ebay. ratio of watchers to bidders

your experiences of selling on ebay please.

currently selling bike as per for sale section.

There's loads of watchers but as yet no bids.
How many of the watchers tend to be serious buyers?
10%
20%?

4 have been in touch to ask questions.

are the other 40 just voyeurs?

depends on the start price
low start plenty of dreamers also people looking to sell there bike and seeing the sort ov cash there going for
high start more serious bidders genrally

I would say the lower figure 10%
When I sold my Mountain Bike I had over 80 watchers, only about 8 users had a bid though.

Starting low does get more watchers but this is quite good as you will get people having a punt.

The perceived worth of something goes up when we think someone else wants it and thus creates an increasing cycle. I read a book on persuasive selling and they looked at ebay starting prices compared to the final sale price. Low starting prices yielded 15% more than those closer to the actual worth of a product.

ah, so you mean i've ballsed up by starting at 2 grand.

oh well, it's stopped the inevitable "what's your reserve" questions.

Just get questions saying 'will you take £1500?'

well, if the starting price is £2000, what do you think?!

Thanks all

When I am sniffing out the finer truffles on eBay , I will watch loads of items to see what they go for generally . Some of the stuff I have sold has had loads of watchers with a bidding war only starting in the last 5 minutes of the Sale ...... usually with one of the watchers swooping in at the last second to snipe it from under the others noses . Can be quite a nice surprise when it goes a bit doolally . I had a guitar on there that was at £380 for the last few seconds , when I clicked refresh it had jumped to £990 . There was a loud thud that night , then I wound my jaw back in

Hard to say really. I had 31 watchers and only two bids, then over 45 watchers and 14 bids. I often watch stuff to see the going rate though, with no intention of bidding.

[SoulKiss]

As mentioned its all psycological.

The only way to deal with buying on ebay in auction sales (I tend to stick to Buy-it-Now), is to really think about how much your maximum bid is, then put that into the system and then just wait for the email in your inbox telling you whether you won it or not.

I usually wait til the last 10 seconds and whang my max I am willing to pay on it , If I get outbid then fair enough ....... sets my heart racing rather than just sticking a bid on it and letting it run LOL ..... sad I know

[maviczap]

I don't bid until the last minute and I don't tend to fuss too much about no bids until the last few hours.

The best times statistically to end items are Thursday and Sunday afternoons,the latter is my preffered end day

Big money items should be listed for 10days I think.