Congratulations on opening your new eBay store! As a fellow small business owner, I know both the excitement and anxiety that comes with putting yourself out there on the world‘s largest auction marketplace. Your success will largely depend on mastering the art of competitive bidding – both for buying inventory and selling to the highest bidder. So let‘s break down everything a new eBay entrepreneur needs to know.
How Proxy Bidding Eliminates Headaches
Placing bids manually, as you would at a live auction house like Sotheby‘s, can be incredibly time consuming. Fortunately eBay introduced proxy bidding in 1997 to automate the process.
With proxy bidding, you simply set your maximum bid and eBay‘s system will incrementally bid on your behalf, up to that amount, as needed to outbid competitors:
- For example, if you bid $25 on an item and the next highest bid is $20, eBay would bid $21 for you.
- If another buyer bids $23, eBay would then bump your bid to $24.
- This saves the headache of constantly monitoring and manually updating your bid to stay on top.
Proxy bidding accounts for both the item‘s price and it‘s shipping cost – so a $25 max bid would get adjusted downward if shipping was $5 to keep your total maximum expenditure at $25.
Anatomy of a Listing: What to Analyze Before Bidding
Before placing a bid, let‘s walk through everything you should analyze in a listing:
👉 Item Title and Description – Scan these for keywords on model numbers, item specifics like size or color, condition details, and anything else pertinent to matching the item to your needs.
👉 Photos – Check all photo angles to independently verify the item condition matches any description promises.
👉 Seller Feedback Score – Verify the seller has strong reviews from prior buyers to reduce risk. Look for scores over 100 with 97% positive ratings or higher.
👉 Shipping and Return Policy – Understand any shipping fees plus guarantees or restrictions around returns before you bid.
👉 Reserve Price – If the listing has a reserve price set, a winning bid must exceed this amount for the sale to finalize. Otherwise the seller has no obligation.
👉 Bidding History – Scan the existing bid history to gauge competition and demand. But don‘t assume that reveals anyone‘s max bid amount.
Key Strategies to Master as a Bidder
Bidding competitively comes down to a mix of luck and skill. Here are tips that combine some of each:
🔸 Pick your moments – Bid activity spikes in a listing‘s first 12 hours or final 5 minutes. Consider bidding outside these high competition windows.
🔸 Set (and stick to!) a max budget for each desired item – it‘s easy to get emotionally invested and overpay in the heat of auction excitement.
🔸 Use sniping bid services cautiously – Sniping places last second bids automatically to beat the competition. But if their system goes down, you may be left bidding manually too late.
🔸 Don‘t obsessively follow listings – Checking in on your bids periodically is fine but overly watching can drive you to keep increasing your bid unnecessarily.
🔸 Ask sellers clarifying questions before bidding – once an auction ends, you‘re committed to paying so address any uncertainties beforehand.
Why Understanding Bidding Matters
As a new eBay seller yourself, you‘ll also want to consider setting reserve prices, weighing bidding vs fixed pricing, and potentially auctioning your own inventory. That all requires an insider‘s perspective on bidder motivations and behaviors.
But for now, let bidding work for you as you source inventory, supplies, and equipment for your store. Master these bidding basics and you‘ll gain that all important price advantage to keep your startup costs low!
Wishing you the best with your new business – if any other questions come up on your eBay journey, please reach back out anytime.
