To the Auction or in my eBay Store?

A lot of people are not sure how they should go about selling their items on eBay. The majority of eBay sellers only do auctions, and then there are some who only do store items. The most successful eBayers use both eBay stores, and auctions.

The way that many powersellers sell on eBay is through multiple formats. A good way to go is to create an auction for all of your items, set at prices you can live with, but are still competitive, and sell to the highest bidder.

What do you do when your auction does not sell? You put that item in your eBay store. EBay is a fickle marketplace, and the price you get on your items largely relates to how many people are looking. If nobody is looking for your item, it may not sell. But do not worry, someone will find what they are looking for in your store!

It is a good idea to put items in your store that do not sell through auctions. It is a good idea to keep your items in your store for at least six months.

The way that store sales normally work, is that your best stuff gets bought out quick, because it is the most popular, and have good qualities that appeal to a lot of bidders.

This rapid liquidation of newly added eBay store items is called the "honeymoon" period

After the "honeymoon," your store has become depleted of its most popular items, the ones that appeal to the most people in the most coveted brands.

But, there are still people out there that are outside of the main stream who want to buy less popular, but still desirable items. These will sell slowly out of your store, but should still provide a constant income as long as your store stays stocked.

It is important to keep adding inventory to your store, and keep running auctions to draw a good flow of bidders to your higher priced store items.

After many of your items have sold, there will be random buyers who will come along looking for very specific items. They will come and buy the rest of your items. This may take 6+ months, but 6 months x .06 = .36. It is worth it to keep your items around if they still sell.

To help move your sales along, I recommend using the best offer option. That way, when the last random buyer wants something very specific, they can also get it in their price range.

I am repeating this one more time, because it is very important: make sure to keep your store stocked! This is good because the more items you have, the more you will sell. Also, once you do draw a buyer into your store, you have a better chance of having them buy multiple items from you. So make sure you have some way to entice them into doing that. Offer shipping discounts.