| Now that you have some idea as to what an item is worth, how should you price it at auction? If you set your minimum price too high, you might scare off potential buyers . If you set your minimum price too low, you'll probably get more interested bidders, but you might end up selling your item for less than you want or than what it's worth. So what's the right starting price? It all depends on your pricing strategy. tip  | eBay provides a page of links to "authorized" authentication services at pages.ebay.com/help/community/auth-overview.html. |
Set It Low Enough to Be Attractive To a customer, a lower price is more desirable than a higher one. Think about it; if you see two similar items and one is priced a dollar lower than the other, you're going to be attracted to the lower-priced item. For that reason, I like setting a price that's low enough to get some interested initial bidding going. That could be as low as 99 cents , or at the very least competitive with the lowest starting bids on similar merchandise also for auction on eBay. On the other hand, you shouldn't set the initial price so low that it won't eventually rise to the final price you think the item can really sell for. If you think the final selling price will be $100, setting the initial bid at a penny might leave too large a gap to be bridged. But Don't Set It So Low That It's Not Believable A low initial price is good, but it's possible to actually set the starting price for an item too low. That's because if you set too low a minimum bid, some potential bidders might think that something is wrong with the item. (It's the old "if it's too good to be true, it probably is.") Although you might assume that bidding will take the price up into reasonable levels, too low a starting price can make your item look too cheap or otherwise flawed. If you start getting a lot of emails asking why you've set the price so low, you should have set a higher price. With an ultra -low starting price, you also run the risk of the final selling price not making it up to the level you'd like to hit. Sometimes the difference between here and there is just too great for your bidders to distance. And Not So High You Pay Too High a Listing Fee Of course (and there's always another "of course"), if you set a higher starting price, you'll pay a higher insertion fee. Here's where it helps to know the breaks ”in eBay's fee schedule, that is. Table 9.3 shows the fee breaks as of summer 2003: Table 9.3. eBay's Insertion Fee Breaks | Price Point | Fee | | $0 “$9.99 | $0.30 | | $10.00 “$24.99 | $0.55 | | $25.00 “$49.99 | $1.10 | | $50.00 “$199.99 | $2.20 | | $200.00 and up | $3.30 | Let's think about what this means. At the very least, you want to come in just below the fee break; coming in above the fee break will cost you an unnecessarily higher fee. For example, you probably want to list at $9.99 (which incurs a 30-cent fee) and not at $10.00 (which incurs a 55-cent fee). That extra penny could cost you 25 cents! Obviously, it's in your best interest to minimize any and all fees you have to pay. If you're almost positive (based on completed auction activity) that your item will sell in the $20 range no matter what you price it at, price it as low as is reasonable. And remember ”if you set the starting price for anything under $10, you only pay a 30-cent listing fee! | 