How to Unlock the Power of Reserve Auctions to Boost Your eBay Sales – Secret Tactics from an eBay Power Seller
Most Power Sellers will advise you not to contact a buyer about the reserve price you’ve set for an auction. However this can be one of the biggest mistakes you can make as an eBay seller (not to mention having one frustrated and unhappy customer on your hands!) There are ways to use Reserve Auctions to your advantage if you follow a few proven tips you’ll learn in this article.
But you have to be careful — too many times potential bidders will see your auction (without the reserve price mentioned) and simply give up – not knowing how much you’ve set the item to truly cost. Here are ways to get around that common obstacle and be successful at setting reserve prices in your auction.
From a buying standpoint you will see a reserve auction and it talks about hitting a reserve price and the seller is under no obligation to sell if it does not hit the reserve price.
What I’m really concerned about is that during this whole auction and if it lasts seven days, ten days, even three days, and I’m really interested in this product, so my concern is why would I want to go waste my time, maybe not waste my time but put in so much time and effort into trying to purchase this product under a price which I feel is feasible and which I feel is going to be of high value and maybe not hit the reserve price and not get the item?
So what it all comes down to is why do people use reserve auctions and what are the benefits to using them?
Well from a sellers point of view a reserve auction serves as a control mechanism. It serves as a tool that will allow me to sell a product without losing money on it.
If you recall earlier when I talked about selling optimization, there’s a huge value in reserve auctions for sellers.
Now if I’m a seller and I’m selling a product under a reserve auction if I have a good supply chain I know where to get my products at a great price I can use a reserve auction to ensure that I don’t jeopardize my dollars and my products through the reserve auctions.
That’s to say lets say I have a product that I know if I sell it for $100 I’ll make a $10 profit. If I open up a reserve auction at say $10 I know that more people are going to look at that dollar amount.
Even if its a reserve auction, more people are going to look at that reserve auction and think well let me put a bid in and see if it sells.
In listening to buyers’ frustration about reserve auctions, I think one thing needs to be communicated to my readers
Any smart power seller who has a product in a reserve auction should at the end of his or her auction, they should make sure that they put in what the product will sell for, in other words, what is the reserve price.
Doing so will give the potential buyer a reference point for when they should actually put a bid in for a dollar amount and if in fact they’re getting a fair price.
I told you earlier that one of the best things you can do in selling optimization is to use a virtual inventory model.
Many successful sellers have contacts where they don’t have to buy the product but they know how much the product costs. So what does that do for them in terms of a reserve auction and how does that impact their business?
Well, with a reserve auction if I can buy that product for $100 and I set my reserve to lets say $125 I don’t have to hold that inventory. As a seller, I don’t need to inventory that product if I know that I can get it at a cheaper price.
That’s the value of a reserve auction for the seller. For the buyer, a reserve auction is definitely something that can be a roadblock if the seller doesn’t tell you what the reserve price is in the listing.
And that’s always been a problem. I see a lot of auctions out there with reserves on them and they don’t say anywhere in the listing at all about the reserve price is this x amount of money.
Now how are we supposed to know? We keep bidding and bidding and bidding until we hit that reserve price but then we realize something this is more than we actually wanted to pay for it.
Well, again I think there are a couple of strategies – you can actually email the seller selling the product – take a moment to email them.
This is a mistake a lot of experts are making who sell on eBay is they don’t tell buyers what the reserve price is. In talking to a lot of successful power sellers it is very important to tell the potential buyer what the reserve price is.
It gives the potential buyer a reference point to look at if they want to actually buy the product.
Its not a double edged sword that we’re looking at here but it is an issue for buyers and the best way to get around it is to tell the potential buyer what is the reserve price. I think reserve auctions are actually very beneficial for a lot of people but again that’s something that you take on a case by case basis.
Michael G Perry is the author of eBaid Instant Money Making Machine
He helps new and intermediate eBay uses increase sales volume and better manage their online business.
To learn more visit online at The Real eBay Secrets Revealed
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I never thought that by putting a reserve price can be beneficial not only for the seller but for the buyer as well.