Auction style listings on eBay free shipping or not?

[eddie412]

Greetings! When using an auction-style listing on eBay should I make the starting price the shipping price plus one dollar and put free shipping or start the auction at ($$$) and state the shipping price. Any advice would be wonderful.

 

Edward

[Kenxxx]

It's really up to you @eddie412. I never do anything over 16 oz as "free shipping" because I live on the east coast. For me shipping to California vs. shipping to New York can mean the difference between profit and loss.  Other say free shipping attracts more buyers to their listings and it works for them.

But I will say, in my opinion when selling Lego, 99 times out of 100, selling auction style is for dopes.  I have never found it to be of use to me.  Search for the item you are selling on eBay and sort for "sold" items. Compare prices of items sold at auction vs. items sold as "Buy-it-Now".  You will almost always find BIN will bring a higher price.

 

[eddie412]

I used to buy 30 or 40 lb of Legos at a time on eBay breaking down to like 10 lb 5 lb etc. But this was in 2015. I mainly used auctions and I'd stop them in the dollar and I would charge the price of a game box from the USPS it's a large flat rate box that goes sideways lengthwise and you can easily fit 12 pounds of Legos in them. You have to order them from the USPS website because the branches don't carry them. I've recently started reselling on eBay and I'm still trying to work out all the new changes and stuff they've added to eBay. I appreciate the advice. I'm going to go right now and do what you told me to do and make a decision.. oh and if you don't know about Regional boxes from usps.com definitely take a look there different size boxes and there another thing they only have on the USPS website.

[eddie412]

Wow you are 100% spot on. Does one auction the person took 3 pictures and they weren't good pictures and it went for $10 with $20 shipping. I definitely would have screamed some obscenities if that happened. LOL

[ichiroll]

Don't feel that you have to do auction style just because it's ebay. Ebay has changed a lot since its inception and the vast majority of listings on ebay are and have been for some time fixed-price listings. Good luck.

[eddie412]

I'm adaptable, half the fun with auctions loves you never knew what the ending price was going to be. I remember I sold an incomplete Harry Potter red train and I started a dollar and the final price was around 80. No just simply do the reverse, make a buy-it-now listing with a final price and maybe includes and best offers. I seriously appreciate the tip because I was either going to do one large auction or 10 smaller ones but I do have the same options I'll just make them Buy It Now instead of auction.

[Huskers1236]

About the only time an auction will be of use to you is if you are selling a very "hot" item.  When I buy on ebay, I look for auctions because they are almost always lower than BIN's if that tells you anything.

[Val-E]

No auctions, no free shipping, no returns.

Right now they are the best ways to lose money on Lego. Those are my principles and if I lose a sale, so be it.

[KShine]

The only time an auction might make sense is if a seller is not familiar with their item, and wouldn't realize if the listing included anything rare.

Edited October 6, 2017 by KShine

[Val-E]

5 minutes ago, KShine said:

The only time an auction might make sense is if a seller is not familiar with their item, and wouldn't realize if the listing included any rare items.

Or if you have something really rare and demand is high eg. LE 75192.

[dmc]

I never do auctions. I always do free shipping (but I almost never sell anything on ebay that weighs more than 3 pounds). Buyers who do not ship things have no idea how much shipping actually costs, and they will give you crappy ratings and feedback because they have unrealistic expectations about the cost of shipping.

[justapilgrim]

There are many reasons to auction. I am selling a MF auction style and I started it at $1 with no reserve. It gets a lot of eye balls on the auction and it can go higher because people don't want to lose out. Those eyeballs cam also look at me other listings

[Guest TabbyBoy]

I’d say not free P&P so at least some of the fees can be recovered. Buyers don’t normally complain if you charge actual plus round up to the nearest .99c or .99p above to account for some of the packing. Of course the FVF on postage really makes me want to explode!

If a buyer really likes the item, they can easily gloss over the P&P costs.

[Val-E]

34 minutes ago, TabbyBoy said:

I’d say not free P&P so at least some of the fees can be recovered. Buyers don’t normally complain if you charge actual plus round up to the nearest .99c or .99p above to account for some of the packing. Of course the FVF on postage really makes me want to explode!

If a buyer really likes the item, they can easily gloss over the P&P costs.

FVF on shipping makes sense to get rid of the follk who list in an item cheap then add scandalous shipping costs, thinking the commission is only on the item value. Nothing to stop you adding the Ebay and Paypal commission onto the shipping costs so as not to lose money.