Ebay: Auction or Buy it now? What do you prefer?

[tigereyes5811]

Which do you prefer to sell on Ebay? I do both, just depends on the items I'm selling. I prefer auction for hot items and buy it now for the not so hot items. Your thoughts professionals. Especially you EMES. Lol

[Fcbarcelona101]

I am not a professional seller by any means, but I do have experience selling a decent amount of articles. I always do BIN, and as long as I price the item well I have always sold the item eventually and what I expected to get.

[Blackjack]

"Calling the emes hotline...' ;)

[mikeur86]

What makes BIN so convenient is that you can just put it up there and not have to worry about it again until its sold. You have to pay for that convenience though. Auction style listings are considerably cheaper on the fees. The majority of lego shoppers don't just randomly check ebay throughout the day either. The bidding is usually done at night after the kids are in bed and they have some time to just pop up the laptop and see whats available. Thats why I like to do 1 day auctions. With so many third party applications now days you can get the same convenience as the BIN. I have a program for my Mac called GarageSale. I set the listing up and schedule it usually for around 9PM CST and set rules that say if the item doesn't sell immediately re-list it. So Garagesale just keeps listing it 1 day auction until its sold. (eBay offers this too but I have never used it) With the new ebay fees you wont get charged for the relisting until it sells. I feel that gets more exposure. I know I personally search for whats ending the soonest and check anything less than 24hrs. My two pennies

[exciter1]

Since the fee change, I believe the Auction and BIN rates are the same, 10%.

[chess227]

Since the fee change, I believe the Auction and BIN rates are the same, 10%.

They are the same now indeed. I tried the BIN style, but I prefer auction style listings of you REALLY want to sell the item. If you need the space and want to sel the item, I find a 99 cent starting bid does wonders for generating interest on items whereas most people overprice their BIN items. Auction style listings lead to impulse buying a lot which also helps. I almost always fare better with auction style listings.

[TheDarkness]

Buy It Now I have tried auctions in the past and been a bit disappointed with the price, plus I found myself checking it too often how it was going.

[Anakinisvader]

BUY IT NOW with IMMEDIATE PAYMENT OPTION. Makes selling and shipping a breeze. Customers buy it and pay for it all in one fail swoop and it is in the mail to be shipped the next day. I have been burned too many times by people who win auctions and never pay. Its even worse at Christmastime. They don't even care if they get a "so called" non paying bidder ding. Has anyone actually been kicked off of EBAY for too many non paying bidder strikes? Not that I know of.

[mikeur86]

oh they are both the same now? Shoooot...I need to keep up on the Bay news!

[pickleboy]

I always do BIN, now. In order to get a great price in auction you have to have two people who really like your item. I have been burned too many times. I did have one item go for more than it should have but it certainly didn't cover all the ones that I didn't get enough on.

[sadowsk1]

I'm all for Buy It Now auctions. Set the price you want, how can you beat that? I prefer predictable returns.

[brandon90820]

I like the unpredictability of auctions. all my stuff goes for way more than i expect it to. I put up something for $15 BIN, didn't sell, then took it down to $10, which didn't sell, and then put it up as a $.99 auction and it sold for $11. I think that offering items internationally makes a bigger difference though than BIN vs auction (also being specific and taking really good pics). all my auctions are 10 days start on thursday 10pm-ish eastern and it ends on sunday = mucho profits. I never know what to put BIN's at, and always wonder what could've been with an auction

[emes]

Since the recent fee change, purely BIN. It's a fire and forget thing at this point.

[emes]

BUY IT NOW with IMMEDIATE PAYMENT OPTION. Makes selling and shipping a breeze. Customers buy it and pay for it all in one fail swoop and it is in the mail to be shipped the next day.

I have been burned too many times by people who win auctions and never pay. Its even worse at Christmastime. They don't even care if they get a "so called" non paying bidder ding. Has anyone actually been kicked off of EBAY for too many non paying bidder strikes? Not that I know of.

I agree with this as well...you can basically speed up the whole process to some extent if you do this.

As far as UIS's go, I don't know if they kick people off, but I know my buyer requirements won't allow people that have more than 2 UIS's in a 12 month period to buy an item.

Something interesting but now well known, there is a thing called the "Buyer Requirements Activity Log" where you can see people that have been prevented from buying your items. "Too Many Unpaid Item Strikes" shows up in my reason field often in that log.