Archive:ServerHardwareAuction/eBay

Ebay

All equipment will be sold on the brand new LHS eBay account.

Account Hygiene

• Get some feedback (buy cheap stuff?)
• "About Me" page
• Avatar

Strategy

• Don't flood the market. Sell few items at a time
• Need good & thorough descriptions, not just manufacturer spec
• "Save initial fees and start with 99p."
• Announce the first few sales on affiliated mailing lists
• We probably prefer cash payments (?)
  • (Downsides of cash: 1. difficult to prove happened 2. no reduction in fees 3. check for forged notes 4. people may just not turn up, ie. don't get the money from the sale 5. PayPal is immediate cash and funds fees directly plus recorded and verified in case of arguments)
  • TODO

Auction template

This has now moved to LfmHardwareAuction/Template.

Other Suggestions

From Mike Harrison:

[Quick comments on ebay listings from a seasoned ebayer

Specify pick-up location a bit more specifically - London is a big place, also specify possible
pickup times, and  emphasise pickup only in the listing text in big letters.

Just copy & pasting manufacturers blurb with no additional info looks bad, especially for a
zero-feedback seller - to instil some more confidence add a line or two about who you are & where
kit has come from - not specific, just that it's a donated bulk lot from a  working environment or
similar.

And add an 'about me' page.

In that vein, it might be worth adding some background i.e. donated by last.fm, maybe a link to the hackspace, explain the good cause, etc.

• For the SCA drives we should list the number of sectors so that people looking for replacement drives for a raid array can be sure they get one thats the same size or larger.

On IRC:

<aden>	we probably should have bough tsome stuff on ebay to get feeback too, nobody is going to bid on a 0 feedback seller
<Paul2>	yeah 0 feedback 'hack' in the seller name. 1 line desciption. LOOKS LEGIT @@@@@
<jontyw>	I'm also not sure that we should be selling seven monitors in one batch, it's MUCH better to just have "7 available"

Making some quick purchases will still leave a very low feedback number so still look poor, plus easy to see by everyone that the purchases happened in the few days before so might even look worse than a zero!

Re Batch sales, if you are certain that they will sell at a specific price then list them as "x for sale" one at a time and use the fixed price with best offer.

Pricing

• Most bidding happens in the final hour; the purpose of having a longer auction is so that people are aware the item is for sale and 'watch' it
• Although it might seem that starting with a higher opening price - nearer to the hoped-for sale price - is sensible, evidence shows it makes very little difference to the actual sale price; the auction will find the 'true' price either way. Therefore save initial fees and start with a 99p.
• If you want collection only, make it clear in the description and the price sections. Bidders may ask if they can send a courier with the cash though so decide in advance whether you feel that is a safe idea.
• Require payment via PayPal within x days and collection within y days otherwise you reserve the right to relist without compensation.
• Specify better where the collection point is, and note whether vehicles can pull up for loading. Also that it is outside congestion zone.