Questions about Selling on eBay

[Kenny]

Hello Mods and Mems,

I have never sold anything on eBay, never even tried.

1)When selling sites or names, what is thier %?
2)What does it cost to list?
3)If there is a reserve and it is not met, what are the options?
4)What is the best time of day to have the auction close?
5)How long to list for?
6)What is the highest amount ever sold for a domain?

And any other tips would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Peace,
Cyberian

 

[Keral_Patel]

Humm.... I would also like to hear some opinions on this one.

 

[kev]

Hello Mods and Mems,

I have never sold anything on eBay, never even tried.

1)When selling sites or names, what is thier %?
2)What does it cost to list?
3)If there is a reserve and it is not met, what are the options?
4)What is the best time of day to have the auction close?
5)How long to list for?
6)What is the highest amount ever sold for a domain?

And any other tips would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Peace,
Cyberian

1) I believe they take away a percentage depending on how much it is sold for. I think it is 3% but i may be wrong.
2) Listing fees also vary but they can be up to $5 if you list a name for sale for say $900 but it is about $1 if you start at 99 cents or something
3) A percentage is charged based on the reserve you set. Im not sure about the actual fee though
4) Best time to close is during the evening when everyone is off from work (i.e. maybe 6pm)
5) The best period is 5 days as you dont want to make it too long as some people may lose interest and too short may mean all potential buyers dont see your listing
6) The highest ive seen is advertising.eu which "sold" for $165,000 (reserve not met). These high sales seldom happen but the usual maximum is about $2000-$3000 for a 3 letter .com. On a personal level, the most ive ever sold a domain on ebay for is $400.

I think it is best to list your low quality names on ebay as higher value names dont tend to get too many bids
:imho: Plus, it is necessary to build up an element of trust with the buyer to show your a reliable domain seller, so you may have to sell a few names for below there market value to build up feedback. Once you have about 10 or more feedbacks for domain sales, you may be able to get good prices for some of your other names (e.g. if someone with zero feedback listed a domain for $500, an interested buyer would be reluctant to be involved with this person as there is a chance they could do a runner)

Hope this helps!
Kevin

 

[Earthian]

1)
Final Value Fees (+ Listing Upgrade Fees further down the page)
Final Value Fees (for stores) (+ Listing Upgrade Fees further down the page)


2)
Insertion Fees
Insertion Fees (for stores)


3) If the reserve is not met ... you have no obligation to sell the item (self-explanatory) ...
... but you can send a second-chance-offer to the highest non-winning buyer ...
(Reserve Fees further down the page)


4) Most people suggest 18:00 to 21:00 Pacific Time (after-work hours for the US)


5) I think 7 days is the best , because it covers the whole cycle , ie. some people might eBay on weekdays , while some other on the weekend etc ...
1 or 3 days might get way less exposure , but might also be good for a fast sale , especially if the days are chosen carefully
10 days might get a little more exposure that 7 , but people might regard the auction as ending to far in the future and eventually forget about it ...


6) I think I saw a couple of low $XXX,XXXs in the past ...











browse around the domain category for a number of days to get a feel of the market and of what gets bid and what gets sold (and at what prices)


spend some time in the help pages to become more familiar with the rules


eBay has the potential for many sales and for high-profile sales (for very premium names) ... but ... currently it is a rather tough market for domains , mostly occupated by domainers and resellers , therefore the prices that can currently be achieved are rather low ... of course that doesn't mean that there aren't domains sold for good prices (eg. LLL.coms for low-mid $X,XXX) or that good domains won't sell for good prices ... Basically , I think it should be advertised more to end users (eg. corporations) and people should stop posting junk at crazy prices ($Xmil to $XXmil) which over-floads the market ...


a good feedback number (like kev also said) is very important so as to build trust


I think it is better to spend some money on fees (eg. on unsold high-priced domains) until you get familiar with the territory , than to "cry" over a good domain that sold for $3.50 because you started it low (and without a reserve) and everybody was sleeping at end time , was at the beach (summer sometimes seems a little slow internet-speaking , which is quite logical) or was celebrating a public holiday ... and therefore AFK (away from keyboard) ...


a high starting price might end up without any bids ... while reserves many times scare people off , because most people know how many over-appraisers-for-their-own-domains are out there ...


if a domain was not sold at a rather good price for that name , or while being listed with a end-user-price ... that does not necessarily mean that it does not worth that much ... it just means that the people that saw it would not spend that much on it or that mostly domainers (/resellers) saw it taht didn't see a margin for profit ...


featured listings are highly recommended to get attention ... non-
featured listings get veeery limited attention (unless from a buyer that gets traffic in his listings anyway) ... most listings (featured or not) get some attention near ending time from people looking for bargains by choosing "Sort by: 'Time: ending soonest'" ...


some people decide to sell some domains in low prices (in the beginning) so as to attract customers and create a "brand" as a seller ... a technique that usually works quite well ...


like any business , selling on eBay needs ... awareness of the market ... good thinking ... alertness ... and constant development ...











ooooof ... I wrote so much I think I'll put it in an eBook and sell it on eeeBay

 

[AdoptableDomains]

I sold domains on ebay until about 3-4 years ago. Considering the fact that only a very small pecentage sell in 7 days, it often took 3-4 listing of a domain to sell it. This meant that you needed to get at least $100 to break even on fees and the effort. I disagree that low quality domains are best to sell on ebay. I think High quality domains are better if the reserve or prices asked are reasonable. It's fairly easy to justify spending $200 in repetetive listing fees over weeks if you sales price is $2,000, but hard to do if offers are less than $50.

One thing I did find when selling there was that "domains" isn't necessarily the best place to list them. You generally just attract other domain traders looking for bargains. You'll probably do better also listing in the category of the end user or sellers of what the domain is about. If you domain were something like PDAsoftware.tld, then it may sell higher if listed under PDA's or handheld computers. This is where you might have it seen by an end user who would develop the domain rather than just try to resell at a higher price. I'd say very few people looking to start a website would actually look on ebay to find a domain for their subject, but might see it and buy if they are in the field and just happen to run across it in their daily course of business.

 

[JMJ]

Irritated every time I get my ebay bill since it's generally more than I made.. And it's not just domains. I sold a car which I bought at wholesale for less than I paid for it once and ate the astronomical ebay fee's aswell. I would have been better off selling it locally.

 

[Kenny]

Time and info appreciated from all, thanks.

Any other thoughts or tips are still welcome.

Peace ~

 

[equity78]

I think highest reported sale on EBAY was whatsmyip.com I think it was over $300,000 will check DN JOurnal, it was a site not just a domain. I think your idea of listing in different categories is really Smart A D. Every once in awhile Kenny EBAY has .10 listing fees although it also usually means a ton of worthless domains get listed and harder to stand out in three times the amount of domains on EBAY but it is cool to only pay .10 to list.