Selecting the Right Pricing Option

As you learned way back in Chapter 1, "So You Want to Start an eBay Business...," when you have an item to sell, you can choose to sell it in one of several different ways. While the most traditional way to sell is via eBay's standard online auction process, you can also choose various auction and fixed-price options. Which of these options is best for you? Table 21.1 takes you through the basics.

Table 21.1. eBay Pricing Options

Pricing Option	Pros	Cons
Traditional online auction	Good for items where you're not sure of marketplace upside, and for rare and collectible items; familiar to all experienced eBay buyers	Bad for commodity items; never sure of final price or results; makes you wait seven days to make the sale
Reserve price auction	Good for high-priced items; good if you have a minimum price in mind but you don't want to publicize the price	Confusing to some buyers; could reduce the number of bids on an item
Dutch auction	Good if you have a large quantity of the same item that you believe has upside potential	Confusing to many buyers; if you simply want to sell a bunch of items at a given price, use a fixed-price listing instead
Auction with Buy It Now option	Good if you think you can sell an item at a given price, while still maintaining the familiarity of the auction process; good for commodity items	Reduces the upside of unrestrained bidding
Fixed-price listing (for a fixed listing period)	Good for commodity items; good if you have quantities of a single item	Reduces the upside of unrestrained bidding; might turn off some buyers who prefer the traditional auction process
Fixed-price listing in an eBay Store	Good for commodity items; good if you have quantities of a single item; a good way to "park" items between auctions	Items are not as visible as they are on the main eBay site; no pricing upside

In years past, I would have never advised sellers to run anything but a traditional auction or an auction with the Buy It Now option. Today, however, an increasing number of transactions on the eBay site are of the fixed-price variety; more and more sellers are going the fixed-price route, and more and more buyers are buying fixed-price or Buy It Now items that they can receive faster than they can if they bid on an item listed for a seven-day auction. (Plus, there's no guarantee that they'll win the auction; when they buy a fixed-price or Buy It Now item, they're placing an actual order.)

Note

There are even more pricing options you can choose from, beyond those discussed here. For example, eBay offers the Best Offer option, which lets potential buyers make you an offer below your listed price; there's also eBay's Want It Now feature, which lets you hook up with interested buyers who've made a request for a specific item. While it pays to check out these other options, the basic choice of auction versus fixed-price remains the most important decision to make.

Should you go the auction route or the fixed-price route? It all depends on the type of product you're selling, the type of competition you face (both on and off eBay), and your own business expectations. For many sellers, running a traditional auction with the Buy It Now option is a good compromise, the best of both worlds, as it were. But that's not the only way to go, or necessarily always the best. You have to make this choice for yourself.