Buy it Now - Timeframe for selling, how long to keep listed?

coinbug

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Jul 22, 2013
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For lower value items I've been reluctant to renew after a couple of months or so. Maybe that's a mistake? Do people just keep - I hate to say it but I will - junk on eBay forever or until it sells?

For higher value items, I figure that it'll take longer to sell. But when should I throw in the towel and send it to a physical auction?

The higher end stuff I'm pretty happy to keep; the lower end stuff I'd be fine to drop it off at the recycling center, but I wonder whether there is a best practice about keeping things listed.
 

trdhrdr007

Bronze Member
Nov 1, 2009
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I've got a basic store and get 250 BIN & 250 auctions free every month. I have probably 150 items of varying prices that have been listed (BIN) for months. These are items I thought would sell quickly that didn't. I do go through them every few months & end some.
 

AlienLifeForm

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Jan 31, 2010
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I do good til cancelled, and just let 'er ride. If an item sells locally, then ill remove it but otherwise it stays. I haven't had anything sit too terribly long with price drops.
 

HistoryTeacher

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Mar 9, 2017
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I've got a basic store and get 250 BIN & 250 auctions free every month. I have probably 150 items of varying prices that have been listed (BIN) for months. These are items I thought would sell quickly that didn't. I do go through them every few months & end some.

I too have a basic store. My biggest problem is keeping enough inventory posted. I sell on ebay as a hobby and a way to get a little spending money for the kids' birthdays and Christmas. If I get close to my 250 limits then I would think about taking some of my "junk" offline. Otherwise, if I think there is a chance it will one day sell and I can make a little money on it and it doesn't cost me anything to keep it up, then why not keep it up? I've sold a few things that I've had up for well over a year.
 

trdhrdr007

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Nov 1, 2009
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I don't have any problem using up the 250 BIN listings. Once something is listed it can sit until I'm tired of looking at it. I've never used up the 250 auction listings.
 

blacksheep4289

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Aug 21, 2014
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Personally I go with a 4 week option... Or try to anyways. First week I list it with a higher end average of the bin obo. Next week I drop it by 10%. Following week another 10%. The next week I drop it another 5%. By this point its usually below average selling and will sell. In the event it doesn't sell this week it goes to a $1 auction. I typically buy everything at garage sales and don't have much invested in my items so in the end I'm still coming out ahead.
 

Paleo_joe

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Mar 5, 2011
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I don't like inventory. It gets lost, it gets damaged, it ties money up (even if just a small amount). At the most I'll have 20 bin listings, but I try to keep them $100+ items. If they won't sell after a week or two, I'll pull them and either wait for a better time or find a plan B for selling. I always want fresh items. Something that has been for sale for months, I think can make a buyer wonder why.
 

Beachkid23

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Oct 26, 2013
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So for a while now I've had about 350 listings at a time. Watched the Hurricane hit Houston and said I never wanted to be in that position. Last week I got in the van with 2 of my kids and my wife and daughter took a separate car and we drove from South Florida to South Carolina. Two different vehicles because I had a ton of stuff I didn't want to lose in a cat 5 storm which was predicted to hit Fort Myers. Over 250 pounds of jewelry, the good, the bad and ugly. And for the first two days that's all I worried about was my crap. We stopped in places in the middle of nowhere and I had $35,000+ worth of jewelry in my car. Now, Being home and looking back I could have seriously put my family at risk. It won't happen again. My stuff will get sold on auction, or buy it now prices are getting set lower. I'm not doing this again.

I'm currently running 47 auctions this week and the bids are around $1000. It's time to cut losses and get the money. This week has been too much for me. I'm so overwhelmed. I'm at a huge loss in sales for the month and nowhere where I want to be. I'm not sure if anything I wrote helps. But me venting feels a little bit better and I needed to get some of this out. Sorry if this was a waist. But really has been an eye opening week.
 

WhiteTornado

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Jun 18, 2013
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So for a while now I've had about 350 listings at a time. Watched the Hurricane hit Houston and said I never wanted to be in that position. Last week I got in the van with 2 of my kids and my wife and daughter took a separate car and we drove from South Florida to South Carolina. Two different vehicles because I had a ton of stuff I didn't want to lose in a cat 5 storm which was predicted to hit Fort Myers. Over 250 pounds of jewelry, the good, the bad and ugly. And for the first two days that's all I worried about was my crap. We stopped in places in the middle of nowhere and I had $35,000+ worth of jewelry in my car. Now, Being home and looking back I could have seriously put my family at risk. It won't happen again. My stuff will get sold on auction, or buy it now prices are getting set lower. I'm not doing this again.

I'm currently running 47 auctions this week and the bids are around $1000. It's time to cut losses and get the money. This week has been too much for me. I'm so overwhelmed. I'm at a huge loss in sales for the month and nowhere where I want to be. I'm not sure if anything I wrote helps. But me venting feels a little bit better and I needed to get some of this out. Sorry if this was a waist. But really has been an eye opening week.

After a while, all of that inventory and stuff can just get to be a burden. At some point, you're better off just letting it go and getting what you can for it. I think you have a good plan in place now :icon_thumleft:
 

trdhrdr007

Bronze Member
Nov 1, 2009
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Not a good idea to keep that kind of thing in the car while traveling......or at home when you aren't. Being in business means you have to keep a certain amount of inventory. I try not to let the small, valuable, & portable items pile up. Things like jewelry & sterling gets resold pretty quickly unless I'm keeping it in which case it's in the safe deposit box. The rest of my inventory isn't something that your garden variety thief would recognize as being worth anything. I'd have a big loss if my house burned down but I don't worry about theft.
 

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