Announcement from eBay Headquarters
eBay made a few major announcements this week about new policy changes. The one I wanted to write about first this time: List Auction-style FREE—pay only if it sells
Starting March 30th, 2010 eBay will kick off the start to the lowest fees ever. If you’ve ever thought about selling on eBay this will be the perfect time to give it a try because you will have nothing to lose except a bit of quality time and a few items that needed a new home!
EBay announced: No listing fees for items starting at 99 cents using the classic, auction format. There is a limit though and that limit is 100 items every 30 days! Yes, you read that correctly, 100 free auction listings with an opening bid of 99 cents! If your item does not sell, you pay nothing!
Reminds me of that old song: “100 bottles of beer on the wall, 100 bottles of beer, take one down, pass it around, 99 bottles of beer on the wall!” Do you have 100 items you can turn into cash at your house?
I suggest you get a few boxes ready. Write “eBay” on one and “Garage Sale” on the other and then start with the kitchen, look through the junk drawers and see what you can find. Never know that old bottle opener may be worth a few bucks. Or you may get lucky and find a Cutco knife or a rare ice cream scoop. And never forget to check cupboards. That old Pyrex dish may be worth money as well as the old tea kettle that sings! Work your way through the house, room by room and closet by closet.
I’ve lived by the same rule for the last 13 years “Never throw it away till you check it out on eBay!” Once you have a few items, sit by the computer and start the research process. Forget about looking up current listings, the trick is to review “completed listings.” This is where you will learn the most. Only registered eBay members can search eBay this way so if you are not a member yet, get signed up, it is free to join! For those that don’t know how to search completed listings, just visit the search bar found on all eBay.com pages and to the right you will notice “Advanced Search.” Click on that and now you will view a new bar where you will place the first item to search. Type in a few simple words of an item like “Cutco Knife” then below that check mark the box: COMPLETED LISTINGS. Then simply click SEARCH! Forget about all the other boxes and drop downs. Now you will be able to take a look at all the items that sold on eBay in the last 10 days. If there are a large amount of items within your search results, you can limit it down by using the drop-down box on the right of the page and have it SORT by HIGHEST PRICE FIRST! My motto is “Show me the Money!” Those are the ones I want to see first! If the price is in green then they sold. If they price is in red, that means they did not sell. You can learn a lot by searching completed listing using this method.
Now, as you search your items you can decide which ones you want to list on eBay and place those in your eBay box. The items not suitable for eBay place a price tag on it and put it in your “Garage Sale” box. When you have enough items for the garage sale, then you will be prepared with everything priced and ready to go. Meanwhile, you can build up your eBay box with 100 items to prepare for your FREE listings.
Turning all those items into cash will be challenging, fun and most of all profitable!
CLICK HERE to read the details at eBay!
2 Comments
Louis Camassa says:
From what I understand with the new pricing paradigm (and it seems a lot of people are lost), you need to consider the different type of sale approaches. For instance, if you sell via a basic auction, and if your item sells for $25 or less, not much has changed. However, if the sale is over $25, than the fee’s have changed (dramatically in some cases).
“The higher your final value, the greater the fee increase, until about $555 when the FVF is capped at $50. After that, you only pay $50, regardless of final value. Whether your auction ends at $600 or $1000, you pay a $50 FVF. That's still an increase over today, when a $1000 auction only costs you about $36. The new structure doesn't become cheaper than today's, until your final value exceeds $1400. For example, a $2000 auction today will cost you about $71 today, but only $50 after March 30.”
For a breakdown on the price increases, check out https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZI995tTj_PQZHdqcWNzel80MGRtcmM2d2dr&hl=en&pli=1 and http://letters.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2010/1/1264564853.html
Danna Crawford says:
Greatly appreciate the input Louis!
When your listing fee is ZERO the final value fee is not an issue because we don't have to add a leasing fee, a storage fee or a rental on the site fee!
Working from home is still the best and well worth any final value fee when it comes to family, friends and caring for loved ones!
I also think its important to surround yourself with positive information and avoid the drama on some of those sites providing "information!"
All the best, Danna
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