This ones mine, am I asking too much, too little

[everydayisalesson]

Hey guys, put some of my stuff up on ebay cause I am not set up to do anything yet. Am I asking too much or too little?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Scrap-Gold-Read-Description-Cell-Phones-Boards-Hard-Drive-Pins-Precious-Metals-/130954277982?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e7d7bb45e

Sorry about such a long link, still getting used to computer work.

Mike

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Mike,

That's probably a reasonable starting price for your lot. It should sell and it will probably go for more than the starting bid. The shipping strikes me as a little bit high, but it will sell.

Dave

 

[macfixer01]

Hey guys, put some of my stuff up on ebay cause I am not set up to do anything yet. Am I asking too much or too little?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Scrap-Gold-Read-Description-Cell-Phones-Boards-Hard-Drive-Pins-Precious-Metals-/130954277982?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e7d7bb45e

Sorry about such a long link, still getting used to computer work.

Mike

The starting price has little to do with the final sale price, and most of the action will probably only happen in the last few minutes anyway. There are occasional deals to be found, but scrap on Ebay often ends up selling for more than I believe could be recovered from it. As long as you don't start off asking more than the lot is worth or leaving no room at all for a buyer to profit, then you're off to a good start. Reserve price auctions are a real turn off and tend to not sell until the reserve is removed and the seller just lists them buy-it-now at a reasonable price to begin with. The only thing I thought was odd was you listed this as only a 3-day auction? That's not much time for people to spot your auction and to get some serious bidders lined up watching it. If you have only a couple or 0 watchers and it gets down to the last 12 hours or so, you might consider ending the auction early before there are bids made on it. Otherwise you may only have one bidder at the very end who gets it for the starting price which could be at a loss for you.

macfixer01

 

[everydayisalesson]

Frugal, I usually put the flat rate price down and then ship for the lowest price I can find. Its easier to find where someone is before giving a definite. My first sale on eBay, I lost big cause I didn't know shipping prices.

Mac, I also just threw in a bonus for the last 18 hours. There is enough people watching the gold and phones that 3 days is plenty since it is ending on a Saturday.

Thanks for the reply guys, just didn't want to have a 10 dollar product up there and be asking 20.....Mike

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Mike,

Speaking only for myself, when I figure out what to bid on something I decide the maximum I will pay. Then I subtract the shipping. So if I'm willing to pay $40.00 and the shipping is $12.00, I will only bid a maximum of $28.00. If shipping is $8.00, I'll bid $32.00. The total cost delivered to my door is what matters.

If you can ship for less than $12.00, do you pass that benefit along to the buyer or keep it as extra profit? If you pass it along, you're hurting yourself with a lower profit. If you're keeping it, you may hurt yourself in terms of the feedback on shipping costs.

It's a difficult balance. In my opinion, as a seller you're better of understating the shipping cost just a little than overstating it. When I see an item with a high shipping cost, I wonder why and that causes me to be a little more cautious about the item and the seller, but that's just me.

Dave

P.S. That HP Jetdirect board is probably worth more than the whole lot if it still works.

 

[everydayisalesson]

Hey Dave, when selling anything on line I will put the flat rate cost of mailing something, in this case medium flat rate 12.00. If person lives close and shipping only runs 7 or 8 then I deduct that from final cost when I send invoice. It seems to work out pretty well, feedbacks are always positive. Thats why I have the note there that says lowest shipping rate will always be used.......Mike

 

[macfixer01]

Frugal, I usually put the flat rate price down and then ship for the lowest price I can find. Its easier to find where someone is before giving a definite. My first sale on eBay, I lost big cause I didn't know shipping prices.

Mac, I also just threw in a bonus for the last 18 hours. There is enough people watching the gold and phones that 3 days is plenty since it is ending on a Saturday.

Thanks for the reply guys, just didn't want to have a 10 dollar product up there and be asking 20.....Mike

I guess I should have looked at your sales history. I just assumed from the nature of your question that you were new to selling, so I was trying to give some general auction guidelines I used to use when I was still selling. Obviously you're well familiar with the process and just wanted opinions on the starting price. Even so, as I suspected it did end with one bid for the starting price.

The problem I found with auctions ending on the weekend is that there are too many distractions and people can get pulled away easily. Unless they use a service like Esnipe then they just aren't always there at the end to place a bid. Bidding during the early part of an auction would be nice from the seller's perspective, but for the buyer it just raises the final price and telegraphs your interest to competitors. Hopefully you didn't lose money on the material.

 

[mitchd]

Hi, I am the one that bid on your items. Don't know if there is much profit here but wanted to get some more cell phone boards so I have enough to run a test lot of around 5 pounds and your lot will help. It is a shame the the fingers are removed form the ram sticks but I can use the flat packs and there is still just a tad bit of gold lining the holes in the sticks. All in all there should be a little room for some profit if I count my time as worth $5 to $7 an hour so to run this lot alone would not be worth the time, but add it to other lots and it adds to the gold total and the time to run the lot does not change but the final gold bead gets a little bigger.

Thanks
Mitch.