Should You Start Your Ebay Auctions At 99 Cents?

Posted by Nick Niesen on November 1st, 2010

One question that I?ve had asked to me as a former eBay Powerseller is what price you should start your items. Mostly, they want to know if it?s better to start your items low to encourage bidding or if you should start them for the price you want to get for the item.

It really depends.

There are a lot of factors to consider. First you need to know how popular the item is. If you?re selling Ipods where the market is red hot and there?s a ton of demand, you?re probably going to get a lot of bids. If you?re selling typewriters, where the demand is substantially lower, then you may only get a few bids.

My advice in markets where there isn?t a lot of demand is to start your auction for the price you?d like to get for it.

You may be wondering why you?d want to start your item low in the first place if you can just start it for the price you want. There are two main reasons. The first is that by getting more people bidding, you?re more likely to get people emotionally involved in the purchase of you item and get people who get caught in the ?heat of the moment? and bid more than they were going to. The other reason is simply because the fee eBay charges to list a $.99 auction is quite a bit less than what they charge to start an auction at $999. EBay, being an auction site, rewards you for listing your items as true auctions rather than just listing items for sale.

The main risk you run when starting an auction for $.99 is that the bidding won?t get high enough to even cover your cost of the item. You need to keep a close eye on your market if you?re going to run $.99 auctions for higher tickets items since if the market suddenly shifts down or there is a sudden glut in the market, you may be stuck selling your items at a significant loss. I?ve personally had it happen a few times, and it was never a pleasant experience. However, it can be a great way to liquidate excess inventory that you just want to get rid of since just about anything is going to sell at $.99.

If your goal is to get premium prices for your items, then my recommendation would be to simply raise your prices and demand those premium prices. Give people a reason why they want to pay more for your auctions and they usually will. Keep in mind that even on a site like eBay, people are looking for value, not necessarily the lowest price. Build up enough value in your listing and you?ll be much more profitable in your eBay business.