eBay: would this work? thoughts?

You’re making the assumption that the same item could be sold for a higher amount of money. Could happen. It all depends on what kind of items you’re selling and the demand.

For us, we put higher prices on many of our vintage items with “make offer”. This allows us to wait for the higher prices…or accept lower offers if we feel hungry that day.

The sales revenue and number of items sold in a store may stay about the same for several months or longer but there are multiple factors that can contribute to that: Number and kind of listings in the store, number and kind of listings added daily, weekly, and/or monthly, market relevancy, feedback history, handling time, pricing, the value of items sold, number of sales had in order to sell items, pictures, descriptions etc.

While waiting for sales with high prices, listings may become stagnant in your store. Having a store filled with stagnant listings (which is tracked by ebay) is held against you as a seller and can even lower your ranking. Ebay is a business first. Their goal is movement/activity, staying competative, and revenue most of all. This is why ebay removed listings that sat stagnant for a year and then informed sellers to review their listings before simply relisting. Some items need to just be priced competatively while other items (as previously stated) need to be listed with a higher price and Best Offer.

Yes, sell similar will solve the ebay problem but not the store and/or inventory stagnation that will occur if you only sell items with a high price and wait for each one to sell at the highest price. Waiting to get the highest price sets you up as a seller for only a specific group of people with a large amount of fluid cash and/or credit who happen to be on ebay, who happen to come upon your listing, who happen to want your item, and who happen to want to pay the price asked for. This is an option but can limit you as a seller. In my opionion, there are more people with some money to spend than there are people with large amounts of money to spend. Having a store that appeals to both groups gives you flexibility and options as a seller. This is why it is important to have competative pricing, some items that have a lower dollar value, and items that command a higher price. Research is key for pricing.

Its important to keep your store moving forward and growing. Sell similar can take 1 to 5 mintues to do (depending on if you are making any changes and/or experience any technical issues with the site or your computer). Even if you have only 5 items you keep using sell similar on because you want to wait for the highest dollar amount, that is approximately 20 to 25 minutes of your time you have used on existing inventory when it could have been used to list new inventory, research, and/or ship items.

I mean, we all deal with this equation all the time.

I think the generic answer is that it depends on the constraints on you. Storage is a factor – if you need to free up space, that’s motivation to move things faster. The biggest factor is whether you’re primarily time-constrained or money-constrained. If you need your ebay income to keep the lights on, take offers. If you don’t have much time for ebay, hold out for more money.

After getting my knickers in a twist over a low-ball offer, and realizing how stupid that was, I put auto-decline on anything that I feel would annoy me. If I KNOW an item is worth a certain amount, I’ll put that on the decline amount, and then list it for my higher amount. For items I don’t know or those I don’t really care about how much I make, I’ll put the auto-decline at cost plus a bit to cover fees. It has worked well for me. I don’t have to deal with a lot of offers that make my blood boil, and I know that my costs are covered.

I also use auto-accept on some items, especially when they’re high priced. It just makes the whole process quite quick and seamless.

Most sellers have consistent sales because they’re pricing their items correctly? I think that’s the gist of it. Raising prices will not necessarily result in greater or even equal sales, even spread out over a period of several months or a year in order to compensate for the raised prices.

I know that a lot of sellers have the feeling of “oh, I priced it too low” when an item sells within a day, or even a week. I used to sort of feel that way, but now I see it as a relief! One item, listed and gone in the blink of an eye. Bye! Bon voyage!

It might also be because I have developed such an extensive backlog that I just want to get stuff in and out at this point. My store also includes difficult to find items, many of which have no pricing history. I just do better research and price accordingly from the start, when possible. If my pricing is wrong, I run a sale. I have lost the patience required to play the waiting game, unless it’s for an expensive item.