eBay selling tips ....

[Osi Osgood]

Instead of my usual rants on eBay, I thought that it would be cool to have a helpful one for a change. Selling tips! OK, my tip for today ... List according to your target buyers .... Let's say that you live in Australia, and you want to sell to people in the U.S. Make sure that your item ends at a time that is convenient for U.S. buyers. If you list the item at a time that that's convenient for you, but it ends at 2 in the morning U.S. you will severely limit the number of buyers who would bid.

[Mark Mander]

That just doesn't make sense to me as a tip to sell, if you are a seller in Australia then you would sell at a time ending suitable to you, I cant imagine thinking of selling anything to suit a time to someone in another country, if in the US you have to sit up until 2am to bid then so be it, Mark

[David Baker]

Instead of my usual rants on eBay, I thought that it would be cool to have a helpful one for a change. Selling tips! OK, my tip for today ... List according to your target buyers .... Let's say that you live in Australia, and you want to sell to people in the U.S. Make sure that your item ends at a time that is convenient for U.S. buyers. If you list the item at a time that that's convenient for you, but it ends at 2 in the morning U.S. you will severely limit the number of buyers who would bid.

NOT if you use an auto - bidding site such as ESNIPE or EBID .

[Osi Osgood]

That's just it, Mark, there are a lot of people that may just write off an auction because it is "inconvenient", where, if the auction ends at a "convenient" time, they are more likely to bid, and then you get in that lucky circumstance that all sellers hope for, the bidding war, where inconvenient times will tend to limit the number of bids. What is better for the seller, inconvenience or more money?

[Mark Mander]

But it's only inconvenient for the US if the seller is in Australia Osi, if it's a film you want you'll find a way to bid, either putting a maximum bid or as David said one of the auto bidding options, I cant even think of anyone here in the UK selling items that are concerned about buyers in another country and what time it will end there, the prices on Ebay are not a problem these days for decent films so it's not really a concern, Mark

[Osi Osgood]

My point was if you are wanting to sell to a certain customer base, you appeal to those customers, not to your own convenience. You, as the seller, could, for instance, doing the research, know when the "peak activity" is on ebay, what times and what days
If you were in Australia, (using the same frame of reference), if you know the best time, even if that best means listing it at 3 am, knowing full well that you don't have to be sitting in front of your computer when it ends, (only the buyers need to be there when it ends), then you wake up a happy camper, checking it in the morning, and putting a high bid on an item ahead of time is no promise that you'll win, as too many of us know.

[William Ferry]

I think Osi makes a good point, if, as a seller, you're inclined to deal with buyers in your own general geographic area. For instance, I live in New York state, and I rarely buy international on eBay (largely because there's enough of interest to me in the US, and I prefer to avoid the shipping time and currency exchange rates.). Luckily, with only four time zones, I can generally keep up with bidding deadlines.

[Mark Mander]

I think you've totally missed the point there William, that's not what Osi is saying but your point that you missed is about right ,your market is already in your country. Mark

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

I am not sure I understand the problem. When you bid either directly in eBay or via an external bidding service such as eSnipe, you enter the maximum you are willing to pay, and eBay will place the bid for you at the lowest high bid amount up to your maximum. No need to stay up late unless you plan to override your original judgement on how much an item is worth to you.

[William Ferry]

I think you've totally missed the point there William, that's not what Osi is saying but your point that you missed is about right ,your market is already in your country. Mark

I'm just expressing my opinion, and I don't mean to encourage a flame war, but I don't think I missed Osi's point at all. I'll give you examples from personal experience. Several times I've been caught in bidding wars. I'm usually able to monitor the last 30 minutes (but not always). Several times I've been outbid from out of nowhere in the last 60 seconds. If I'm watching, I'm sometimes able to raise my bid and win out. If I happen to be offline (because the auction ends at 4am), I'm out of luck. I once lost out by 50 cents. I know we all set our "maximum drop-dead limit", but you can see how frustrating that can be. Bottom line, I'm in the US, and I tend to deal with auctions in the US only, the time line being one important factor in my decision.

[Mark Mander]

No flame war William and your opinion is most welcome, the reason I say you've missed the point is the original thread states that someone in a completely different country should list items to sell and take into account when it ends to buyers in another completely different country, I dont know anybody who would do that, I'm sure when Osi sells something on ebay next time he will try his tip and sell to someone in another country at a decent time only suitable to them, obviously he wont find out until he wakes up to see its sold , but then that's not an issue, Mark

[Osi Osgood]

Actually, no, I rarely open up my personal auctions for overseas bidding, but that's just because, nearly Everytime, the person will ask "how much to ship to me?", get the quote, and not bid, and due to a complete lack of accuracy with online shipping quotes, (they are never the same amounts when you go to the post office), it's a danged nuisance to get them, so I swore off shipping abroad. However, I will admit that I do personally buy from abroad.

[Mark Mander]

Brilliant!! Mark

[Nick Regan]

It is possible when listing on eBay to specify specific eBay sites your listing can appear on.. for instance if you live in the uk you can list directly on the American eBay site as opposed to listing only the uk and hoping someone in the USA searches worldwide. This is selected when writing you initial listing.

Just a thought

Nick

[Nick Regan]

Osi,

I hate to admit this in public but I know of 1 (and only 1 ) good thing about eBay, That is the eBay Global Selling scheme. It enables you to sell to anywhere (well most places) in the world without the grief of sorting out postage / tax / Customs etc. It allows you easy access to a world wide market.

I have sold to such places as Peru, Australia, Greece, USA and many more.

The way it works is you just list your item as normal, with a single UK Mainland postage charge. You then select the eBay Global Selling box on your listing and away you go.

When your listing appears anywhere in the world, the listing in that country automatically shows unit price and the delivery cost to that customer in that country and includes the tax / customs etc and an extended delivery time. So what the customer sees is what he will be charged upon pressing the buy button.

All this is worked out automatically and applied by ebay, you as the seller have nothing to do with this.

When you sell the item to somebody in your own country you send out as normal, when the buyer is abroad you send it to the eBay Global Shipping warehouse in the UK and forget about it. Job done.

You are paid the price you listed it for including the UK postage and eBay collects any other amounts due from the sale and delivery and uses their couriers to send the item on. They also sort out customs.

To be honest this seems to work well, I have used it before Brexit and still use it now so I do not get involved with any VAT / Export tax etc to the EU.

When a foreign customer wants an item he knows exactly what it costs to get it to him before he buys it.

Nick