Over the years, eBay has introduced all sorts of different auction types, in an effort to give people more options when they buy and sell their items on eBay.
For every seller who does not like the idea that their item might sell for a much lower price than they intend, there are others who want to shift hundreds of the same item as quickly as possible “over the counter”. eBay tries to cater for all tastes.
This posting will try to give you an overview of the different kinds of auctions and their advantages for you.
Normal Auctions.
These are the bread-and-butter of eBay, the auctions everyone knows. Buyers bid, others outbid them, they bid again, and the winner gets the item. Quite simple.
Reserve Auctions.
Reserve auctions are for sellers who do not want their items to sell for less than a certain price – a concept you must be acquainted with if you are familiar with real auctions. They work just like normal auctions on eBay, except that the buyer will be told if their bid does not meet the reserve price you set, and the buyer has to bid again if he or she really wants the item. If no one is willing to meet your price, then the auction is cancelled, and you keep (are stuck with) the item.
Fixed Price (’Buy it Now’) Auctions.
‘Buy it Now’ auctions can work in one of two ways. You can add a ‘Buy it Now’ button to a normal auction, meaning that buyers can choose either to bid normally or to simply pay the asking price and thereby avoiding the whole bidding process. Some sellers though, might now cut out the auction process altogether and simply list all their items at a fixed price. This lets you avoid all the complications (hassle) of the auction format and simply list your items for how much you want to have them sold for.
Recently, eBay added a twist to fixed price auctions: the ‘best offer’. This means that buyers can contact you to negotiate a price, which could be a good way to get to sell some extra stock at a small discount. The only downside to reserve and fixed price auctions is that you pay a small extra fee to use these formats. In general, it is more worthwhile using reserve auctions for higher-priced items and fixed price auctions for lower-priced ones – but remember that you can combine the two formats.
Multiple Item (’Dutch’) Auctions.
These are auctions where you can sell more than one piece of a certain item. Dutch auctions can be done through bidding. Buyers bid a price and say how many items they want, and then everyone pays the lowest price that was bid by one of the winning bidders. If you have trouble getting your head around that, then do not worry, everyone else has the same problem as you too! These auctions are therefore very rare.
What is more common is when a seller has a lot of one item, and lists it using a combination of two auction types, i.e. a multiple-item fixed price auction. This just means that you can just say how many of the item you then have, and offer them at a fixed price per unit. Buyers can enter how many they want and then just click ‘Buy it Now’ to get them.
Now that you know about the different types of auctions, you should make sure that the items you plan to sell do not violate eBay’s listing policies. The next posting will let you know what is allowed and what is a BIG no-no.
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Stay tuned,
Christer
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