Smart Computing Article

Subscribe Today | Contact Us | Register Now

Home | Tech Support | Q&A Board | Article Search | Subscribe & Shop

Auctions

Email This

Print This
View My Personal Library

Essential Tasks September 2000 • Vol.6 Issue 9 Page(s) 68-72 in print issue	Add To My Personal Library
Auctions Behind The Gavel Of High-Suspense Sales

Sure, you've bid on a couple of items at an online auction site and won an item at an auction a time or two. Maybe you've even sold a handful of things and made a few bucks. Big deal. There are a number of secrets to buying and selling online that you won't learn from just a few sales.

What do the buyers and sellers with hundreds of sales under their belts know that you don't? What tricks have these people with the special stars next to their usernames acquired that make them a tidy profit?

We talked to several online auction companies, checked in with the users, and even added our own experiences to come up with tips and secrets to help ensure you get the best deal or the best price for your sale. We can't tell you how to make a living online, but we can tell you some of the tricks of professional auction users that can help you buy low and sell high.

For Buyers.

Automatic bidding. You can't miss the automatic bid features on most online auction services, but many users don't use them. However, if you are bidding on more than one auction at a time, you must take advantage of the automatic, or proxy bid, features that most of the bigger online auction sites offer.

To do so, enter the next highest bid and the amount of your highest bid. The service will continue to increase the bid until it hits your maximum. It then e-mails you if you are outbid, and you can decide to go back and bid again, if you so choose. Decide the top price you will pay and let the service do the work for you. Entering a high enough proxy bid should keep away snipers that may attempt to steal your auction in the last seconds.

Tend to today. You rarely have time to peruse all the listings in a category at most services when auctions have hundreds of listings per category. Just look at the listings that close that day. Most bidders won't bid until the last hours of the sale anyway, so you're not missing much, and you can still get in on the last-minute bidding.

The final minutes. If you really want an item, be sure to be online the last few minutes of the auction. Remember to continue to click your browser's Refresh or Reload button so you can see any bids above your amount on-screen. Some browser programs may refresh an old copy from memory, so you might have to press the SHIFT key at the same time you click Reload.

Some services have extended auction features that extend the sale if there is a bid in the closing minutes of the auction. For instance, Amazon .com Auctions (http://www.amazon.com; click the Auctions tab) extends auctions for 10 minutes, and Yahoo! Auctions (http://auctions.yahoo.com) extends auctions for five minutes.

The professional sniper. Snipers are bidders who bid in the last minutes of an auction and take a sale right out from under you. To ward off average snipers, set your proxy bid at the absolute highest amount you wish to go. Another tip is to place your bid in the last seconds of the auction (provided you have a fast Internet connection). However, if the sniper really wants the item, he might set his proxy bid at an outrageous amount (maybe $500 for an item that should sell for $25) to make sure he gets the item. If money is no object for you, you can do the same thing. Of course, be warned that if you do, you may have to pay the $500 if the bidding goes that high. So, don't bid outrageous amounts if you can't back it up.

Professional bidders also recommend that you have one Web browser window open to the auction so you can keep refreshing your screen and see the latest bids. They also suggest that you open another window with your highest bid, so you can send it in quickly. One way to easily open another window is to select New, Window from the File menu of your Web browser, and then browse to the correct Web page.

Odd amounts.Don't bid an even amount. Other buyers are probably also willing to go to $50 on an auction where you've set your proxy bid to $50. And if they've set their proxy bid before you've set yours to $50, they will win the bid because the first proxy bidder generally wins the bid. But if you are willing to go to $50, then you're probably willing to go to $51 or $53. By doing so, you'll likely outbid your competitors with their ordinary $50 bid.

Don't forget shipping. Although those fuzzy dice for your car seemed like a real steal, don't forget to add shipping costs to your total price. This combined price may not seem so cheap when you compare it to what you would pay at a local retailer.

Simplify browsing with watchlists. Many online auction services allow you to add items you are not bidding on to a watchlist. Here, you can keep track of the high bid and ending date and time. This way, if an item you are bidding on goes too high, you can quickly link to another similar sale and make a bid. As you browse the regular listings, you simply press a button to add that listing to your watchlist. When you enter your personal account, you can quickly check this list.

