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Is it good or bad to have a "Buy It Now" price?


Sauromosis

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In my personal experience, I have yet to have a buyer click "Buy it Now" on a Buy it Now and Auction listing. It doesn't hurt to put it up there, but I am not sure if it helps that much. Like Monsieur Rockefeller said, you could always put it for dirt cheap as a starting bid and watch it go up to $200+ which is always fun. Plus, you have more people looking at your set. We all know that once you start to bid, its hard to stop! :)

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When you get into large volume sales it may makes sense to do 30 day BIN auctions with free shipping. This will give you better control as you get to decide exactly what your profit will be on the set. Of course, it has to sell and you'll pay a larger commission as well. Be sure to account for all your shipping costs or that will east into your profits too. I do think its much better than gimmicky auctions with .01 starting bids but $500 reserves. People like the transparency, and will pay more to ensure that they get the item they want. If you're patient you'll sell your sets on your terms.

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Personally, I think the majority of Ebayers want to find what they want and within a few clicks the item is theirs and paid for. No waiting a few more days for an auction to conclude and they find out they didn't win and have to wait longer. In most cases, the BIN sales are higher than the auction listings for the same sets. For that reason I avoid auctions and Best Offer options. Research past sales and determine the price you want and list it for that. Or even list it for 5-10% higher than you want and wait for it to sell. Also, find out what the shipping cost would be to the farthest point in the US from you and add that to your price, then list it with free shipping, keeping in mind that in Ebay's infinite wisdom their fee takes a percentage of the shipping amount too. If the item sells and the buyer happens to live 2 miles away, hey, it's a few dollars extra in your pocket. The only instances that I see where people hit the BIN instead of using the auction is when the item is either rare or usually the BIN is too low and it's gone quickly. It doesn't make much sense to use both or to set high reserves.

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Well BIN was a good decision because someone clicked it in an hour giving me 10% higher than the going price!

I have had pretty good success with BIN listings, just sold a 7946 Kingdoms Castle for $225 shipped, and it went in about a day. Usually, my auctions are BIN's anyway because I set the listing price at the minimum I would like to get and let it go from there. I have been burned too many times by auctions that ended way too low and then I'm stuck losing money. It goes both ways of course because I have had other listings that went way higher than expected as well.

I usually set my BIN prices just a shade higher than recent sales because I figure that if you want the item right away, there is a premium for that, and a lot of people have no problem paying a few extra bucks to make sure they get the item they want.

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I personally prefer buy it now auctions. I like setting my price and not settling for anything below it. That being said I usually wait until Ebay offers free buy it now listing and then throw everything up at once in that time window. If you hold onto the original ebay email confirming the listing it's very easy to relist your item at your desired price and you don't have to go through the process of reloading pictures or rewriting descriptions. Ebay keeps track of some of this information for a while and while I think you can do it through your ebay page I find it personally easier to just click the old email. I think a lot of people want instant resolution for their purchases. I used to be more in favor of auction style listings but if I'm really interested in something I don't care for the waiting, which can be especially frustrating if I lose out on the auction in the last minute.

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I think it depends on why and what you are selling and how much. If you are selling something that is "rare" then Buy it Now is great .. someone will pay. If your item is listed 100 times, people will avoid the buy it now option as long as they can. If you are selling to maximize profits and aren't in a rush, then high value BIN will serve you well. If this is your side-business and you rely on the cash, auction style will yield you faster results. And if your starting price is $50 but your BIN is $500, nobody will click that BIN button. If your buy it now premium is 10-20% above the starting auction price, I'd say your chances are good someone will pay and your risk is minimized.

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I think it depends. With fees it comes out to be about 15%, where's as auctions it's 12%. Also buy it now gets put in the abyss of auctions. No one every sees it unless a thorough search is made. It gets the new listing then to the abyss then when it is about to end comes out again. Auctions get highlighted as it is about to end. If you are trying to sell it quick use auction. If you have lots of other items you want auction priority, then it may be best to do a buy it now and be out of sight out of mind and see what happens. Also if you price is low a buy it now will sell quick.

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