posted on March 26, 2005 08:27:48 PM new
It's really hard to tell about any given day or holiday. Sometimes I think it depends on what you're selling; if you're selling to, say, young mothers - or fathers, they probably have a family day planned for Easter. The rest of us, retired or whatever, see most holidays as another day unless we're going somewhere to spend time with family. It may be that young men - or single men in particular - will bid anytime.
I've had nothing up for sale in about a month, too busy with other things, but I wouldn't have ended auctions on Easter night. JMHO
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posted on March 26, 2005 08:33:40 PM new
Rozrr...I usually try to avoid ending an auction on certain holidays, primarily because I'm such a stickler for getting an EOA out as soon as an auction ends, I don't want to bother with it when we have company from out of town. I like to have auctions running during the holiday though. I notice quite an upturn of hits on those days. Also, I would be a little leery of having items listed in the breweriana category ending on a religious holiday. I often list in that category also, and feel that a good many potential bidders may feel uncomfortable bidding on those days, especially if they have family or friends present who may disapprove of their collections. OTH, that category should do great on Labor Day, Memorial Day and 4th of July weekends.
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
posted on March 26, 2005 08:55:45 PM new
Roadsmith, Sparkz
Thanks for the comments.
Sparkz - What I might do is to go through the remaining cans and create a lot of auctions for the weeks before and after Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.
I thought this would still be a good weekend because a lot of people were off work on Friday and had a long weekend - would bid not necessarily on Sunday but on Thursday night through Saturday. That ain't happening
I used to have a good sense of the beer can market, on the first round between May of 2002 and October of 2003. Then I switched gears and did other things for a while.
Now, I'm having a hard time getting back into the mindset to scope out this category. Maybe I'm just getting tired. The first half of the cans are already done, and I'm having a hard time getting energized for the second. Some good auctions and I'd get my mojo back.
The market for these cans seems different now in ways I can't quite "get."
posted on March 26, 2005 09:17:37 PM new
One more thought to add to the mix here:
BookThink's editor told us booksellers a couple of months ago to quit hanging onto our "valuable old" books. He says, and I'm sure he's right, that they'll never be worth more than they are right now, on the market. That someone sold one for a good heap of money a while back, probably, and others saw that their copy would sell and listed them, glutted the market so to speak. We're urged to just get what we can out of them.
I think I've seen this a lot in the collectibles area. Someone lists a plate, for example, and it sells. Ten others who are researching to see what their identical plate is worth see that the first one sold and list their plates. Now there are 10 plates up for sale. At this point, if I'm researching that plate, I might be tempted to hold it a while longer--but it just might be smarter to unload it.
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posted on March 26, 2005 09:23:42 PM new
Rozrr...Breweriana items do especially well before Christmas and Father's day. Hype them up as great gift ideas. The wives and kids will scarf them up.
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
posted on March 26, 2005 09:31:33 PM new
Roadsmith,
It used to be that I read the listings in the beer can section every day, and it always was the Tower of Babble with a low sell-through rate, but I was able to form some pretty good instincts about what would sell or not sell at the moment. Previously, I did 90 auctions, 83 sold, and 66 had multiple bidders.
I would create and store auctions in Vendio, and when I saw multiple bidders for a particular can or set, I'd launch.
I wouldn't necessarily follow your friend's advice because I've seen the same cycle over and over - someone has a hot auction for a particular set - so boom, a bunch of other people launch the same item - the sale prices go lower and lower until it stops selling - and then people stop listing. Then, when that particular can or set hasn't been in the market for 30 or 60 days, that's the time to list. There are always new people signing up for eBay - or, at least there were previously.
So I wouldn't necessarily list those older books you're talking about if the market doesn't feel right to you right now. If you have an eBay store with fixed prices - maybe. But I wouldn't do auctions if I felt the odds of selling were off right now. Too easy to spend too much in fees without enough of a return.
posted on March 27, 2005 04:18:00 AM new
I think it's the weekend. I've had ONE MEASLEY SALE since Thursday night and it was overnight last night. $5.00. That's it. This past week I had a decent week and then i have this.
posted on March 27, 2005 08:48:40 AM new
It might be because you have 6 items up for auction. I don't think that is enough of a sampling to determine if it is being affected by Easter or not. There are just too many random factors that could be the reason why 6 items aren't being viewed very much.
posted on March 27, 2005 09:05:27 AM new
I find that using the 10 day auction and starting before the holiday weekend works. I have good counts during the Holiday. I only use the 10 day option at these times, as in some catagories closing on a Holiday can be less profitable.
posted on March 27, 2005 12:26:25 PM new
I seem to be having a great weekend. I only listed 11 items this week and they all end tonight - Easter Sunday. All but 2 items have bids right now and lots and lots of watchers - one item has about 20 watchers (of course we all know that can mean squat).