Watchlists can also help you find great deals. Add an item to your watchlist that might interest you, and as the sale nears its close, you can sneak in a quick bid at the end and get a great price. Some online auction pros use this method to pick up items at low prices, mark them up, and sell them elsewhere for a significant profit.

Forgo the frauds. If you're concerned about spending a large amount of money, check with the Better Business Bureau to see if the seller has any complaints filed against him. You can go to the online Web site at http://www.bbb.org to check if one of the BBB offices has an online report, or find contact information for the appropriate BBB office if it does not list its reports online. Or, you can contact the National Fraud Information Center (http://www.fraud.org) to find out about fraud warning signs or report a suspected fraud.

For Sellers.

When to reserve. If you are selling a collectible item that you don't want to give away for a cheap price, it doesn't hurt to set a reserve price. If the sale doesn't reach this amount, the item doesn't sell. This way your prize Beanie Baby won't get snatched for next to nothing.

But don't set the reserve price a great deal higher than your minimum bid, several experienced sellers advise, or buyers may get discouraged if they have to bid too often just to reach the reserve price. Experienced sellers also warn that some bidders are turned off by reserve auctions, so use them sparingly.

Beware of similar sales. You may not want to close your sale at the same time that several similar items are closing. These other auctions may steal some of your bidders. Therefore, be sure to browse the auction service for similar sales or list your item at another service.

Say no to all caps. Don't put your listings in all capital letters. They are difficult to read and may discourage buyers as they are zipping by the auction listings.

Lucky seven. Although there is no set number of days that is the optimum for all sales, several online sellers say that seven days seemed to be about the right amount of time to give buyers a chance to check out their listings. If you know your item will be popular, you may want a quick auction of about three days. Of course, you run the risk of losing bidders who don't check the auction sites daily. If you need more time to allow more people to see your listing—perhaps it's an item that is only in demand by a couple of users—you may want to opt for 10 or more days. However, you run the risk of discouraging buyers if you make them wait too long for the sale.

Don't get discouraged. If you don't get any bids on your items in the beginning, don't close the auction early. Most bidders wait until the closing hours to make their move. And some services let you relist your item, if it doesn't sell, without charging you to relist it.

Don't be afraid to crop. Make sure your photographs are clear and crop out all the extra background clutter so that only the important information is showing. The photograph should answer most buyers' questions for you. You can include more than one photograph, but don't include more than a couple, or users will get discouraged at how long your listing takes to download. Most buyers don't want to waste too much time on one sale when there are hundreds of other sales they could be checking out.

Buy a digital camera. You can save yourself a lot of time and energy using a digital camera to take your photographs, especially if you sell a lot of items online. You won't need to take your film to the developer or scan it into the computer.

A motto to sell by. Treat every customer as if he were your only one. It's a simple philosophy, but it reminds sellers to be courteous so they don't lose a sale or receive a negative feedback rating.

Use the convenient iShip feature, offered through eBay and Stamps.com, to estimate exactly how much an item would cost to ship to a particular ZIP code.

Shipping costs upfront.If you're selling through eBay, check out the iShip feature provided by Stamps.com (http://www.stamps.com). It creates a link within your auction so buyers can find out the exact amount that the package would cost to ship to them in their area code through the U.S. Postal Service. There's no cost to you as the seller, and it gives buyers a better estimate of what their total cost might be.

Using a blacklist. Is someone with a negative feedback bidding on your sale? Does someone continually bid at your auctions and then never follow-through with payment? Most services allow you to cancel bids from specific bidders (eBay does, for example) or create a blacklist (Yahoo! Auctions allows this).

Experienced sellers advise that you contact these bidders and let them know why you cancelled their bid and ask them not to bid again. Also, send a copy to the site's "Safe Harbor" service to help them provide safer trading experiences.

Mark it all down. If you really want to sell an item badly and it isn't selling, you can always relist the item for a lower price. Or, you can simply take advantage of features such as the Automarkdown at CityAuction (http://www.cityauction.com). Here, you can reduce the price of your items until they all sell.

For Buyers & Sellers.

Personal account features. If you are buying or selling a number of items online, most of the auction spokesmen advise that you set up and use the personal account features that let you track your bids and sales all in one place.

