Home Business: Choosing The Right eBay Auction Category

Choosing The Right eBay Auction Category

Written by Robbin K. Tungett

eBay is divided up into hundreds of categories and sub-categories and once you've decided on an item to list, you must decide what category you will list it in.

For example, let's assume you have a Tonka truck that you had as a child. Do you place it under toys, collectibles, or automotive? And, once you've decided on one of those three, you still need to decide what sub-category you will list it under.

Choosing repparttar category and sub-category you list your item in is not a trivial decision. It can mean repparttar 148272 difference between making a sale and no sale at all. It can mean repparttar 148273 difference between multiple bidders and only one bidder.

Here are some tips to help you select repparttar 148274 best category and sub-category for your item:

1. Begin by checking all repparttar 148275 categories that your item might fit into. This may take some time, but it's time well spent. And, as you become more experienced you won't need to spend as much time on this in repparttar 148276 future. Look at each category and ask yourself:

-> Are there other similar items for sale here? -> If there are, do they have bids? -> How do final prices in this category compare to those in other categories?

2. Look at completed auctions. Search completed auctions for Tonka trucks. In what category and sub-category have they sold well?

Getting Your Price On eBay While Keeping Your Fees Down

Written by Robbin K. Tungett

When you have repparttar

right item - something that has wide appeal and is in high demand - you can usually safely save on your eBay listing fees by simply using a low starting bid and letting multiple bidders run repparttar 148271

price up. As long as there are five or six bidders, or more, you will more than likely get a final price that you are happy with.

Unfortunately, while this is repparttar 148272 ideal scenario, for a large number of items in many categories, this just isn't always repparttar 148273 case. Many items on eBay have less than intense demand or they appeal to a very narrow niche. When this is repparttar 148274 case, different listing techniques are needed.

In repparttar 148275 past, many sellers used a reserve to protect items. But, over repparttar 148276 years reserve fees have significantly increased and using a reserve has lost it's appeal to many sellers. This means you must find different techniques to get repparttar 148277 same results without paying exorbitant fees. Here are three different approaches you can take to accomplish this.

Use a high opening bid

This may seem like an obvious technique to replace a reserve bid, but actually it's not that appealing. If you have an item you feel you need to get $50 for, you can protect it with a $49.99 opening bid, but eBay is still going to charge you $1.20 for that protection.

High opening bids also have a way of discouraging bidding. The result will often be either repparttar 148278 auction ends without any bids, or a bidder will snipe repparttar 148279 auction in repparttar 148280 last seconds and buy your item for it's starting bid. Neither of these is a desirable outcome.

Listing in two categories with a low opening bid

True, listing in two categories will double your listing fees. But, if you keep your opening bid at $9.99 or lower your listing fees will still be only $.70.

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