Roadsmith - I think the comment about books is true, but I'd also say it's true of most things on eBay nowadays (unless it is a rare item). I once sold a book for $650 on eBay and occasionally I look to see what it's getting now and it only gets about $150. I like to call it "over-saturation" of common items on eBay. Anyone and everyone can sell on eBay and nothing seems too hard to find now. We used to say (not to be too crude), "You could put a turd on eBay and someone would buy it" but that's not the case anymore - well, unless of course it's in the shape of some religious icon.
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Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. ~
posted on March 28, 2005 04:09:52 AM new
This was officially the worst weekend I've ever had. I had TWO stinking $5 sales. That's it. That has never happened to me.
I can only assume that this week will be better. It certainly can't be much worse.
posted on March 28, 2005 04:14:45 AM new
I don't end items too often on Sunday anymore especially with warm weather coming up. Who wants to spend a beautiful spring Sunday indoors? That is, if we ever have a beautiful spring-like Sunday. We're still waiting here.
posted on March 28, 2005 06:49:52 AM new
It wasn't the best weekend for me either - still had sales just not at the pace I have been enjoying lately. I usually can tell how sales will be by the number of FB posted each day. I only had 3 users post FB yesterday. Not a very scientific gauge but kind of an indication of how many are online and on ebay.
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Just making sure the "SMILIE" thread doesn't die (we all could use SMILIES every now and again! http://www.vendio.com/mesg/read.html?num=2&thread=187440&id=187440
posted on March 28, 2005 02:56:33 PM new
Well, it's the day after, and 4 of my 5 auctions from yesterday went pfffffttttttt ....zero watchers, zero bidders. The one that did sell had just the one bidder, who bid within 24 hours of the listing.
The sixth and last for tonight - looks like another clunker.
I just looked through the closed auctions for last night. Not that great in the beer can section, though there were some good auctions. So the segment overall wasn't "up" for the holiday weekend, and the listing level was sort of middling.
But I still think I need to do something better.
This latest round, going back to January 30th, I'm 50/50 - 8 sold, 8 didn't, and of the 8 that sold, 4 had more than one bidder, but for just another 50 cents - $1.50.
Before, when everything was still at my parent's house in NJ, I used to create a lot of auctions and then list more simultaneously so I could go out to NJ and pack and ship a lot in one shot. Now that everything's home, it's easier to do small segments or one-off auctions. If they sold this way, it would be easier on me.
So, I guess I'll create more "inventory" and list more auctions in multiple segments over multiple nights. I hate to go too long in-between auctions - it takes me time to do these - but I think it will work better (I hope).
Also, I hope the market will be better once the warm weather hits and it's more spring-like. What was true in previous years is that the market seemed to get better as the weather got better. Maybe there's a correlation between beer can collecting and beer drinking
posted on March 29, 2005 06:01:17 AM new
Roz - Did you have a lot of repeat buyers? Maybe you did so well before because you were a consistent market presence. People probably took you off their favorite sellers' list when you stopped selling beer cans. Now that you are "back" it could take awhile to get established again. I wonder if an email campaign (or is that considered spamming) targeted at your former clients (letting them know that you are selling beer cans again) would give your auctions the nudge they need.
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Just making sure the "SMILIE" thread doesn't die (we all could use SMILIES every now and again! http://www.vendio.com/mesg/read.html?num=2&thread=187440&id=187440
posted on March 29, 2005 07:55:40 AM new
Helga, ebay looked pretty dead all around this weekend. Not too much activity going on in the normally pretty hopping catagories. It must have been the holiday. I hope it picks up this week too.
Good point. After I switched gears and started with the model railroading library, a couple of the beer can buyers emailed me and asked whether I'd be doing more cans. I told them I was going to do something else for a while, but would notify them when I got back to doing more of the cans. But they're not active in the beer can segment anymore. The whole cast of characters seems to have changed. I recognize only 2 or 3 sellers, and I've yet to see a familiar name from among the buyers - not just my auctions, but others.
eBay is like that.
Helga - I made $4.99, so you're 1 cent ahead of me
Of course, if you take out all of the fees on six auctions with five duds ..
