This is a follow up to the previously posted article on buying used DJ gear on Ebay.
I recently sold my SL1 on Ebay for the same amount of money that I bought it for several years ago. The key to my successful auction was preparation. I had never sold an item on Ebay before, so I took the time to investigate before I put my auction up for bid. Here are some tips that I found helpful in creating a successful auction:
You should find out the value of your gear before you consider auctioning your item on Ebay. It may be a better choice to try and sell your gear locally rather than go through the effort of selling it on Ebay. The best way to find the value of your gear is to do simple search for the product. The key is to search completed listings. Completed listings can give you a lot of information. First, you can see whether or not the product sells or not. Second, you can see what people are paying for the item in varying conditions. You may find that your product goes for $300 if it is in good condition, but only $150 if it is in poor condition. Additionally, you can look at the presentation of the auctions with the highest final bid prices.
Now that you have an idea of how much your item is worth, it’s time to create the auction listing. There are three important aspects to the auction listing: description, pictures, and price.
Description: You want the title of the auction to be as straight-forward as possible. For example, the title of my auction was “Rane Serato Scratch Live SL1”. In the auction description you want to inform a potential bidder what you are selling and the condition of the item(s) you are selling. You can also include additional pictures of the item. Many sellers choose to include the technical specs of the item they are selling. Personally, I don’t find that very useful as a buyer, so I would advise against including it in your listing description. Chances are that if someone is buying gear off of Ebay, they know what they want.
Pictures: Pictures are a very important aspect of an auction listing as they are the only visual connection between the potential bidder and your item. Don’t use a stock picture of the item you are trying to sell. Take a picture of the item you own. Ebay allows you to upload one picture for free to be displayed in the listings search. Your best bet is to choose a picture that shows everything included in the auction. For my auction my picture showed the SL1, timecode CDs, power supply, and usb cable. This should not be the only picture in your auction. You can include extra pictures in your auction description free of charge. Upload the pictures to your website host, or a free picture hosting service, and use them to show the item and its condition. Good pictures can really help sell your item.
Price: All of the research I have done suggests not to use a reserve price or the Buy it Now option. The suggestion was to either start the auction at either the default bid amount of 99 cents or set the start bid price at the lowest amount you would be willing to sell the item for. My searches showed that an SL1 in good condition was selling for anywhere between $300-400. I therefore decided to set the lowest bid price at $300. That way I was at least guaranteed the minimum amount as long as one person placed a bid. If you decide to set your own starting price take into account the additional auction listing fees. When it comes to shipping price, you can either set a flat amount or input the weight of your item. Weigh your item in the packaging you will ship it in to get an accurate shipping cost.
At this point your auction listing should be ready. Various sites that I found suggest that you should start and end your auction on a weekend, preferably in the evening. I started and ended my auction on a Sunday night, but don’t have enough experience to say whether or not this actually makes a difference. The waiting game starts once the auction begins. Chances are that if you have a long auction length – a week or more – that you won’t get any bids for a couple of days. Don’t be worried. This is normal. Most people will bid in the final couple of days.
Review:
1. Find the value of the item you are selling.
2. Write a clear auction title.
3. Use a good picture for listing searches.
4. Indicate what you are selling and provide additional pictures in the auction description.
5. Set a starting price and provide and accurate shipping cost.Wait for the auction to finish and hope bidders are interested in your item.
Do you have your own experiences selling gear on Ebay? Share your tips and tricks in the comment section below.