Expert: Marvinator - 6/2/2004

Question
i sell vintage lingerie and vintage tshirts, old cds, books and paper type collectibles and general collectibles -- all in a different user id.

to me this made huge sense and i stick with my original theory - that i did not want to be a "garden variety sell it all in one user id ebay seller" - even if it meant being a power seller at a much slower pace (i am nowhere near that status) .... what are your thoughts on this???

what are your thoughts on the stores with fixed price and buy it now as opposed to regular auctions???  aren't there a lot of people with the regular auction mentality who get caught up in auctions and ignore the buy it now???   

also what are the best ending times for the items that i sell???

what is the best way to ensure that potential buyers look at my stuff and keep me in their favorites tab????

Answer
This is a huge multifaceted question and I will try to take it piece by piece, using your comments in quotes.
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> i sell vintage lingerie and vintage tshirts, old cds,
> books and paper type collectibles and general
> collectibles -- all in a different user id.
>
> to me this made huge sense and i stick with my
> original theory - that i did not want to be a
> "garden variety sell it all in one user id ebay
> seller" - even if it  meant being a power seller
> at a much slower pace (i am nowhere near that status)
> what are your thoughts on this?
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I hope you were expecting me to be honest, because on Ebay, I feel you're doing yourself more harm than good.  No one cares what you sell, or that one ID sells everything under the sun, or just a few things.  I just don't see the sense in it.  One ID sells lingerie and another sells books.  I don't know what you may mean by "garden variety", but if you came upon a seller who sold multiple vintange items, lingerie, books and paper, would you not buy from them if the item were something you wanted?  Of course not!  And, in fact, this ID would look more professional because they have THREE times the number of auctions going at one time. By separating your items, you are separating your ability to use your 'goodwill' built up from regular customers.

It's my experience that collectors will go after the item they want by name and browsers will browse categories by type.  In either of these cases, the bidder is looking for their purchases by ITEM, not by seller.  And, the correlary to this is that once you get a 'regular' customer, they may buy SOMETHING ELSE you have because they trust you as a seller.  I can't tell you the number of times that my fiancee (total feedback over 10,000) has had regular customers which she gets through her regular main items, who end up buying the obscure book, porcelain statuary or what not simply because they check ALL her auctions regularly.  But they didn't start doing this until they became a regular customer.
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> what are your thoughts on the stores with fixed price
> and buy it now as opposed to regular auctions?
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They make money. Pure and simple.  BUT, you should not jump in to a store until you are ready for that type of commitment.  Most Sellers on Ebay are small time 'kitchen table' operations that are used to listing at one time each week, and then having ending auctions the same time each week.  Once you start a store, you can have sales any day of the week.  Your work doubles.  

But, an ebay store MUST also have regular auctions and many times sellers will open a store and forgo the regular auctions thinking that the store will be their "main stay".  The problem is that Store listings are not found in the regular listings on ebay. So it's important for a Store Owner to run regular auctions as a way of directing people to the store.  
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> aren't there a lot of people with the regular auction
> mentality who get caught up in auctions and ignore
> the buy it now?
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The very wording on this makes me feel thatyou are looking for validation to your own feelings rather than for information.   It's my experience that there are a good mixture of both.  

There are a lot of people that enjoy the idea of an auction where they can bid and get something cheaper in the doing.  But, there are other people who will look ONLY for the Buy It Now, because they don't want to wait out an auction.  So you see, you will find both types of people looking at auctions at any time.  What YOU as a seller must do is decide if the 5¢ you spend on a BIN is worth selling an item ahead of schedule and what price would be best for the BIN.

Pricing the BIN is the hardest part.  Pricing it too high means you may get only bids,(once you get a BID on a Buy It Now, the BIN becomes inoperable) and pricing too low means you may get a quick sale at a less than desireable price.  Hey, no one said this was going to be easy!
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> also what are the best ending times for the items
> that i sell?
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Every seller tells me a different time when it comes to ending a sale.  I know sellers that prefer the daytime, others the night.  Some prefer Sunday and others Wednesday.  Some sellers list with the idea of ending on the 2nd and 16th so that they are taking advantage of standard bi-monthly paydays.  It really depends on the type of buyer you're trying to attract and how you go about getting them.  This takes research.

This is something that you can do yourself.  You are the only one that knows your buyers.  You could easily list some auctions at different times and see how many 'hits' your auctions get versus ending them at other times.  Keep track of these sales in a chart and re-do this every so often.  This will give you your own research in what listing/ending times sell best for your product.  

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> what is the best way to ensure that potential buyers
> look at my stuff and keep me in their favorites tab?
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Ask.   The only way you have to communicate with your buyers is through your MePage, auctions and your emails.  (Some sellers also include notes, coupons and newsletters in their shipments, but there is no research on the amount of time spent versus the amount of sales for me to judge this viable.)  So you have to use these tools to your best advantage.  

How many auctions have you seen with the "Bookmark my Auctions list - I list new items every week!"  Why do you suppose they do that?  To get people to BOOKMARK THEIR AUCTIONS LIST.  I've seen this in emails, in auctions and in store listings.  It's advertising and yeah, it works.  It has to work, as I stated above, because it's the only communication you have with buyers.  

I also recommend building a MEPage (See Ebay Site Map).  The MePage is a page YOU can make up about you, your business, your items, your policies, your kids, your pets, your family blah blah blah.  It's advertising and you'd be surprised how many times people will click it up just to see what you're all about.  Don't forget to add the "Bookmark my Auctions..." statement to your MePage, too.  Communication, Advertising, consistency.  

Lastly, I'd like to offer a bit of experience that you never asked me about, but which I think you may wish to pursue.  

I note in your letter, that you type all in lower case.  By changing to upper and lower, and using punctuation more correctly, you create a more professional image.  This is important in garnering more regular customers.  Again, I wouldn't mention it if I didn't get the idea from your questions that this is your quest.  The more professional you look, the more professional you are percieved to be by those that read your letters, emails, MePage and listings.  

I hope that all the above has helped you.