Ebay BIN or Auction style

[eracine]

I have been moving a few of my pieces on Ebay and I am wondering which is better. Buy it Now or get people bidding on items. I have done both in the past and it is exciting to watch the bidding but there are time obviously when you don't get what you thought you should get. Do you do shipping costs with auctions or just let it go at .99 cents free shipping and see what happens. Watching some sold listings on items it goes either way it seems at least. I believe I saw a stat that over 75% of listings are BIN format. Any thoughts or best practices?

[Fcbarcelona101]

I have been moving a few of my pieces on Ebay and I am wondering which is better. Buy it Now or get people bidding on items. I have done both in the past and it is exciting to watch the bidding but there are time obviously when you don't get what you thought you should get. Do you do shipping costs with auctions or just let it go at .99 cents free shipping and see what happens. Watching some sold listings on items it goes either way it seems at least. I believe I saw a stat that over 75% of listings are BIN format. Any thoughts or best practices?

I guess it depends on each particular item you're selling. I always list BIN for sets and have always sold them within 30 days at the price I was expecting to get. For some smaller items I may use a Auction style listing but always have shipping separate.

[dakotahorn]

Until the fee schedule changes, BIN can be better or worse for you depending on the price of the item. I always put my big ticket items $75+ on ebay as BIN and always let jy little stuff just get bids. Usually I have freight charges on auction items and offer combined freight discounts. Seems to draw in bidders even though not everyone wins everything. My 2 cents.

[dakotahorn]

I guess it depends on each particular item you're selling. I always list BIN for sets and have always sold them within 30 days at the price I was expecting to get. For some smaller items I may use a Auction style listing but always have shipping separate.

Wow... I was typing my response before your post went up. Promise I wasn't copying you.mI guess great minds thinknalike. Haha

[Fcbarcelona101]

I guess it depends on each particular item you're selling. I always list BIN for sets and have always sold them within 30 days at the price I was expecting to get. For some smaller items I may use a Auction style listing but always have shipping separate.

Wow... I was typing my response before your post went up. Promise I wasn't copying you.mI guess great minds thinknalike. Haha

No worries haha, I'm sure a lot of people follow the same guideline!

[sadowsk1]

I always use BIN. In the game of numbers that is Lego investing if you have to hit a particular price point to get the return you are seeking it's hard to leave it up to chance.

[cohens714]

Another option I have tried at times kind of merges the two together. I use an auction and set the starting price very close to the price I need. There is limited risk as my initial auction price is very close to what I hope to get and you leave yourself open to the potential upside of an auction. I never use reserves anymore because they cost too much in eBay fees.

[emes]

Not sure why anyone would start an auction at .99 and hope for the best??? Assuming that you don't have a store, so at the moment, remember that you get 50 free auction listings per month (no insertion fee). You should take advantage of these first 50 free listings no matter what. Just put the starting price at whatever you need to cover expenses and make the profit you want. Overall we use a combination of both BIN and auction style listings. Auction is for the things that we know will absolutely sell with only 7 days of exposure, and we always start the auction at the price we need to cover the item, all fees, shipping, plus profit. We use BIN when we have multiples of items, which is often, or if we need more than 7 days of exposure for something. I never list a BIN for less than 30 days, and I rarely combine auction with BIN in the same listing. We never use reserves and we always offer "free" shipping. If DSRs are important to you then you need to limit the number of DSRs that people can rate you on, and one way to do that is by bundling in shipping.

[legomylego]

i once sold a Burberry coat on ebay first i started it at $530 and nobody bid.then i started it a 99 cents i had 54 watchers in 10 min and it ended selling for 540 sometimes starting low can attract people who may have never seen it(but idk about lego people usually know what they want )

[emes]

i once sold a Burberry coat on ebay first i started it at $530 and nobody bid.then i started it a 99 cents i had 54 watchers in 10 min and it ended selling for 540 sometimes starting low can attract people who may have never seen it(but idk about lego people usually know what they want )

There are a ton of studies out there on whether watchers become bidders, and the general conclusion is that they don't. I'm convinced that watchers are often the competition.

