1 Pound No Reserve Promotion between now and Christmas

[*artsbanquet*]

I was hoping we might make it permanent, but initially we could say the promotion is between now and Christmas, to see if it does actually bring in more buyers.

The reason I included a BIN option is so that they auctions could get picked up on google base if they have a decent run length.

greenmasons has a point in saying that a lot of people want to BIN and a low BIN could still be a bargain. Also with the BIN, with Christmas coming, bidders may ot wish to risk not winning the auctionans may want to BIN.

That's a good point.

What does everyone else think? To a certain extent, we sellers have to use our initiative and conscience in deciding whether a buyer would look at their items and think that £1 start is a bargain. We all want to promote our items as much as possible, but we have to ask ourselves before we list each item 'would this enhance the choice of 1NR auctions, or could a buyer see the list and not return?' If we get this promotion right and the buyers think there a loads of bargains to be had, they will return and will also hopefully browse the other auctions.

I guess it will mean sellers being willing to take a possible loss on a few higher-value items to generate interest in the rest of the items in their store. (and in eBid as a whole).
I'm just thinking that not everybody sells high value items. For the sellers whose stock consists of items under £3.00, it might be better to start the bid at £1.00 and not put a BIN price and let the item find its own price.

Anyway, just thinking aloud.....

[cmjewels925]

I must admit i'm guilty of the Bid @ £1 and BIN @ £2. The PC software i'm selling has an RRP of £4.99 in the 1NR promotion, making the £1 bid seem really good value!

The problem is auction sites are seeing a trend where customers are more and more likely to use BIN to get an item straight away rather than hanging around. That's not me guessing its actually been researched and hence why eBay is moving more and more into Shops rather than traditional auctions (will find a link to where i saw it!). If my items were £1 NR and £4.99 BIN I could see some new buyers seeing them, wanting the item straight away but the £4.99 tag results in them heading back to eBay where competition is extremely stiff in the Software categories.

At least the £1NR, £2BIN makes it excellent value whether you Bid or Buy and i can directly compete with my opponents on the other side.

I really like the £1NR idea Its something we can shout about to the whole World....
I agree its not worth having a £1NR for an item worth £1...Customers would vote with their feet and find the item somewhere else for £1 BIN. But i do believe anything worth at least £2 is still a bargain to be had at £1. This is especially true on eBid where at the moment some items may only see 1 or 2 bids so it probably won't reach £2 anyway

This is not a moan/criticism because I really enjoy taking part in the eBid community events, etc

Maybe if i put in the auction description RRP £4.99 that would create a better idea of the bargain the item is?

The problem with auction sites is that if an item is worth £1 people are going to want it for less than £1 (including p&p) otherwise it isn't a bargain.

Yes, put RRPs into item descriptions. I frequently have no idea of the going price of anything (other than jewellery) so anything that lets me know I'm getting a bargain may make the difference between me bidding and not.

[ToyCrazyUK]

Yes, I think that might be a good idea - BIN only if £5.00 or more. I've got more auctions to add at some stage, so I'll space out the finish times a bit better so ones that retail at at least a £10 appear at regular intervals down the page.

If we review all the ideas tonight, we can put a definitive post of what the conditions are. If we can get it right, it could be really popular.

(If anyone's thinking I've lost the ability to spell, I think my keyboard is going and it keeps skipping letters - I thought it was me at first, but it's happening too often!)

[cmjewels925]

Maybe if the BIN price is for eg, £1.50, the BIN should be left out altogether. Just put £1NR and start the auction at £1.00 - let the item find its own price. The BIN price can still stay for higher value items so that browsers can see the savings they are making?

I think that if the BIN is £1.50 it should be in the £1 Bargain Basement rather than a special promotion.

Or maybe for this £1NR promotion, it should strictly be for auction-type listings and there should be no BIN price at all to avoid confusion.

Once a bid is placed the BIN disappears but I think it's useful, initially, to give buyers an idea of the value of the item.

Also, is this an an ongoing promotion or is there going to be a specified time limit - having an expiry date on the promotion might encourage buyers to buy more urgently.

I took this as a pre-Christmas promotion and was planning to have my last items finish around 15th December so buyers could reasonably expect to have them arrive before Christmas.

None of my items are on repost - if you don't bid on them first time round, you've missed your chance

[cmjewels925]

What does everyone else think? To a certain extent, we sellers have to use our initiative and conscience in deciding whether a buyer would look at their items and think that £1 start is a bargain. We all want to promote our items as much as possible, but we have to ask ourselves before we list each item 'would this enhance the choice of 1NR auctions, or could a buyer see the list and not return?' If we get this promotion right and the buyers think there a loads of bargains to be had, they will return and will also hopefully browse the other auctions.

Thank you Toys, I think you've said it much better than I have.

I don't think there should be any minimum value of items (there are quite a few >£2.50 that I'm interested in) but I do think the listings should, as you say, 'enhance' the promotion.

[greenmasons]

I'm going to create some eye-catching graphics with the RRP of each of my products on the description page so everyone knows exactly what kind of bargain they are getting

[cmjewels925]

I'm going to create some eye-catching graphics with the RRP of each of my products on the description page so everyone knows exactly what kind of bargain they are getting

Can't wait!

Put it in the title too to entice them to go to the description page.

[HannaHolly]

This is quite a tricky promotion for sellers like me to join in with! I would expect the majority of my items to sell for under £3.00. Many of my buyers get 0.99p bargains. As I can see CMjewells point I have removed most of my 1NRs - leaving about half a dozen which might make attractive Xmas gifts & stocking fillers.

I'll see what your final guidelines are and I will keep this promotion in mind as i update my bookstore listings.

Can i suggest you creative people consider a quick youtube ad to promote the 1NR? All you need is video settings on your phone or camera- and a bit of imagination!. ( I am planning to do a general ebid promotion ad soon - just looking for the right bit of music).
If you do create a youtube viral ad - people can add the 9 digit youtube code to their 1NR listings and get even more attention.

[HannaHolly]

Just re read this thread. Technically for me ( and probably most ebid book sellers) "The other side" is Amazon market place not ebay - Amazon market place have fixed postage charges - plus no facility for combining postage on multiple orders . So all my books on ebid are great bargains

[ToyCrazyUK]

To summarise from the discussions that we've had - would these conditions be suitable?

• Item must be 'attractive' to Christmas bargain hunters and worth more than £1 - £1 must be seen to be an absolute bargain.
• Start price of £1 (99p allowed) and no reserve (can do $1 1 Euro etc) with 1NR in title
• BIN allowed only if £5.00 or above
• No auto repost allowed - we want people to keep coming back to see the new stuff, not just reposts of what didn't sell - you can repost, but think before you do about why it didn't sell the first time.
• Try and time the auction ends so they finish on different days - we want to get a mix of different types of items from different sellers on each page
• All items to finish in time for Christmas posting

Can't think of anything else for now - will add to it if anyone comes up with anything else.

If this promotion is a success we will hopefully be able to carry it on, but we've got to make the listings exciting so casual browsers think its worth returning.