For example, features such as My eBay at eBay let you track all the auctions you are bidding on, items you are merely watching, items you are selling, your recent feedback, account charges, and new and ending-today listings in your favorite categories.

At CityAuction, you can use My Account to keep track of your bids and items for sale, watch for automatic markdowns, show all the items on your watchlist, and keep an eye out for specific items you need through the Auction Agent.

Investigate feedback numbers. Just because someone has a significant number of positive feedback numbers does not mean they are a safe risk. They might have a really good reputation for buying, but may be slow to ship products they are selling. The total number is actually the amount of positive feedback messages they have minus the number of negative messages.

Click the feedback numbers next to a buyer or seller's username to link to how many positive, neutral, or negative feedback messages they have received. Read a few of the messages in the positive or negative lists to see how enthusiastic other users are about doing business with them.

Auctions in reverse. Don't forget upside-down auctions, such as eWanted (http://www.ewanted.com) or iWant.com (http://www.iwant.com). If you're a buyer and have a few weeks before you need an item, you can post a request for an item you need, and it won't cost you a cent. Sellers will come to you and make offers in a competitive, open environment. It's a wonderful option for collectors always looking to add to their collection.

And it's not just for everyday items. You can request services, plane tickets, or unusual items, just to name a few. We've seen requests for vacation guides, puppies, and even antique moose heads. Sellers can respond for reasonable rates. If you act soon, eWanted isn't charging sellers for a limited time. At iWant.com, the cost is about $29.95 a month for unlimited replies. There's also a pay-per-use plan in which you pay $1 per reply. It's really a great tool for dealers of collectibles.

Is it authentic or verified? If you're buying or selling coins or other collectable items, there are services sellers can employ to verify their claims about items for sale online.

Grading services indicate the physical condition of an item from poor to mint condition. Authentication determines if an item is real or not, and how good the authentication is depends on the quality of the authenticators. You might use authentication for something such as a celebrity signature.

Verification services confirm the identity of rare pieces. Some services have Web sites, including the Professional Sports Authenticator (http://www.psacard.com), the Professional Coin Grading Service (http://www.pcgs.com), and the Numismatic Guaranty Corp. (http://www.ngccoin.com).

Beware shillers.Online auction sites have begun gunning for shillers. These sellers create several accounts under different names and use their extra accounts to bid up buyers on their auctions. This activity is not permitted at most online auction services. If you find someone continually making you increase your bid at various online auctions and notice that they only buy from one or two sellers, you might have run into a shiller. Report these cases to the auction services so they can investigate and oust these sellers.

Limit competition. Hate the idea of competing for an item as a bidder or a seller? Visit the zShops at Amazon.com Auctions. Here, the sellers set their prices. When you bid the price the seller asks, you get the product right away.

Or, check out the classified listings at CityAuction. There are no prices listed. The buyer and seller contact one another and decide on a price. In both cases, buyers and sellers have the advantage of seeing feedback ratings to get a better idea of who they are dealing with.

by Cindy Krushenisky

Expert Tips From . . . Kevin Pursglove, eBay

Who knows online auctions better than eBay (http://www.ebay.com), the largest online auction site with more than 4 million auctions listed per day? Kevin Pursglove, senior director of communications at eBay, passed along a number of general tips for buying and selling at online auctions.

List in bold or feature it. If you really want to sell an item, spend an extra buck or two to get as many eyes drawn to it as possible. Listing an item in bold at eBay will cost you $2, but it is more than 50% likely to sell than listings not in bold. To put the item in a pool of products that eBay features at the top of its category listings, you'll pay about $14.95 extra. Even so, items featured at eBay are 66% more likely to sell.

Employing an escrow service. When you are selling a higher-priced item, using an escrow service might encourage more people to bid. Knowing that they have the security of a third-party service to verify that both the payment and product are received properly gives buyers peace of mind.

Make the call. If you still have a question, don't be afraid to pick up the telephone and talk to the buyer or seller. Some people don't check their e-mail every day, and the wait to confirm your sale may make you needlessly worry. Once a deal is closed, eBay can provide phone numbers to buyers and sellers. If you can't reach the person by phone, submit a request to eBay.

Mind your manners. Interacting with your computer might make you forget there is another person at the other end of your e-mail. If you need to contact a bidder or seller, be sure to use proper grammar and write in complete sentences. Also, use a greeting and closing with your messages. Sellers should keep in mind that this person is a potential buyer, so be polite.

