Collectables: £0.99 starts and no reserves

[pillarboxred]

Does this work in creating "engagement"?  I'm giving it a try with five things that cost over £100 in total. Something has to be done.

[plpmr]

well being in Global shipping won't help.

Example, at the start price of 99p there's already over £6 import charges and over £16 global charges.

[pillarboxred]

I don't understand. Postage of a heavy item is an irreducible cost even if the item only sells for £0.99p. Are you saying we should not list Internationally and only send to the UK? It might come to that.

[pillarboxred]

Buyers in the UK don't pay these International charges.

[theelench]

IMO all you'll be doing is giving them away to dealers.  They're the only ones left here with both the time and motivation to be bothered finding them.  The "bargain hunters" are probably the only ones to have mastered how to reliably find anything, although you may get lucky and have a genuine collector stumble over one of your items.

Please let us know how they do.

[plpmr]

I never said they did as Global is for overseas.

[plpmr]

The item I looked at had £5.69 P&P for UK - with Global there's their 'expenses' of a middleman.

[fatbobfan]

I use the Ebay save search tool for business purchases and personal (clothes/hobby interests) and often exclude higher prices in my saved search. I get daily emails telling me whats listed at the price I want, or cheaper, it means I only have to screen the items at the pricing I actually want. Not sure its a common practice for all, must be for dealers, but would guess there are others screening higher prices out of their search results, at 99p you should be in the saved search emails.

My concern would be the inventory, if its not highly collectible/sought after your allowing it to be given away.

Example - Harry Potter Philosophers Stone, 1st edition. Its wanted, people will always be looking for it, collectors/dealers across the world, many are looking. However a rare book say on Polynesian Historical Sculptures could genuinely be worth 3 figures, but there is less interest, maybe less so being sold on the UK platform, you wont atract the clicks and risk a three figure book going for a few pounds.

Its a risk but if your stock and quality is right your onto a winner, if its not your going to be loosing money, guessing your market knowledge is the important factor. 

Personally I never list lower than the minimum price Im happy to get, everything above is a bonus

Good luck, 

[bravergrace]

Does it work?  Well, it can work.  If it doesn't, you've lost £100 plus fees.  

Obviously, it's a gamble, and depends on what you're selling and who to.

If it's a niche market you're aiming at (say a couple of dozen collectors, or museum buyers), you're unlikely to get many bids even on a good week, so the item is likely to go for the starting price if at all - or to a bargain hunter who doesn't understand what the item is, and wants to return it because "this antique electric plug doesn't fit the sockets in my brand new flat" or whatever.

If it's something of more general interest, or crops on on next week's LUCKY AUCTION BUYS on daytime TV, you may get a few bidders.

If you're aiming at the overseas market, though, it might be worth while selecting items that can be sent cheaply (ie take them off the GSP and post them yourself).

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

10 - 15 years ago I would have said it was worth the risk as a trial, these days I wouldn't take the risk.

Out of interest if you were listing them at a fixed price what would the £100 investment be listed at ?

[jreg-fuchsias]

Absolutely, no reserve penny auctions do work. I pretty much run the ebay side of my business on this model.

However you have to be realistic as to the value. Just because you've generated interest doesn't mean its going to sell for retail antique shop price – it won't. It will sell for trade price as a minimum and maybe a bit extra. Conversely there is a myth that items on no reserve auctions will sell for a penny – they dont unless thats actually what they are worth! Ebay still has a good enough coverage and visibility, and enough trade buyers to ensure that items make a minimum of trade price. You may get the odd one that goes 20% under, but you will get many more where two collectors get in a bidding war for it.

What auctions do, is create a guaranteed sale and force buyers hands. Collectibles are something people want, but don't need, so they can sit for ages in giant watch lists while the buyer justified spending the funds , getting approval from the other half etc etx. An auction forces their hand, if they don't bid now, it will be sold and not available next week.

So my business is high turnover lower margin – quick sale at less profit but allows me to go and look for the next big job lot to split up.

Auctions are also great if, like me, you miss the odd rare item. So you can have a very pleasant surprise occasionally.

Every area is different, but I find that ebay is suited more for the lower value items. Once you get over £100 you seem to get more timewasters, scammers, non-payers and not as great prices. Bascially the higher the price, the more likely the transaction will fail. So I tend to sell these elsewhere.

One thing to note is auctions do attract the dishonest wanna-be (but not very good) traders - the ones who buy and sell on ebay but can only make a profit by scamming both ends. So you do need to factor in an element of theft.