What Is Your Formula For Calculating a BIN Price For Your eBay Auctions?

[ShotgunSteven]

I never really used BIN until I had a few items that I had to get a minimum amount for, otherwise I would be taking a loss on investment. Most items I start at a penny and let them go where they will.

Since BIN disappears after the first bid is made unless you have a reserve price (I think that is how it works), I tend to only put the starting bid a few dollars below the BIN price. I see a lot of people putting high BIN prices on items though, then starting them off at a penny like I do for most stuff.

Why even bother at that point? You're basically paying eBay, albeit very little, for a feature that usually goes POOF when a starting bidder bids a penny rather than just use the Watch Item feature. Someone out there has probably calculated a "sweet spot" for the percentage of the BIN price that you want to start your bidding at, although of course that would change depending on the value of the item.

Do you bother with BIN pricing for your auctions?

 

[aphex]

I set all of my auctions ONLY with BIN with Immediate Payment Required. I also set my paypal account to only accept payments with a confirmed address.

With these options set, I never run into any NPB or buyers paying without a confirmed address as it won't even let my auction end without receiving a proper payment. Just helps me avoid any hassles.

As for price, I set my BIN a few dollars below the average closing price on most other auctions of the same item, and as a result I rarely have to relist.

 

[ShotgunSteven]

Originally posted by: aphex
I set all of my auctions ONLY with BIN with Immediate Payment Required. I also set my paypal account to only accept payments with a confirmed address.

With these options set, I never run into any NPB or buyers paying without a confirmed address as it won't even let my auction end without receiving a proper payment. Just helps me avoid any hassles.

I have seen some eBay Stores do that, I hadn't considered trying it myself. I may give it a shot in the near future for some of my items, though. 🙂

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: ShotgunSteven

Originally posted by: aphex
I set all of my auctions ONLY with BIN with Immediate Payment Required. I also set my paypal account to only accept payments with a confirmed address.

With these options set, I never run into any NPB or buyers paying without a confirmed address as it won't even let my auction end without receiving a proper payment. Just helps me avoid any hassles.

I have seen some eBay Stores do that, I hadn't considered trying it myself. I may give it a shot in the near future for some of my items, though. 🙂

I prefer it, it just avoids 99% of the problems. No issues with non-paying bidders, or buyers paying without a confirmed address, and your guaranteed to get the amount you were hoping for. You don't get any bidding wars, but IMO its worth it.

 

[ShotgunSteven]

Originally posted by: aphex

Originally posted by: ShotgunSteven

Originally posted by: aphex
I set all of my auctions ONLY with BIN with Immediate Payment Required. I also set my paypal account to only accept payments with a confirmed address.

With these options set, I never run into any NPB or buyers paying without a confirmed address as it won't even let my auction end without receiving a proper payment. Just helps me avoid any hassles.

I have seen some eBay Stores do that, I hadn't considered trying it myself. I may give it a shot in the near future for some of my items, though. 🙂

I prefer it, it just avoids 99% of the problems. No issues with non-paying bidders, or buyers paying without a confirmed address, and your guaranteed to get the amount you were hoping for. You don't get any bidding wars, but IMO its worth it.

Going to try it this Sunday, I think. I have duplicates of certain items that I have up for a regular auction right now, so the final bid will help me figure out what to ask for BIN.

EDIT: Ugh, some zero feedback account placed seventeen incremental bids on an item I am selling, slowly edging the price upwards. A different account with a lot of feedback has the top bid now, but I hate it when zero feedback bidders do that kind of crap to my auctions.

When I see it done on stuff I am bidding on, it tends to make me wary as I have had people use shill accounts to inflate the final price on items I was bidding on before.

 

[Saint Nick]

I usually set the BIN to an amount that is a little under I would like to get for it.

 

[alkemyst]

Depends what you are selling, but I set a BIN usually for everything to let the educated shopper get a fair price.

I have yet to have any auction that rode out go for less than my BIN. I don't use reserves.

I usually start with a BIN and 1 cent on all my auctions.

 

[Ns1]

If you're going for the BIN route, I actually prefer high fixed price with "or best offer"

set to automatically reject lowball offers, and then you can have a "pool" of offers that you can accept or deny. I think it works better personally.

 

[jpeyton]

I almost never use BIN. $.01 NR auctions are my bread-and-butter.

 

[nonameo]

I almost always use fixed BIN. I've found I can get more money that way, even with the higher listing fees. The only time I use 0.99 NR is when it is hard to put a finger on a real value.

 

[StinkyMojo]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
I almost never use BIN. $.01 NR auctions are my bread-and-butter.

what he said...

 

[NFS4]

I start all of my auctions at 99 cents. It's cheaper to list, and I always get about what I expected from the auction.

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: StinkyMojo

Originally posted by: jpeyton
I almost never use BIN. $.01 NR auctions are my bread-and-butter.

what he said...

