SAHM Bookseller and Entrepreneur

Sunday = Auction Night figuring out all the stats

Sunday is here again, auction night. I do 98% BIN auctions because I have mutiple quantities of items not to mention I hate bidding on auctions myself. So, do I really need to do auctions only on Sunday nights? People buy my items all week long. I just don't seem to have the time to figure out all the stats. I do know some stats, like my average sale on eBay is around $8.50, and of course I know how much I pay for my stuff. I know what my last 30 day sales are on eBay thanks to My eBay. But there's some stats I don't know that I should:

Does the 30 day sales figure under My eBay include my shipping charges?
Does eBay charge a FVF on shipping?
Does paypal charge a percentage on shipping? I'm pretty sure they do because they deal with dollar amounts
How many auctions can I run and still make money?
What is my sell through rate on auctions and what is the non-selling stuff costing me?
Can I run BIN auctions any time/any day without impacting my sell through?

Currently I run 50 - 100 auctions per week. I have no idea what my sell through is on a weekly basis. I know, that is sad. But really, I don't have a lot of time and I know I'm making money. And, it's not all that easy to figure out stuff that takes concentration with a 1 and 4 year old running around. Whenever there's a sale day I run 500+ auctions, depending on the sale. My sales always shoot up, but my sell through rate is poor on those auctions. I don't know how poor, but it's poor.

My usual modus operadi is to take a new book that I think is auctionable and run it on Sunday. I give it 2 unsold weeks in a row and it goes into Stores. That seems to work pretty good but how much is it costing me for those unsold books I thought would sell? Store listings are now going costing more to sell than auction listings but what if that auction listing doesn't sell for 2 weeks? How much does that cost vs. putting it in my store right away? How much faster will it sell in auctions vs. stores? During the last sale, which was auciton format only, I listed a book I have muliple copies of. I have one listed in my stores for $9.99. I had 4 bids in auction style bringing the sale price to $18.50. I sold 2 more copies via Second Chance. This is while my book is listed in my stores for $9.99! How come none of the bidders bought that one?

bayker86
I can answer a couple of your questions. The 30 day sales figure under My Ebay doesn't include shipping. You can put shipping charges in when you customize your display.
Ebay does NOT charge FVF on shipping but paypal charges on your total amount including shipping.
You can run BIN auctions anytime and it will not impact sell through.
As far as having an auction and also an item in your store that is actually selling cheaper, many don't look at your store items. I have the same thing ALL the time. I always have multiples of my items, both up for auction and in the store. People could buy it for a fraction of what they bid it up to. Cracks me up. Oh well, just more profit to me.
Aug-13-06 09:54:15 PDT Report this comment

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