I’ve never tried selling on eBay. How does it work if you don’t get a decent price; do you have to sell it?
The main options are:
1. 'normal' auction that runs for a set time and the highest bidder wins, regardless of how low the winning bid is
2. set a reserve value and run the auction
3. set a 'Buy it now' price as well as run a normal auction
I picked option 1, which means your question is correct - I sell it regardless of how low the winning bid is.
If you start your auction with a low starting price you'll get a lot of bids and attention, which might help with the final price.
This one is scary but very final.
Option 2 let's you set a reserve price, so if the bidding doesn't reach that reserve, you keep the item. eBay will still charge you of course.
That's fine but it does tend to dampen down the bidding, because bidders don't know the reserve price (other than it says 'you've not met the reserve price'). That's quite annoying for them. It does exclude some of the chancers, of course.
Option 3 in effect tells everyone what you think the item is worth, and again, it may dampen initial bidding. I believe the 'Buy it now' price disappears as soon as a normal bid is placed, but I could be wrong. The risk is if your 'Buy it now' price is so high no one bothers bidding, or too low that someone buys straight away, and you lose out on the 'market' value that an auction shold give you.
Since I've already put it on Autotrader and failed to sell it, I have in effect done Option 3 and my 'Buy it now' price was too high.
So feel free to bid, Andy!
