Frantisek wrote:
Hi, I want to sell some rarer photography books (Josef Sudek) on EeekBay (to buy new lenses of course <g>), with the US as probable audience. Being completely new to eb as a seller, I wanted to get few tips please.
Although the $ is very low currently (not well for us in EU selling overseas, good for us in EU buying overseas), what's a good time to have the auction finish? Do people in US use internet mostly in work, or at home in the evenings, or on the weekends? I am completely at a loss here wrt this. For example here people access the net a lot from work.
From what I've found, what you say and show about your items is more important than the time of day. Of course you don't want the auction ending at 3:30am either, but assuming its ending when people are awake, here are a few other tips:
* Keywords in title. You wont' believe how often I see people list a lens, and forget to use the word "lens" in the auction's title. Woops! If it's an antique, say it. If it's a book, say it in the title. If it's about photography, say it. You get the idea. More people search on keywords than by browsing category sections.
* Bold is cheap and helpful.
* Pictures are very important. You should use a gallery picture too, and it should be a pretty close crop so that its still meaningful at postage stamp size. make sure they're in focus, and use pleasing lighting.
* Accept PayPal.
* For items that are outside of the mainstream, that have a pretty high value but may not be recognized, definately use a reserve price. Start your bidding low; that attracts bidders, but if you are afraid of someone picking up your item for 99 cents, set a reserve that you can be happy with. It costs a little more, and may discourage a few bidders, but for obscure items, I believe it's important.
