eBay market research questions

[kxxr]

Good morning all.
I will never figure out what interests folks I guess, but that is part of the appeal to eBay sales. I have decided to try some eBay sales and am learning things every day. The curve, like most learning curves, is steepest at the beginning. I listed this little wrench 7 days ago along with some other things and of course, my predictions of what would draw the most interest were way off. Some things go unexpectedly wild and others don't even get a look. This wrench barely got a look.

There were no watchers and very few looks. It finally got one bid and sold for 99 cents. I would have thought a few bucks at least.
One problem I see is that I listed it under Collectibles/Tools, Hardware & Locks/Tools/Mechanics. I don't think the 'Mechanics' category was quite right but that is a problem with eBay categorization whether selling or buying. I wish they would just make a TOOLS category and then the various subcategories. As it is now there are tools in Home and Garden, Collectibles, eBay Motors, Business/Industrial and who knows where else. It's a mess.
Anyway, this poor little guy only got 7 looks. My questions are:
For those that have listed these kind of wrenches, which category have you had the best luck with?
If I had mentioned the listing here at Tool Talk, might there have been a little more interst?
Is it considered 'bad manners' to mention a sale or eBay listing here?
Do you usually set a price? Buy it Now? Reserve?
Any other comments or pointers? Shipping pointers?
All in all, it is a fun thing to do and I have been enjoying the sales. It is actually a lot of work when you consider the time spent listing and shipping/handling is a chore too. I have heard a few horror stories about eBay experiences and am prepared for my first bad experience, but I hope it never comes. You can't get much for 99 cents today. I hope the person that gets this gem appreciates more than the price tag would seem to suggest, but ... that's not really my business at this point; and that's another drawback to eBay selling that one doesn't think about until it is experienced - 'seller's remorse'.

[Papaw]

I stick with Collectibles- Tools and Locks myself.
That wrench is not very special, but should have brought a few more $$ IMHO.
There is no problem mentioning your Ebay sales here, just don't slam us with them.
I like to set the start price at or near what I need to have for the item, unless it is just not going to sell for much. I don't care for Buy It Now.
Research the item beforehand to see what similar items have sold for. Look on the left in your searches for the "Completed Listings", then you'll see not only what sellers have asked, but what the  actual sold prices were.
Sometimes I set a shipping price, but usually offer Flat Rate Box shipping. If shipping will be otherwise, I let the Ebay shipping calculator work.

[kxxr]

Thanks for the tips, Papaw. And, I won't be slamming, I'm not the slamming type :)

[Bus]

I would have paid more than $1.00 just for the parts. Restorers would probably charge $40.00 plus to make a wood handle and the handle nut so I always pick up parts I might be able to use on a more expensive wrench when I can.

As for wrench categories, it would be nice to have categories for each class of collectible of wrenches and on the past have sent ebay suggestions. But I don't think many people search by categories anyway I never did when I
kept track of ebay wrench listings. 

 

[scottg]

Its a darling wrench and I'd have given a dollar for it but then I didn't see it.
 Its just a very common wrench with a bent jaw. I have straightened them, but its not easy and keeping the threads perfect is tough.

 You had the right category. Collectible it is.
  Business and industrial is filled with people trying to get too much for an opening bid. Best if you have large carbide industrial bits, but otherwise not so good. 
 Ebay motors is for "car only" tools and most of those brand new and crappy.
 Home and Garden is for "made 5 minutes ago" Chinese goods. 
 Quality collectible tools do best where they should be.

 That said it is always a crap shoot. You can never go on any one particular sale. You have to add up the total sales against number of items sold to get any kind of average. If you are like me you will look for small easy to pack things of some value that aren't already flooding the market. You have to pack and ship for a dollar anyway, sometimes. 
  Here are some of my own thoughts.
 
 Its slow right now, as a general rule.
 People are still beat up from Christmas, and new years property tax.
  Tip top items are going to wealthy people, so time of year doesn't matter.
  But general population items (which is 95%) are trickier and the calendar matters.

 In another month income tax refunds will start coming in so there will be spendable cash.
  This tends to last until spring fever takes everyone away from computers at all.

