use should be short, you should make your listings as complete as possible. Use compelling language to encourage people to buy your product, but at the same time be very honest and also list your sales terms and conditions in order to protect yourself and to encourage your buyer’s confidence in your sales.

Keep all paragraphs short. Make use of bold text, underlining, and italics. Be clear in what you’re promising and ask for the bid at the end of the text. Even an eBay auction needs a clear call to action where you walk the reader through to the very last step. In order to have a real bid-pulling listing, take risks. If you know you’re selling a good product then offer a money back guarantee or some kind of guarantee to your prospective buyers. The buyers seldom use money back guarantees, but it does give them the initial confidence to buy your product.

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