This is what I do, as well.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: Ns1
If you're going for the BIN route, I actually prefer high fixed price with "or best offer"

set to automatically reject lowball offers, and then you can have a "pool" of offers that you can accept or deny. I think it works better personally.

what is your experience in this?!?

 

[Ns1]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: Ns1
If you're going for the BIN route, I actually prefer high fixed price with "or best offer"

set to automatically reject lowball offers, and then you can have a "pool" of offers that you can accept or deny. I think it works better personally.

what is your experience in this?!?

Beautiful. You can easily determine what your item is REALLY worth by the # of offers you receive and their amount.

If I do 400 BIN OBO, and I get 20 offers with 360-380, I'd probably just wait it out as 400 is a reasonable price. If I do 400 BIN OBO and I get 1 offer of 350, then I know I'm way off base.

Of course, this was alot easier during the xmas rush. I haven't employed this strategy within the last 3 months.

 

[alkemyst]

so you are talking a niche market as saying what any BIN route should go? 😕

 

[SlickSnake]

I only use a BIN if I am the only seller on feebay selling the item, and I feel reasonably certain I can get the price for it. Otherwise it's just cheaper to start at a fixed price, a bit below its perceived value and see if it sells or not. You just have to determine how many others are selling the item, and if they are getting any bids or not before it closes, to figure the actual value of anything on feebay.

I also have noticed many search engine problems on feebay lately. It often involves an item showing up randomly in the same category when doing a large category search for the items. I had items in feebay I was watching in a specific category disappear an hour or so before close, while refreshing the category, but it still showed up on my saved watch list. It totally screws the seller if this happens, since you can then only find the item they are selling by doing a specific search for that particular item. Of course, this is good for the buyers. 😛

You would think that with all the ways feebay can find to charge the sellers on selling their items, they could fix the damn search engine they use already, but you would also be mistaken.

How about the idiocy of if a seller don't pay their feebay fees, they will shut off the sellers account, removing even previously sold items from their website, and stopping all feedback. WTF? Why not just cancel new auctions the seller has made before they close as punishment? But they will show a suspended status on the accounts, otherwise, like for fraud. Or so they claim. Why are they protecting a seller from negative feedback on closed auctions if it is deserved and they are screwing buyers?

The fun just never stops on feebay. They really need to be regulated. Maybe a few class action lawsuits over outrageous fees and sloppy support like poor search engines will reign them in in the near future. We can only hope. And I suspect we will see a major player in the near future that will finally put feebay in its place, 6 feet underground. They have a monopoly on auctions, and this hurts both the buyers and the sellers, since they can make stupid business decisions that have no rational basis anyone else can figure out other than a profit.

Just like taking a percentage of the final sale on top of all the fees. They have no ethical right to do this. They do not own the items being sold. The bazillion fees for listing should be all the money they are entitled to, period. And the numerous fees should be based on what the items are worth. Like vehicles or property should have higher fees, since they cost more to buy. Or rather the initial fees should be tiered based on the category and perceived value, like real estate or vehicles. That's all the fees they should get or they are entitled to. Anything else just stinks of e-theft. :thumbsup:

 

[alkemyst]

do you sell much on ebay...sound like with your hate you really don't use it much for selling.

 

[SlickSnake]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
do you sell much on ebay...sound like with your hate you really don't use it much for selling.

I presume this is meant for me. Sounds like with your brief sarcastic post, you really don't have anything constructive to add to what I said.

Yea, I sell much on feebay. This post was a heads up mostly to sellers. Sorry if that don't include your righteous self. Maybe some sellers out there will be interested to know why their items aren't selling next time, when it's the faulty feebay search engine not the listed price screwing him over on potential buyers. Sorry that went right over your head.

 

[Shawn]

I don't use BIN when I sell but I use it almost exclusively when I buy. In fact, I usually filter auctions by BIN only and have it sort prices from low to high. I'm usually too impatient to wait for an auction to end.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: SlickSnake

Originally posted by: alkemyst
do you sell much on ebay...sound like with your hate you really don't use it much for selling.

I presume this is meant for me. Sounds like with your brief sarcastic post, you really don't have anything constructive to add to what I said.

Yea, I sell much on feebay. This post was a heads up mostly to sellers. Sorry if that don't include your righteous self. Maybe some sellers out there will be interested to know why their items aren't selling next time, when it's the faulty feebay search engine not the listed price screwing him over on potential buyers. Sorry that went right over your head.

Don't know what was sarcastic...I was brief because with all the anti-ebay jibber jabber you spewed out above it's obvious you have issues.

As much as no seller wants higher fees on ebay, you can still make money and it's still one of the best places to do that.

Even if ebay decides to do paypal only in the future (which I am assuming will happen) it's not going to affect me that much as in the last 5 years I don't think anyone used anything but paypal in my auctions.