99c auctions experiment, observations so far. | Selling

ricarmic · 2022-12-30T20:38:23.673000Z

I auction a lot of stuff at the same start price it will be if it doesn't sell and then goes BIN, but it has been a very very long time since I've run a 99c auction.I've noticed that some of my "watchees" succeed in getting some very good results with 99c auctions but they also get some very BAD results as well. Examples would be something that I regularly get $9.99 BIN for that auctions for $1.25 to $1.50 (I'm tempted to contact the seller offering to buy in quantity!)I've also noticed that when I list something that "takes off" once it has a couple bids the views go up quickly.I do have some "guaranteed sale" items so I decided to list them starting at 99c. (final price should be in the $25 to $75 range depending on the item).They immediately had a small number of views and within hours had bids. Once the bids started the views have risen quickly.Since the "new" view counting system was implemented normally I'm getting in the range of 5 to 10 views for the "regular" stuff in the 7 day auction run. The two 99c starters are about half way through their 7 day run and they're at 38 and 52 views which is 3 to 5 times the next highest item's view count out of 30 auctions running at the moment. The 52 views got more bids quicker (about 12 hours earlier) than the 38 item. Their current bid price is already at what I would have started them from using my normal listing style.My hope was that the high views would bring folks to see the other stuff I have selling, but I do not see any other auction items with unnaturally high view counts, generally they are the usual low view numbers.So my current thinking is that the 99c auctions don't generally pull people into the other auctions. I can't tell if it has any effect on the BINs, I don't see anything unusually better in sales volume at this point.This leaves me to believe that 99c auctions are a good idea for something that has enough lookers/bidders to get early bids and a consistent enough value that it will generally naturally close close to what one expects bringing the hope that enough viewers/bidders show up that the realized price is higher than usual for that item.I made enough of the 99c experimentals to last for 5 weeks. I will now look to my other "regular" stuff to see if I have anything that is appropriate to try this way as well, the theory being that if I take the risk of starting something low that enough folks will see it because of the bidding that it goes at least for the regular price.I'll probably post updates here from time to time as the experiment progresses.I'm interested to hear of any other observations, experiments out there!

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99c auctions experiment, observations so far. | Selling | eBay Canada EN