Put it on your card. If you're concerned about accepting payments from just anybody, spend a few dollars and sign up to accept credit cards as payment for your items. If you're a buyer, purchase items from a seller that accepts credit cards and take advantage of this option. Credit card companies are a good way to verify that the sale will go through.

Expert Tips From . . . Mark S. Del Vecchio, eWanted

Online auctions aren't the only places to get great deals online. Several reverse auction sites put you in control. Sites such as eWanted (http://www.ewanted.com) are often called upside-down auctions because you request what you want and sellers make offers to you. We talked to Mark S. Del Vecchio, vice president of marketing at eWanted, to find out a few inside tricks to ensure you get exactly what you want.

Be precise. If you're clear and descriptive, you have a better chance to get what you want. Picture going into a computer store and saying "I want a hard drive." A groveling salesman's eyes will roll at this request, and the same is true online. There are questions you should answer upfront. How big of a hard drive? For what type of computer? New or used? What brand do you like? How much are you willing to spend? Providing this information makes transactions much smoother.

Ask the seller questions. Just as sellers need to know what you want, you need to know what they have. Once you receive a bid, read its full description and look at any images that are included. If you want more information, ask the seller a question via e-mail. Besides answering your specific question, sellers might have additional information or pictures they can send you.

Homework? Not again! Avoid buyer's remorse by knowing the worth of the item or service you're looking for and what constitutes a good deal before you accept a seller's bid. Looking at consumer catalogs, visiting local retailers, or browsing through antiques and collectibles guides will help ensure you get a price that's fair.

Cheap can be expensive. The lowest price isn't necessarily the best deal. In collectibles, for example, the condition of a comic book or a baseball card can be key. Although it's tempting to consider bids based solely on price, keep in mind that for many items, the quality or age of the merchandise is much more important than how much it costs.

Expert Tips From . . . Brian Fitzgerald, Yahoo!

Yahoo!, the place many go when they're looking for a specific Web site, is also the place for about 2.5 million auction items. Brian Fitzgerald, producer of Yahoo! Auctions (http://auctions.yahoo.com), offers a number of tips to help bidders and sellers sharpen their skills through the Yahoo! service and at other online auctions in general.

Alerts on the go. Most services send you messages when you've been outbid on an item on their service. At Yahoo! Auctions, you can also set up mobile alerts that will update you through your pager, mobile phone, or personal digital assistant.

Connect with the community. Don't be afraid to talk to other buyers and sellers of auction services. For example, you can take advantage of Yahoo!'s strong community platform, which provides additional tools for checking and becoming comfortable with the seller. These tools include Yahoo! People Search for contact information, Yahoo! Profiles for sellers to provide background information, and Yahoo! Clubs to talk with other auction participants about sellers and related experiences.

Promoting your auctions. With millions of listings to compete with, many sellers opt to pay for higher placement within the category listings. Featured auctions at Yahoo! Auctions appear at the top of the category page, ahead of the regular listings. The cost to do this is at least 25 cents a day; and the more you pay, the higher you are on the list. For an extra $2, you can list your sale in bold at Yahoo! Auctions, or you can pay $1 to place a gift icon next to your listing

Picture this. As basic as it seems, seeing really is believing. Generally, auctions with images have a higher sell-through result.

Use the correct category. Again, this seems like an obvious tip, but many bidders only browse certain categories. So, if for some reason an item appears in the wrong area, potential buyers will miss it.

List in bulk. If you have several auctions to list at once, use Yahoo! Auctions' Bulk Loader to list more than one auction at a time. You'll need to create a .CSV file with a program such as Microsoft Excel. Bulk Loader is available through the My Auctions feature and saves time and energy.

Employing a manager. Yahoo! Auctions' Auction Manager is a simple and effective way to manage all of your auctions in one place. With Auction Manager, you can cancel an auction, close an auction, cancel bids, edit the auction description, or edit your blacklist. The Auction Manager is located through My Auctions.

Want more information about a topic you found of interest while reading this article? Type a word or phrase that identifies the topic and click "Search" to find relevant articles from within our editorial database.

Home Copyright & Legal Information Privacy Policy Site Map Contact Us