Equally, there are people who have hundreds of the same item and don't want to sell them individually. This email gives you an overview of the different kinds of auctions and how to spot them.
Normal Auctions
These are the bread-and-butter of eBay, the auctions everyone knows: you bid, others outbid you, you outbid them, and the winner gets the item. Simple.
Reserve Auctions
Reserve auctions are for sellers who don't want their items to sell for less than a certain price ? a concept you'll know about if you're familiar with real auctions.
They work just like normal auctions on eBay, except that you will be told if your bid has not met the reserve price set by the seller.
If no-one is willing to meet this price, then the auction is cancelled, and the seller keeps the item.
You can spot these auctions by looking out for ?Reserve not met? or ?Reserve met? written next to the current bid on an item's description page.
Fixed Price (?Buy it Now?)Auctions
Buy it Now auctions can work in one of two ways. A seller might add a Buy it Now button to a normal auction, meaning that you can choose either to bid normally or to simply pay the asking price and avoid the whole bidding process.
Some sellers, though, now cut out the auction process altogether and simply list all their items at fixed price. Recently, eBay added a twist to fixed price auctions: the ?best offer?.
This means that you can negotiate a price to someone who offers their items using Buy it Now, which could be a great way to get a bargain on things that don't seem to be selling.
Fixed price auctions are easy to spot, as they have a little ?Buy it Now? logo either next to or instead of the current number of bids on the search listings page.
Multiple Item Auctions
These are auctions where a seller is selling more than one of a certain item. Dutch auctions can be done by 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 don't worry ? everyone else does too! These auctions are 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: a multiple-item fixed price auction. This just means that they say how many they have, and offer them at a fixed price. You can enter how many you want and then just click Buy it Now to get them.
After all this, you might find yourself facing a dilemma: when you have the option, should you bid, or should you just use Buy it Now and save yourself the hassle?
The online auction pioneer eBay originated in sunny San Jose, California on September 3rd, 1995 by French born Iranian Pierre Omidyar. Launching as an imprint of AuctionWeb, Omidyar's personal website, the trading post was among Pierre's other musings, such as a witty tribute to the ebola virus. Growing quickly, AuctionWeb's bidding site branched out in to eBay shortly after its' inception, and was dubbed as such after Mr. Omidyar attempted to register the company's domain as Echo Bay Technologies, and found this was unavailable. Shortened to eBay, the company was poised for exponential growth, hiring both its' first employee and first president a year after it went live.
A broken laser pointer, bought for $14.82 USD was the first product purchased on eBay. Upon seeing this transaction, Pierre contacted the buyer, alerting him that this product was currently not functioning. The buyer responded, "I'm a collector of broken laser pointers". And from there, the website began. In the early stages, it was rumored that eBay began as a way for Omidyar to help his fiance enrich her PEZ candy dispenser collection. Yet, in 2002 it was revealed in Adam Cohen's The Perfect Store that this was merely a story concocted by a public relations manager in 1997 in order to gain more media attention to the website.
One may find just about anything they should need on the internet auction block, including musical gear. The list ranges from oboes to French horns, music stands to notation paper, and far beyond. Quite often, much sought after defective or out of circulation gear will retail for obscene prices, as demand for these few and far between pieces are rather high. Regardless, the fess associated with such gear, brought on by listing costs, eBay percentages, and shipping, may make it not seem worth the transaction.
As it stands, there are 161, 814 pieces of music equipment listed on eBay. Were the average price of the products to work out to $500 USD, the gross amount changing hands would work out to $80,907,000 USD. When the consumer checks out using PayPal, a subsidiary of eBay, the payment service charges the vendor roughly 3%, leaving PayPal with $2,427,210 USD. Depending on where the transaction took place - United States or internationally, the percentage taken by PayPal may be slightly higher or lower.
eBay charges its' vendors an insertion fee of $3.00 USD for listings which start between $200 and $500 USD. The final value will be 8.75% of the initial $25 USD, which works out to $2.19 USD, with an additional 3.50% taken from the closing value balance on auctions ending between $25.01 and $1,000 USD. Ergo, their net take amounts to $54, 722,549.48, and breaks down as follows. 161,814 musical products multiplied by $2.19 USD for the initial insertion fee works out to $354,372.66 USD. The remainder of the $475.00 USD multiplied by 3.50% for the closing value balance equals $16.63 USD, multiplied by 161,814 listings amounts to $2,690,966.82. Add that to the insertion fee total, this figure boils down to $3,045,399.48 USD. On top of this, PayPal's fees amount to $2,427,210, arriving at our net of $54,722,549.48 USD.
To list your instrument or music product on the site as a seller could work out to your disadvantage. eBay, from the start, will rake in upwards of ten percent of your closing price. This is in addition to the flat fee of three dollars which they charge you in order to host the product on their auction block. And if your buyer chooses to check out with PayPal, you are now out another three to four percent. Add all these hidden costs up, sellers are out roughly fifteen percent on what their product sold for.
As a purchaser, it may not be worth it to grab your gear from the auction website eBay. For one, you lose out on experiencing the instrument. Each instrument, be manufactured in the same plant on the same day, has a different feel. Each product has a different timbre and playability, and purchasing your instrument on the website may strip you of this initial experience with your instrument. Moreover, there is the ever present fear your product may be damaged in transit, alongside shipping costs, which are set by seller, and may be escalated to cover the costs put on to the seller by the company.
Both Gregg Hall & Gear Monkey are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Gregg Hall has sinced written about articles on various topics from Lingerie, Desserts and Mortgage. Gregg Hall is a business consultant for online and offline businesses and lives in Navarre Florida. Get more tips on at. Gregg Hall's top article generates over 3350000 views. to your Favourites.
Gear Monkey has sinced written about articles on various topics from How to Sell on Ebay. Do not pay pay to host any of your on Ebay! Check out Gear-Vault for the latest. Gear Monkey's top article generates over 2400 views. to your Favourites.