While I already covered regularity (a chance to cheaply get back into eBay selling), and high ticket items (ones that would be costly for a ‘regular’ listing), I left out a biggy – market research.
Five items free per month gives you five chances to see if a market works – or about one auction a week. It may not seem like much, but it’s FREE – and free means you can test and test and test without pain.
Take for example you want to offer art. To sell at any reasonable price would mean expensive auction listings week after week – and possibly giving up too soon. With the five, you can have your art up week after week – and that means exposure. Track the visitors to the auction, and you have market research that can really help you (for instance, what captions get people in? What times/day of week seem best?).
Don’t get me wrong – this is very low-tech testing for a real business (which would be better to budget $100 or more per month for listings, a store, etc.) But people don’t have huge chunks of money right now. So the free listings are effective for them.
Go to eBay right now, and set up a weekly auction for something you’ve been wanting to try. And see if it works. Who knows? eBay may have just given you your next business, and it costs them next to nothing…
