How to make money from auctions ?

Hi guys,
Well i've been on Ebay for almost a year now and i still haven't figured it out, let me explain, I've tried several tactics :
1.The 0.99 cent tactic doesn't work for me because my products are not very HOT they are good for specific people and usually i lose money on this tactic.
2. Now i am pricing my products at the rate that they cost me, and i have sells but i don't make any profit and sometimes i lose because of Ebay and PP fees.

My reputation is good i have 96 Feedbacks at 99%.
What do i need to do inorder to make real profit of my busines, because i am treating Ebay as my busines and not some way to make an ezy buck.

I hope you can help me
Thank you

Hey sgr4679,

If you wouldn't mind what type of products are you trying to sell on ebay?? your right its pretty hard to go the .99 cent route if the product is very rare. I would try to go the BIN route and put those products in the most popular category that the product can relate to and see if that drives traffic. Another good idea is putting a few of your products on the GOOGLE Product Search, its free and you can at least get some traffic from google searches.

I know this may cost you more money but you can also do either listing upgrades on ebay or do the google adwords campaign.

Hi dwmgoods35,
I am selling collectibles item of religion , and it goes well but non profitable...

Well you can try the advice I gave above but I also would recommend you try selling those on bonanzle.com , they seem to do well with that type of product. Its actually not an auction site but rather a marketplace that gives you your own booth to sell goods and there is no listings fees, you only pay a very small fee once the item sells.

I think Don has given you some pretty solid advice with what he has written.

Your market seems to border on somewhat of a niche, although a very large market in whole, perhaps not that big on ebay. Marketing could be the key issue here, it's ok to have the products displayed, but you are looking for very targeted traffic, and seemingly not getting it.

Perhaps a Bonanzle booth at now cost, then approaching organisations that have a member demographic that suits your market.

It's a more direct marketing tactic, but one that is quite effective when looking for a specific market demographic such as you are.

Hi sgr4679,

I agree with dwmgoods, try selling your products on bonanzle.com and through other auction sites as well.

Here's an article about a seller who is also selling collectible items on both eBay and Auctiva, you may find some of the information this article quite helpful. Please have a read:

Link hidden: Login to view

Hope this helps. Cheers! :)

Thank you guys,
Is bonanzle.com that good ?
i mean what is the difference in selling same products on Ebay at BIN and selling them on bonanzle.com ?
And should it be the same price as Ebay?

Bonanzle doesn't have anywhere near the same traffic flow, so you have to market your products, but the platform offers free listings, and the success fees in the event of a sale are insanely inexpensive.

thank you fudjj,
How do you think i should market my products on Bonanzle ?

thanks

They have an easy Google Base interface that allows you to upload your products there, and I would definitely be taking advantage of that. They also make it easy to copy your ebay listings across, as well as your ebay feedback, very nice touch.

You really are aiming at are very specific market from what I can tell, and while it's potentially a huge market, sometimes finding markets like yours is not at all easy.

I would be taking a very direct approach myself, sure, some general market on platforms like Google Base is good, Bonanzle also has a very tight community that like to help each other out, so hit the forum and introduce yourself, and your products to other members.

That's all good for general marketing, but I would be looking for church groups, anything as such even related as avenues of marketing. The group may well only be small, lets say under 50, but they are a target market, and I would expect to turn good sales figures amongst core buyers like those you will find there.

Get you name into newsletters that they produce and so on, you could well be surprised where an avenue will lead you once you open up a door or two.

: )

thanks fudjj,
by the way i understand that HTML is not very supportive over there, what do you think should i list it regually or HTML ?

thanks again

HTML will always give you far better design qualities, of course HTML is only really effective if you have a great design. Some designs I have seen makes me wonder why on earth they even wasted their time.

I think the bonanzle booth does the job OK, no complaints for a free listing platform.

: )

I'm not sure if most of you others who sell regularly on eBay are in the same boat, but this year, if I had used eBay as my only income stream, I would have starved to death by now. Two-three years ago, I had a sell through rate consistently at 34%-36%. Now, I am lucky if I can sell one or two items a day. I have stopped listing recently because the fees kill me when I list dozens of items with gallery and don't get a result that is worth the time and trouble. I now sell in three other markets, all online and eBay is the slowest of them all. I think they have killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

ebay and PP and their fees, its killing us all. after the product sold, just few bucks left for us. If we put the margin higher, our listings will go to no where.

Well Im in the same boat with you guys, back in april I was selling several items a day, then come may and june my sales went flat for a while maybe 1 or 2 sales a week. Although ebay recently disregarded complaints that the traffic on the site has not reduced I and many others out there would agree that ebay is becoming more and more controversial with their new CEO. I am also selling on several other avenues but I haven't seen any results, regardless of all our complaints right now ebay is still on top with getting the most traffic and unfortunately that probably will never change considering EBAY is a publically traded company that makes billions every year, they sure need to do ALOT of bad to really put themselves in a hole.

so, all of you have new place to sell? please shared with me.

No sure if anyone actually has an new place to sell, well at least not one that is proving more effective than ebay at the moment.

It all comes back to the type of products people are selling. the price, the marketing and so on. No doubt in my mind that traffic may well be down a little, but the buyers are still there, their just being more careful how they spend their money.

I can only talk about ebay Australia, but one of my closest friends can't keep up with sales at the moment, he is getting smashed, and making great margin. Of course he is not drop shipping, he's simply selling second hand that he is getting from garage sales and auction houses.

He has always done second hand, but they used to stick to cloths mostly, and we're never too serious about it. His wife lost her job six months ago and they were forced to look at other income streams, so advanced their range of second hand items, and have not looked back since.

Just talking to him last night, tells me that they are struggling to keep the shop stocked. As soon as they are listing, they are getting offers to sell without the auction running its course.

To me that just shows that you can sell in a bad economy, you just have to be smarter and work harder, but as with most things, Effort=Reward!

ebay US, australia and UK which one is better? I read somewhere else but I forgot, they said if you want to make money its better UK and Australia it is true?