Today Elaine Krieg Smith provides some food-for-thought with her eBay Stores Bring Top Book Prices.

I opened an eBay store a little over a month ago and, while it’s only been open a short time, I’ve noticed the same thing Elaine talks about.

Many of the magazines I buy are somewhat obscure and don’t have a large group of people looking for them. If I list them on eBay in the auction format they often either sell for the opening bid (usually $9.99) or get no bids at all.

Those that don’t sell I’ve been putting in my eBay store at prices ranging between $5 and $15 more than the opening auction bid I had on them, and many sell at those increased prices within two or three weeks of being put in the eBay store.

I think there are two basic reasons why this happens.

First, as Elaine says:

“My theory is that MANY collectible books have a small market. These buyers may be willing to pay top dollar for the book, but you would have to get two or three of them to find your auction within the same 7-10 day period to have a bidding war.”

The second, somewhat related, reason is that as sellers many of us tend to be a little obsessive with ebay and we are in and out of eBay several times a day. We naturally expect collectors to all have the same obsession as we do and that isn’t always the case. Strange as it may seem to us, there are plenty of die-hard collectors who go more than a week and never get on the Net, whats-more eBay itself. With the auction format many collectors never see your listing.

eBay stores offer a solution to both these scenarios and, at the same time, can help you increase your exposure and your profits.

Ask yourself the same question Elaine asks:

“What do you think? Is she getting more than the $16 monthly store fees in excess profits?”

I’d be interested in hearing your opinions/experiences with this.

Popularity: 5% [?]

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!