Buy now price

[trikiliki]

This new change of the 'buy now" price having to be %30 more than your auction start price instead of %10 is going to be a problem for me.

I was aware of the change and didn't give it much thought as I was focusing  more on the fees and store structure at the time,  but I just encountered this now as I went to list something and I have to say am not at all happy about it.

To stay within a reasonable price for my items I have to lower my start price which was already as low as I had wanted to go, and raise my buy now price. It will create a gap of roughly $5 or $6 dollars for most of my items as opposed to $2 or $3 dollars difference which I was ok with. 

Up until now, I rarely have "bidding wars" on my stuff. Its usually a case of one bidder, or buy now sales. I obviously prefer the buy now  because its priced a little higher than the starting auction bid. I should also say that I rarely have any fixed price listings ever sell, once in a blue moon.

Maybe I am going about this with the wrong mindset  and should try starting my auction start price much lower to attract bids? The thing is if they don't sell for at least close to my current start prices I wont be making enough for all this to be worth my time and effort.

Maybe I am worrying about nothing and if I raise prices by an extra $2, people will still keep buying!

Any suggestions?

[pierrelebel]

"is going to be a problem for me"

Do not take it personally.  It will be a problem for many (most ?) sellers. 😞

[trikiliki]

Ohhh. I was thinking that there was something I was doing that was making it more difficult on myself. Good to know ebay gets the whole credit.

I would love to know what really possesses them sometimes to make such foolish decisions and changes. .

[pierrelebel]

"make such foolish decisions"

Same guys with MBAs on their office wall who decided Global Shipping Program was a great thing! 😞

[pocomocomputing]

One reason for the 30% difference on an auction for the BIN price is that auctions were being used as a short duration more visible Fixed Price listings.  This problem became bigger since eBay started with all of the free promos for Auction listings with Free Bin in the past 2 years. Especially for low priced items under $10 where the difference was just $1 or less. If you searched for auctions, it was flooded with cheap items with low BINs.

eBay seems to want have a bigger separation between auctions and Fixed Price listings. So sellers who used the auction with 10% as a mini Fixed Price listings now have to consider using a real Fixed Price listings.

So you may have to consider using Fixed Price Listings. What you can do is use shorter durations for the fixed price listings of 7 or 10 days. This will shorten the time for the item to appear in searches by buyers who search by newly listed or ending soonest.

[trikiliki]

Hmm,  I have had no success with fixed price listings in the past, not with long duration ones and neither when we get the free promos, but I can try a few and see how it goes... Thanks

[jt-libra]

"Maybe I am worrying about nothing and if I raise prices by an extra $2, people will still keep buying!"

I was looking at your listings and you have some really nice bikinis for sale at what I think are very reasonable prices, given what you pay in a retail store or other on-line sites.

I think you could safely raise your prices a few dollars. 

I think a lot of us feel that if we're not selling as many items as we'd like, it's due to our price point and then we start to lower our prices -- at least I'm guilty of that.  When, really, there's just so much competition in most categories that a lot of people don't see our items.

[trikiliki]

Thanks for taking the time to take a peek and for that encouraging feedback 🙂

 I have been stuck in the same price scheme for a long time, despite fee increases, postal rates going up, and the cost of doing business in general being higher than when I originally started, in order to try and stay competitive.  I will re-evaluate the worth of my stuff and go with increasing a few dollars and hope things stay steady.

[jt-libra]

" I have been stuck in the same price scheme for a long time, despite fee increases, postal rates going up, and the cost of doing business in general being higher than when I originally started, in order to try and stay competitive."

Those words could have come out of my mouth.

Good luck to you ..... and me 🙂

[avmarino]

i have been selling on ebay for 4-5 yrs now, and they keep making harder for the sellers, after this stupid 30% b.s i'm going to have to sit back and see if selling on ebay is even worth it for me, i already sell my product for only a dollar or two over cost, and the buy it now is were i make my money, but no one is goingt o pay an extra 10-15 bucks extra. to bad people used to have a chance on ebay, now its all about the money

[recped]

A $20 Auction with a $22 BIN isn't an Auction, it's a Fixed Price listing masquerading as an Auction!

If this new 30% rule is a problem then use Fixed Price instead (there is no longer any FVF difference).

Or

Run Auctions with no BIN and also run the same item as Fixed Price at what ever price you like. In your Auction listings you can state or link to the Fixed Price listing and let buyers know if they don't want to wait they can BIN on the Fixed price listing.

[trikiliki]

Hey! How do you link to another item in  your listing? Is it as simple as just copy/pasting the url into the text of the listing? That sounds like an ok workaround maybe..

[jt-libra]

"A $20 Auction with a $22 BIN isn't an Auction, it's a Fixed Price listing masquerading as an Auction!

There's a reason why a lot of sellers use this method.  For lower priced items, say under $20, there isn't a lot of flexibility in pricing -- more than 10% between the two is not a viable option.  The majority of my buyers will select the auction price, but I do offer the slightly higher BIN price for the benefit of the small percentage of buyers who do not want to wait 5 or 7 days and will move on to a seller who does offer a BIN.

This won't hold true for all categories, but my items are not unique.  There are hundreds of sellers who offer the same thing and buyers of cosmetics know precisely what the retail price is.

[recped]

Hey! How do you link to another item in  your listing? Is it as simple as just copy/pasting the url into the text of the listing? That sounds like an ok workaround maybe..

You can put actual links to a FP listing of the same item or you can just put a blanket statement in all your listings "If you want to buy this item right now check my Store for Buy It Now" (or something similar) and of course a handy link to your Store.

[pyroelectric]

"A $20 Auction with a $22 BIN isn't an Auction, it's a Fixed Price listing masquerading as an Auction!

If this new 30% rule is a problem then use Fixed Price instead (there is no longer any FVF difference).

Or

Run Auctions with no BIN and also run the same item as Fixed Price at what ever price you like. In your Auction listings you can state or link to the Fixed Price listing and let buyers know if they don't want to wait they can BIN on the Fixed price listing."

If you do what you suggest then there is a risk of having someone buy the item at the BIN price and before you can take off your auction listing someone else starts a bid on the auction page. So, if you only have one item their will be trouble. 30% is to high a difference when your item opening bid is say $150 and you to have a BIN at $180 …oops can’t do that must be at least $195 …eBay money grab if you ask me!

[doumb21]

I was not happy either about that 30%.

I used to do auction-style with a starting price a bid under all competitors and a buy it now 10% more to still be a reasonable price for those who wants to buy before the auction ends.

It will not be as efficient, but what I did to workaround the 30% is I stopped using auctions-style.

Now I use Fixed-Style with my price at the same "Buy it now" I had, but I check the option "Accept offer".  This way at least if a person is willing to pay less (closer to my previous starting price), I could agree with an offer and still beat the competition.

But to me the 30% will make even less auction-style available in my category.