Marlin's Ebay Tips 4 To Beginner's Guide to the Various eBay Auction Types.

Over the years, eBay has introduced all sorts of different auction types, in an effort to offer people more options when they buy and sell their things on eBay.

For every single seller who doesn't like taking that approach that their item might sell for just a far lower price than they intend, there's another who wants to shift hundreds of the similar item quickly. eBay tries to compliment all tastes. This email gives you an overview of the different kinds of auctions and their advantages to suit your needs.

Normal Auctions.

These are your bread-and-butter of eBay, the auctions everyone should know: buyers bid, others outbid all of them, they bid again, and the winner offers the item. Simple.

Reserve Auctions.

Reserve auctions are for suppliers who don't want their items to sell for just a certain price - a notion you'll know about if you're informed about real auctions. They work the same as normal auctions on eBay, except that this buyer will be told if their bid will not meet the reserve price a person set, and they'll need to bid again when they want the item. If no-one is prepared meet your price, then your auction is cancelled, and you keep the item.

Fixed Price ('Buy the idea Now') Auctions.

Buy it Now auctions can work in 1 of 2 ways. You can add a Buy it Now button to some normal auction, meaning that buyers can decide on either to bid normally or simply pay the asking price and steer clear of the whole bidding process. Several sellers, though, now cut out the auction process altogether and just list all their items at fixed price. This lets you avoid the many complications of the auction format and just list your items for the amount of you want them to promote for.

Recently, eBay added any twist to fixed price sales: the 'best offer'. This means that buyers can contact you to negotiate a price, which could be a easy way to get sell some extra stock for a small discount. The only downside to pre-book and fixed price auctions is which you pay a small extra fee to work with these formats. In general, it is more worth employing reserve auctions for higher-priced goods and fixed price auctions regarding lower-priced ones - but remember that you can combine the two formats.

Many Item ('Dutch') Auctions.

These are auctions which you could sell more than one of a certain item. Dutch auctions is possible by bidding. Buyers bid a price and say how many items they demand, and then everyone pays the best price that was bid by one of the winning bidders. If you have trouble taking your head around that, then don't worry - everyone else does too! These auctions are extremely rare.

What is more common is when a seller has lots of one item, and lists it using a mix of two auction types: a multiple-item preset price auction. This just means that you can just say how many from the item you they have, and offer them at a fixed cost per unit. Buyers can enter what number of they want and then just click Buy it Now to have them.

Now that you know about the several types of auctions, you should make sure that the items you plan to market don't violate eBay's listing policies. The next email will inform you about what's allowed and what is usually a big no-no.

Blog Owner,

Marlin Carter