Identical Item going for three times as much

[heylottie]

Hmmm - what is going on here I wonder?
Have finally managed to convince DH to get rid of some of his 'classic' computer games.

Whilst some of them go for a reasonable amount,the same thing has happened with some of the rarer games...

Which is, identical games in identical condition go for £50/£60 for a couple of other sellers. But when DH lists the same game, he can be lucky to get a tenner.

We have 100% feedback so it can't be that putting off bidders.

But why the bidding war on one sellers game, and not on ours? This is putting DH off selling his collection...dammit

Timing of auction finish (most things seem to sell better in the evenings/weekends)? Has he put all the right keywords in the title/description (spelt correctly - I often pick up bargains on mispelt items)? Are the other sellers ones who specialise in those kind of games - some buyers might have them as 'saved sellers' and automatically check what they have got on offer, while you could be under the radar.

But sometimes Ebay is just random - there's a type of item I collect, and I have often seen two or three buyers slugging it out over a not-very-good example, pushing the price up to way over the going rate, while a really nice one finishing a day earlier or later will attract a handful of bids and go for less than it should.

Hope you do better next time....

and speaking of mispelt - I mean misspelt....

Probably not listing it the best he can.

check the item title, category, end time (people are more likely to be sat with laptop at 9pm rather than 8am for example)

take a clear picture, add a subtitle if you run out of space for key words

Also have a look at the starting price - are you setting it too high and putting off bidders?

Is your P&P rate the same as the others?

Do your photos look the same as theirs?

Thanks for all your tips! Speedy response! He claims he is listing it the best he can but will go over them again and see if I can spot a flaw...
Mnay thanks

Could be that some of those you are competing against are being shilled.

Timing is important, and not just the end time.
If a few people already have an item on their watch list or have already starting bidding then they probably won't continue to search for others; they will continue bidding on the first one. So you have to try and time your listing so that when the bidders who lost out go back to search they will see yours.

There are a few nice habits within auctions. If an item has loads of bids a newcomer will think ohh what do they all know that I don't? This must be good I'll get in on that myself" Also, once a bidder has started bidding they can get themselves in a tiz making sure no-one else wins "It's mine, mine I tell ya!"
If you have sure fire items, which it sounds like you do, you could chance starting the bidding really low (not something I usually advise) Maybe try it with just one thing at a time?

Look at the ones in "completed" items and make a note of their keywords, category, start time and day and end time/day. Watch the ones that are selling well and see how many bidders there are/were. If 6 people lost out then you need to time it to try and get those 6 to see yours.

hope this all makes sense