If you sell on eBay, chances are at some point you have asked yourself this simple question:
“How much should I charge for my products on eBay?”
This is a great question. After all, the prices you charge will directly impact your bottom line (profits). There is a general rule when it comes to selling something. It goes like this: “The true value of an item is the price a person is willing to pay.” GREAT! So what does that mean exactly? It simply means this: eBay is a great place to buy and sale. Sometimes you will find that some products don’t do well, and you will have to lower the price to get rid of it. Other items, however, may actually sell for far more than you would think. But I am jumping the gun a bit. Let me back up and just talk about the products you can sell.
First, there are 2 kinds of basic kinds of products a person or business can sell on eBay.
- You can sell other people’s products (in the form of wholesale inventory that they buy from distributors or manufacturers).
- You can make/create your own product and sell it (such as your own scripts, jewelry, software, eBooks, etc.).
These are both a great way to make money. In fact, you may want to use both methods, as many individuals often do to make the most money possible. I would like to first discuss the first method-which is reselling other people’s products. So how much should you charge for your merchandise that you purchased at wholesale or closeout prices.
The great thing about selling other people’s products (wholesale merchandise), is that there will usually be many other sellers selling the same thing. Of course, the competition isn’t good, but the information and statistics you can gather are GREAT!
When an item is purchased, you can use eBay to find out the price a person paid. You do this using the good old “completed items” search. This is a feature built right into eBay.
So you have a wholesale product, and for this example, let’s say it is a Dell Laptop Computer Model XPS M170 . What you can do is go to eBay, and type into the search bar “Dell Laptop Computer XPS M170.” It will then pull up all active auctions with those keywords. As a side note, if it doesn’t pull it up, you may want to tweak your keywords or take a couple out of the search.
Then, scroll down to the left link menu on eBay, and you will see a link that says “Completed Items.” Click that link (you have to be signed into eBay), and it will then pull up all the completed listings for the Dell XPS Laptop. You can then see if they are selling well, and the final prices when sold.
This is one of the number one tools you will use on eBay, and it is totally free! I use it all the time as a guide to help me determine how much to sell wholesale items for.
Base Your Retail Prices on eBay’s Completed Item Search:
Okay, so you have seen the prices on eBay’ search at this point. This is pretty accurate to help you decide how much you should charge for your items. But it isn’t a 100% accurate thing. I have often sold items for much more than other sellers on eBay. I have also seen demand drop and I had to sell an item for less than other completed items. So it isn’t totally accurate all the time.
But here is a tip of what I tend to do when I price my items. Let’s say I have a Dell Laptop (XPS). I will go and look at the prices. They will probably vary. Some of the prices may look like this on eBay’s Completed item search: $850, $799, $740, $900, $650, $600.
So I will say to myself, “Okay, I see at least one time someone got $900 out of it.” And if I can get a good profit, I will try to sell it for the highest price of the completed items. But to make sure I get as much as possible, I will really spend a lot of time on the listing, and make it look better and more professional than the other people. I will also do a few tricks (I will tell more tricks later in these posts) on how I will get more buyers to my eBay listing.
This will often depend on how hot the item is, and how many I have to sell. If I have a big lot of them (say 100), I may lower the price to entice more sales so I can hurry and buy the newer models. Otherwise, I will keep it at the high price and see if it sells soon. If the item doesn’t sell within a week or so, I may give it another go. If it still doesn’t sell, I will probably check the completed items again to see if demand has changed. I may lower it to $850. Or maybe I will feature the listing or put more marketing into it. It really just depends.
But if you have a wholesale item, you can generally find the prices people are willing to pay by searching completed items. Again, you might be surprised to see that you paid $99 for an item locally, yet it is selling very well for $249 on eBay! It happens, and I love it when that happens! At the same time, you may see some items sell for $199 locally, but it is only selling for $99 on eBay. Prices vary. Always check the completed items to see if demand is tight and you can get above market value for your items!
If the item you are selling is a brand new product, and there is no completed items data (since sellers have not yet listed an item like that), you can just compare other retail sites like amazon.com, walmart.com, etc. See what they are charging and if you can compete with them. Generally people markup their retail prices 50%-100%, or in some cases just double the price. So if they paid $49.99, they hope to sell it easily for $99.99.
How Much to Charge for Your Own eBook, Software, or Home-made Items:
if you created your own product (such as an eBook, software script, candles, jewelry, clothing, CD’s, etc.), then you not have such an easy way finding the price. This is both good and bad. The good news is you won’t have as much direct competition (since you are the only one selling your EXACT item). The bad news is that you will have to use some clever keywords and marketing, or else people may never buy your item.
I have sold several home-made items before (ranging from digital items such as eBooks or websites, all the way to wooden crafts). What I usually do is simply look at other people selling similar items. Maybe others are selling eBooks online for $9.99-99.99- in that case, price it according to what you think it is actually worth. This doesn’t have to be set in stone. You can start by charging $19.99. If it sells well, try increasing the price. If it doesn’t sell well, try lowering the price. Trial and error is one of the best ways to find out the proper price to charge.
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Posted under Business Tips, Making Money, eBay
This post was written by Ben on April 29, 2009