 Auction ending time and day of the week makes some difference too.
 We are a nation of office clerks mostly. Anything office clerks are interested in are best sold monday afternoon to thursday aft.   Office clerks "f-ck the dog" shopping with their computers for a living.

 Blue collar only items, do better in the early evening and on weekends. 

 You can "spin your brain" this way forever, and it often helps.
But in the end its still a crap shoot.

Oh, best shipping for small to med sized tools right now are padded flat rate envelopes. 5 bucks flat rate. Free for the asking BUT the envelopes won't ship a steel tool safely by itself. So tie it down to a piece of cardboard first with wire ties and it will be safer.
  Sellers -must- provide insurance now, so count on it.
 You can't really add it to shipping charges though, because buyers are not used to that much shipping, so you just have to eat it. Shipping makes or breaks most sales so you absolutely have to find the cheapest deals. 

 Art sells!! You can't sell anything with a poor picture. Big clear pictures matter more than anything else.
So learn to use your camera!   
 Ebays own picture hosting is pitiful, and you can no longer imbed your own pictures in the description with html like you could since they started the company.  (this may go back again soon though).
   So right now, if you care about profit at all, you have to use one of the companies like Inkfrog to put large clear pictures in your auctions.
 There are free programs you can get to do this too but its advanced computer geeking to make them work. 
     yours Scott
PS I just "got killed" on a truly rare double ended Lakeside marked crescent wrench. Only one I ever saw.
 I couldn't get good enough pictures in!! I hassled with ebay customer service for 3 days trying. Nobody told me about Inkfrog and I had been doing my own pictures since ebay started, but that no longer worked so like a fool I used Ebay picture hosting.
   The buyer said, "Wow this wrench is in -much- better condition than I thought"
 
   After he got it for the price of a pitted Diamond or other very common double ender.

 Under 50 bucks for the rarest standard pattern double ender there ever was, and in a solid good condition.
   
  Art is EVERYTHING!

[dimwittedmoose51]

XR:  I saw one of your items, but am saving my money for the stuff I collect.  One reason folks may not have bought from you is if you had a really low Feedback number.  Truthfully, if I had a choice between someone with 5 ebay points and someone with 670, well, the 5 point person better have a really good price or item or both!!

As for locations, I agree Collectibles is the place to go for more than one reason.  Business and industrial charges like a $20 insertion fee regardless of what you are selling.  They don't tell you that up front without you doing some research.  Home and garden/tools charges for any photos or photo upgrades after the first free one while collectibles has both free listing, as well as free "Zoom/Enlarge/ also can get up to 12 pix for free.  All ebay wants is that 9% of your shipping and final selling price.  All those extras are free in the collectibles category.  Go figure......

I had two relatively new Snap On Wrenches I put on ebay the other day and couldn't very well put those in collectibles, so I bit the bullet and went home and garden.  Haven't used ebay motors(can't say if they offer all the free goodies or not), I figure tool freaks have saved searches for the brands they can't live without(me?  Bonney/Plomb/ SK/ Hinsdale/etc.)  I find a lot of cool stuff by just checking out the other stuff a particular seller with one Plomb item might have in his or her ebay store.  I'm at 650 ebay points currently and still at 100%.  It's taken like 10 years to get there, so I'm no full timer for sure.

I've looked at some auctionzip stuff, but they're really into 5 dollar increments.  As for the pipe wrench, I unloaded 14 of them on ebay recently and got like $56, some were monkeys and some were pipe.  All clean and pretty cherry, but I played bottom feeder at the old tool auction last fall in Hudson and got most of those in one flat for $4. 

Shipping is a killer for me both as a buyer and seller.  I'm constantly grilling sellers that want $10 to ship one wrench that would go first class since it weighs less than 13 oz.  Some are asses about it and some list so much, they don't even realize they've done the dirty deed and make good on it.  I saw one guy with "limited" English selling individual 1/2" Drive Plomb sockets for $37 each.  He either is on crack, or listed a bunch of stuff off a template and forgot to change the selling price.  I "watch" a lot of these exorbitant BIN's to see if they ever sell, and it's rare that one does.



