It's Ebay Time! Auction vs Fixed Price

When you are ready to list an item on Ebay, you need to decide if you are going to list it in a auction or at a fixed price.

First let's talk about a couple of terms:
Insertion fee : this is the fee that Ebay charges to list your item
Final Value fee : if you item sells then Ebay charges this fee

Ebay fees can be confusing. You can see a list of Ebay fees here. Ebay lets you have 5 free Auction listings within a 30 day period. That is Ebay does not charge the insertion fee for the first 5 auctions. You are still charged the Final Value fee.

Here are some things to consider when deciding Auction vs Fixed Price:
1. Is your item selling well? If the sell through rate is high then you will probably be ok with an auction listing. Remember with an auction listing, you are never guaranteed a higher price.

2. Think about how much you want to sell you item for. If you list an auction item for 9.99, then will you be happy if you only receive one bid for $9.99?

3. A large lot of a popular item or extremely rare items seem to do better with auction listings.

4. Remember as we get closer to the holidays, people just want to buy their gifts now. they don't want to wait for an auction to end. You can offer a Buy It Now with an auction listing BUT if someone bids the minimum price then the Buy It Now goes away. You may lose potential customers who missed the Buy It Now and don't want to wait for the auction to end.

Ebay has changed in the last few years. More people want their items now. During the holiday season, I list 90% of my items as fixed price. By doing research, I can tell what the price should be in order to sell. With auctions, I never am sure what price I will get.