I don't think you were taking a huge risk with the coat. There's clearly a market for something like that, and it's not going to stay low for long. The same market doesn't exist for all LEGO sets. If it were a 10179 or a Green Grocer, then I agree, you could start it at .99 and end up doing very well, but I think for many LEGO sets that's a huge risk because it might not be enough time for the right buyer to stumble into your auction. In fact, this is why many on this site constantly peruse eBay for low-priced auctions on LEGO sets....they way it's being sold is leaving some meat on the bone.

There are as many different ways to sell on eBay as there are people...what we all have to do is make sure that the numbers add up in our favor.

[JoshTX]

When you guys do BIN listings, what do you typically base your asking price off of? Do you ask for a price that's in the range of what this website lists as fair market value? I'm noticing quite a few sellers with listings for BIN that are just ridiculously over inflated, I wonder what their strategy is...So they list a medieval market at 300 bucks, do they just sit on it hoping someone is stupid enough to pay that much? Don't they have to pay ebay to re-list? I'm a little ignorant when it comes to the ebay selling game, but I'm pretty savvy as a buyer, just seems ridiculous to be asking what some of these people ask for sets, retired or not. But there's gotta be someone out there giving them money.

[cohens714]

The cost of listing an item on eBay is inconsequential to be honest. Most of the time they are free if you are somewhat active on eBay as they offer free listings often and even when they charge it's like a quarter. The real fees hit when you sell the item. In other words there is little cost to list so tossing items on eBay for a high BIN isn't really financially impacting anyone. As to why people do it there are many reasons. For myself sometimes you want to just get it up there so you can see the market or because the price is regularly moving up and I have a price I want and know it will eventually make it there. It's also basically no cost to revise an auction so lowering the BIN or switching over to an auction at some point isn't an issue.

[cvail8]

When you guys do BIN listings, what do you typically base your asking price off of? Do you ask for a price that's in the range of what this website lists as fair market value? I'm noticing quite a few sellers with listings for BIN that are just ridiculously over inflated, I wonder what their strategy is...So they list a medieval market at 300 bucks, do they just sit on it hoping someone is stupid enough to pay that much? Don't they have to pay ebay to re-list? I'm a little ignorant when it comes to the ebay selling game, but I'm pretty savvy as a buyer, just seems ridiculous to be asking what some of these people ask for sets, retired or not. But there's gotta be someone out there giving them money.

Think about it this way: When you buy a set, you'd obviously like to at least double your money. When you have a ebay store, your insertion fees are insanely low (like .02). So it makes sense to list things for the price you'd like to get someday, and if some fool comes along, then you make your profit now.

[JoshTX]

Makes sense. Like I stated earlier, I don't know much about selling, but a two cent listing fee is quite a bit less than I thought, and worth the gamble if you can get someone who isn't paying attention. That being said, I pity the fool who is that easily separated from his money.

[gregpj]

Not sure why anyone would start an auction at .99 and hope for the best???

If you're an investor looking to make money, that statement makes absolute sense to me. I see two areas where the auction is beneficial:

1. If you're a "reseller" who buys at estate sales or other places (haha, storage auctions) where you can't hope to make the money you should by selling in a second hand store then those 0.99 auctions are worth it.

2. If you are selling something used where a high BIN might make people skip past your auction - especially the unsure buyer. With a low starting point, you can get those rookies interested in your item and (to me) they are likely the ones who will bid just a few bucks more to win.

I haven't sold any of my Lego sets yet, but when I do if I decide to use eBay then BIN seems like a winner especially for anything new.

[stephen_rockefeller]

I have started all my auctions at .99 and have never got less than what I wanted for the set I'm.selling. that's just me and I know there are different strokes for different folks.