Do eBay Auctions Work?

David

So, I had a look under movie posters (globally).

There were 1,791,407 TOTAL number of movie posters listed on eBay

Equalling:
1,781,844 TOTAL number of movie posters Buy It Now
10,965 TOTAL number of posters for Auction (of which 140 had 2 bids or more).



edit: adjusted total for global not Australia

Charlie

I put some on auction a few years back and didn’t get a single bid...

Bruce

eBay had a great auction business, and they imploded it. I told them to start a separate site for collectibles and OOAK items called "Classic eBay", and run it the way the original eBay was run, but they refused, and I left (and since then, 99% of the auctioneers have followed me).

Eisenhower

David said:

So, I had a look under movie posters (globally).

There were 1,791,407 TOTAL number of movie posters listed on eBay

Equalling:
1,781,844 TOTAL number of movie posters Buy It Now
10,965 TOTAL number of posters for Auction (of which 140 had 2 bids or more).



edit: adjusted total for global not Australia

Pretty grim stats for sellers.

HereComesMongo

The Frankie 30x40 was an "old school" success, low starting price, lotsa bids, etc:

John

David said:

So, I had a look under movie posters (globally).
There were 1,791,407 TOTAL number of movie posters listed on eBay
Equalling:
1,781,844 TOTAL number of movie posters Buy It Now
10,965 TOTAL number of posters for Auction (of which 140 had 2 bids or more).
edit: adjusted total for global not Australia

Interesting question. I have been selling on ebay for 20 years and have run thousands of auctions during that time. There is not enough space here for me to go through all the things I have learned over the years but one of the big problems for ebay at the moment is the fact that many/most sellers pay nothing to list at auction. That results in the site being flooded with listings from sellers who protect their products with very high opening bids. If their posters don't sell, they don't care too much because it hasn't cost them anything and they just keep relisting it until it does sell.

David

So you don't auction anymore John (just BIN)?

Paul

And if you take out all the fake, repro, and postcards etc, you have a handful of real posters, and it's a nightmare to trawl through..

John

David said:

So you don't auction anymore John (just BIN)?

I have had regular auctions going for years in addition to BIN and haven't changed at all. This month, I have listed a few hundred items for auction and had some strong sales. There have been no listing fees for any of the auctions.