eBay: How to price an item to sell on eBay

Are you selling on eBay yet?

In November, I did a post on how to list an item on eBay. But I kind of skipped over the whole how-do-I-know-how-much-my-stuff-should-sell-for part. And I recently did a post on how to ship an item on eBay.

Ye ask. Ye receive.

(For purposes of this picture tutorial I am going to find out how much I should sell a Just Dance 3 for Xbox game.)

Head on over to eBay. And as seen in this picture, click on “Advanced” from the home page. Note: You must have an eBay account to be able to do the advanced searching.

After you click on advanced this window will open. (Fancy highlighting not included.)

This is where all of the magic happens.

In the top keyword box enter the item that you are looking to sell. Simpler is better. But use keywords and be specific. (Eh? Simpler, but specific? Yes!) Click the “COMPLETED LISTINGS” box. This will show you all of the eBay items like this one that have sold/not sold, but the auctions are done. Over. Finished. In other words, this box will allow you to see what the item you want to sell has sold for. And for the star of the show, no pun intended……. click search.

TaDa! All items that show the $ in green font have been sold, and it also says sold. All items that show $ in red did not sell. Make sense?

In the box above, the item highlighted in blue sold for $22.50 and had 15 bids. The item not highlighted was listed at $37.99 and didn’t sell. The item highlighted in green was listed at $29.99 but did not sell. The item highlighted in red sold for $34.99 and had only one bid! All auctions ended on Jan 30th whether the items sold or didn’t sell.

So what does all this mean?

The item highlighted in red sold for the most $, but had only one bid. Sometimes having a lot of bids doesn’t mean a darn thing. (I have a sneaking suspicion that the “top-rated seller” status for the one in red helped out here.)

I would go down the list and see what has sold for the most or what the average price is, I guess. If all of these games are selling on one bid I suggest that you start by listing it high – like the $34 amount. If most of the item is selling on multiple bids start it low and let the bidders decide. This is a delicate balance and sometimes there is no rhyme or reason, just try to think in terms of a buyer.

You can also use this handy-dandy sort button at the top of the window.

There are several sort options to choose from, but I almost always sort on “End Date: recent first” as shown because I want to see what has just sold, not what sold three days before Christmas. You can sort on highest price first, but this will include listings for entire Xbox systems that include the Just Dance 3 game and those sell for a few hundred, or so.

So, once you’ve gone through the list shown above and you decide on a pricing strategy – starting high or starting low – find an item that has sold recently for a good price. And click on the link to go and view the item. Once in there click on the bidding history as below.

Also, take note of whether they are charging a separate amount for shipping, or offering free shipping. I always check out a few different listings that sold (listed in green) to see what worked for them.

When you click on the bid history, a window will pop up and show you the entire history for this specific item. What the seller first listed the item at, and how quickly the item sold. Although you can’t see bidders names you can kind of glean a trend and see how high some people are willing to continue bidding on a specific item. And if you have an item that is in high demand, I would check out a few different listings.

This specific item started at $1.00. And you can see that the person that placed the first bid wasn’t willing to pay more than $18 for the item, right? This window also shows the date and time the bids were placed, it would just take up to much space here on the screenprint.

For this item, *I* would conclude that starting at $.99 or $1 would be ideal. The key to selling successfully on eBay, in my opinion, is being willing to part with items you want to sell. Period.

So…. now that you’re armed and dangerous, what are you going to sell first?

Disclaimer: I am a member of the eBay Parent Panel and this post is sponsored by eBay.