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I just had to do the same thing, and had a completely different experience. I sold our stuff on an auction site (TradeMe, the NZ EBay equivalent), with $1 rese
by jpollock 12y ago
I just had to do the same thing, and had a completely different experience.
I sold our stuff on an auction site (TradeMe, the NZ EBay equivalent), with $1 reserve, and applied some of the lessons I've learned from lurking here.
My wife thought I was crazy. She was completely ready with the "I told you so". I argued that we didn't have time to relist it if it didn't sell at the reserve, so $1 it had to be!
Everything sold for more than I expected, dramatically so (frequently more than replacement cost). Even better, when people came to pick up their purchases, they were invariably _happy_ about it!
Going back, I compared my results with those of the same items on the site, my $1 item outsold them.
It helped that ads with pictures, $1 reserve and paid placement got preferential placement.
Things to do:
1) Put some effort into the copy.
2) Track down the user's guide.
3) Track down a product review.
4) Take pictures - Make sure they are in focus!
5) Show the label indicating model number clearly.
6) Answer all questions promptly.
7) If people ask for Buy Now price, decline. :)
8) Pay to be top of the results!
I also learned that 50% of the bids arrived in the last day.
- iandanforth 12y agoI'm really interested in this, any chance you have the hard numbers on what you spent vs what you made? Marketing is a skill that I'm not great at so this kind of explicit example is very helpful.
- jpollock 12y agoNo, sorry, I have no data, this is pure anecdote. :)
- solistice 12y agoHonestly, if you want advice on selling items such as furniture or personal items online, you might want to ask in one of the flipping comunities like /r/flipping on reddit. They don't usually try to get rid of their own stuff, but they sell stock from yard sales, thrift stores craiglist offers, retail arbitage, ect. In fact, you might have drawn some flippers with your free offer. They're usually quite helpful if you ask concrete questions , especially regarding presenting your wares, and there'll proably be members who can tell you what percentage of their revenue goes to shipping and other fees. [http://www.reddit.com/r/Flipping/wiki/index http://www.reddit.com/r/Flipping/wiki/index]
- iandanforth 12y agoThanks! I'd never heard of /r/Flipping and the direct link to the wiki was very useful.
- j2bax 12y agoWere these local buyers or were you shipping everything?
- jpollock 12y agoThey were all local buyers.
- jsmeaton 12y agoThat's really interesting. Perhaps people feel they are getting a better deal if they 'win' (buy) something at $20 that someone else wanted for $19. But if you had of just listed it at $20, then they feel that the seller is just trying to extract as much value as they possibly can. That is - they are getting the market value rather than the arbitrary value the seller assigns. Even if that value ends up being the same.
- primitivesuave 12y agoHere's a relevant tidbit from game theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction
- beachstartup 12y agoin other words, marketing.