A while ago, I put 11 Doctor Who tapes for sale on eBay (I’m switching to DVD). They all sold, but because I listed them individually (and choose the gallery option) the listing fee was $10.00.
I have a bunch more I’m going to put up soon, but want to try to reduce my listing fee. I’m thinking something along the lines of putting them all into one listing. I know a Dutch auction lets you sell multiples of the exact same item, so since I’d be selling different episodes, would I still be able to do this?
If you know what I’m talking about (I hope I’m not being too confusing) or have done something similar, I’d like to know how something like this is done. Thanks.
Nope; the items in a dutch auction must be identical - although I think there might be a provision for items that come in slight variations of colour or pattern (such as teddy bears made from rainbow fur fabric).
Someone will have to check me on this, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with privately (and completely outside of the ebay listing system) selling episiode N+1 to a seller who has previously bought episode N from you through the ebay system - I have a feeling ebay might try to stamp their feet and convince you that this is improper, but once you’ve sold something to someone on eBay, I think it could be argued that they essentially become part of your circle of friends and that you can interact with them in whatever way you choose.
Or, if you know there’s a market for your tapes, you could just list them as Buy It Now items, allowing you to set a price that will comfortably offset the listing fees (while still being tempting enough to guarantee a sale). Don’t sell them as a set though - you simply won’t get the same price for them.
I don’t understand why more people aren’t using craigslist.com. I’ve sold a bunch of baby items, on MY terms, for MY price and I specify where and when people can pick things up. Way better than e-bay in that it’s free. LOTS of people surf craigslist.
I’ll concider it in the future, but for now I’m sticking with eBay.
My wife told me that Diane sold a bunch of magzines on eBay and had people E-mail her the issue they were interested in, and if she had it, she’d sell it to them. That sounds pretty much like I want to do, except for the fact that I can list exactly which episodes I’m selling.
Anyway, maybe hopefully Diane will come in and share how she set up her auction.
I’m thinking that Craigslist is more of a “pick it up” site. I don’t see a reason not to list something with delivery and such, but light $10 items are not worth the drive to pick up, so nobody is going to buy unless they’re underpriced.
Ouch, you really know how to bring someone down don’t you? Oh well, better I find this out before trying to do it myself and possibly finding myself in violation. Thanks.
It’s actually for your own protection, in your case; you havge one copy of each episode, but putting them all together in a dutch auction means you might get several bidders who want the same episode and all manage to make a winning bid - you’d just end up with a lot of disappointed or possibly angry buyers.
Well I thought I could set up an auction where people would contact me first to see if I had the episode they wanted. I couldn’t find any info on how to set up such an auction, and now, thanks to your link, I know why. Guess I can’t reduce the listing fees that I’ll have to pay, which can add up to a lot, when listing my tapes.
OK, I now know what I need to know. I guess I’m done with this thread. Thanks to everyone for their help.
Actually, it kind of sucks that they’ve prohibited non-dutch choice listings; I can’t see what would be the problem with listing 'Dr Who VHS tape" and making it clear that the buyer has the choice of episodes X, Y or Z, then relisting with fewer options in the blurb each time one of them sells. You can’t do this, of course, because they explicitly say you can’t, but I can’t understand why it would be a problem - selling one at a time like this wouldn’t cause any conflict between buyers who wanted the same… aah… while typing this, I actually saw the problem - your buyers are placing competitive bids for the item they want, but they aren’t actually competing for the same item; this is likely to result in a falsely inflated selling price, since you’re attracting more bidders.