DM&FS

[1930]

I think I can offer some simple good advice for selling on e-bay. I dont sell their very often anymore but this is what I do.
Not very computer savvy  ( but you might be amazed at what I have learned to do with what I have ) so I hope you can understand my explanation.
I go to e-bay, home page I guess its called. In the little box at the top, search box its called I type in what I am trying to sell.
That wrench for instance, Id call it a monkey wrench, type in wonkey wrench, prob. pull up 10,000 monkey wrenches, thats ok, the more the merrier.
Pick one of them out, it dont matter which one. Open it up so you can see the item and description all by itself.
Go to about 3/4 of the page down and you will see a little word that says sell one like this, hit that button with your little mouse and it will instantly place your item amongst those 10,000 other items and a whole lot more because that vaugue desription you gave makes it go all over the place.
Instant coverage in places you will never see it.
 Recently I picked up a VERY rare Graham Paige salesmans booklet from 1929/1930 that the seller had been trying to sell since at least Dec of last year. I knew this because of all of his ammendments he had made to his listing since then.
I just happened to be on e-bay and typed in Graham, Paige just to see what might come up.
The only thing that came up was this booklet for 100 bucks. Maybe 300 pages.
I just about hit that buy it now button then but I decided since he had the take an offer button that I would inquire. I asked him, whats your bottom line.
He said 50 bucks, I couldnt whip out Paypal fast enough.
My point is the guy should have listed it under 192* Dodge Graham or 193* Dodge Graham as a start. The book would have sold quickly for many times what he was even asking for initially but he was too specific in his listing.
Hope you get my point.

[stillfishin]

Scott, you can still embed your own pictures with html. I do some listings and that's what I do using photobucket pictures. You need to use the html tab when writing your listing, then remove the first part of the code for each picture. Thats the part that makes the picture pop up. Ebay doesnt allow popups is why you are having trouble there. And Moose, are you sure about the listing fees of $20 per item in business and industrial? I keep my listings to under 50 per month so never incur listing fees even in business and industrial or wherever else. I do agree with you all that the correct place to list old tools is in collectibles. Just make sure you set your starting price at no less than you really need to have for it. And make no mistakes, sometimes what you need and what you would like are two different things entirely. The alternative is keeping the item yourself. lol

[dimwittedmoose51]

Scott:  They may have changed the B/I listing fee after the tirade I sent them!!!!  I don't remember what it was that I listed in that category, but the item didn't even sell for $20.  Of course, you don't get the "surprise" for another month or so.  I quit using that part of ebay.  Again, I think they've wised up and just want that 9%.     YMMV

DM&FS

[benjy]

dont you guys have the category below/?
vehicles,parts,accessories>automobilia>vintage tools.
on ebay.co.uk  we have this and the tool section in collectibles

on another note,,you never will understand ebay,,i have had around a thousand sales and still dont get it.
one of my listings (a set of terrys ba spanners) failed to sell twice at 99p start..on the third attempt it made almost £30..weird but good fun.

[Papaw]

You can find some old tools on Ebay Motors-Antique wrench.

[kxxr]

I'm sure benjy is right that no one will ever really figure it out. It's 'people' and we won't figure them out either. I have had items listed for 99 cents that didn't get a bid and I re-listed them and raised the price and they did sell. It is good entertainment. Thanks to all for the pointers.

[dimwittedmoose51]

Major case in point.  I have a trio of pliers on ebay that I started out at .99.  The trio consists of a 10" used  pr. of Craftsman regular old slip joint pliers(Retail at Ace Hardware for $13), a pr. of Crescent R-210 water pump pliers, and a yellow-handled wire crimper tool made by the AMP Co. with the International Harvestor logo on it.  The bid sat at $20 yesterday and I thought that's where it would stay.  NO!!!! it's up to over $40 now with a day and a half left.  What is SO collectible about this trio?  The IH logo??  The other two are a dime a dozen on ebay.  As KXXR alluded to, ya just can't finger out some folks!!


YMMV

DM&FS

[dimwittedmoose51]

That auction has now gone viral.  The current bid is $200!!! Go figure....


DM&FS

[BRwrench]

That auction has now gone viral.  The current bid is $200!!! Go figure....


DM&FS

My guess is you have two IH collectors that want the wire stripper.