This is an article I followed, written by Skip McGrath of The Auction Seller's Resource. Subjects that increase income are worth repeating! Everyone shops with different priorities and different mind-sets. We all process information that is presented a little differently.

One person may end up paying $50 for an item, but only if they start bidding at $9.99. Another person might not want to bother with an auction, but will readily just shell out $50. Yet another, will skip the possibility of winning the auction for less, and pay $50 right off the bat, if you give them something free, like shipping.

So, why exclude any of these thinkers? Experiment with offering the same item or same types of items, in different formats, to appeal to a wider variety of buyers, and thereby increasing opportunities to make a sale. You can easily try starting with Free Shipping with Buy-It-Now, and the article explains:

"Last month I wrote an article about increasing your Buy-It-Now (BIN) sales by offering free shipping to anyone who uses the BIN feature. The idea is to generate faster sales and therefore faster inventory turnover with the free shipping incentive. I tried it through most of December and am still running it. Why? Because it works! One of the product categories we sell is Starbucks Collectibles –mostly city mugs and bears. In this category I used to average about one BIN sale a week. Since offering the free shipping we have been experiencing BIN sales in the 6 to 8 range per week.

The idea is to set a BIN price at an acceptable level for the product you want to sell, then add an estimated shipping price. I have been actually adding the shipping price plus about $2.00 to see if it still worked –and it does. I use 50 cents of this extra amount to buy the eBay sub-title feature. This is where I advertise my BIN free shipping. I might say something such as: Free U.S. Shipping with your Buy-It-Now purchase. Then in the body of the text I write a short paragraph that reads:

Shipping, handling and Insurance are $5.90 to any US destination via Priority Mail. If you use the Buy-It-Now feature to purchase this item I will SHIP IT FOR FREE to any US destination. If you are in Canada or overseas, I will deduct $5.00 from the shipping cost. Please Note: The Buy-It-Now feature DISSAPPEARS once the first bid is placed –so ACT NOW to have this great item sitting in your home within a few days of hitting that Buy-It-Now button.

I also experimented with some pretty high buy-it-now prices. On a few auctions I added the shipping plus a $5.00 premium to what I hoped to get for the mug. Several of these were snapped up at the BIN price. If you are too greedy, the items just won’t sell, but this is a great way to snag that impulse buyer. Of course this may have been a pre-Christmas thing. I will see if this still works through January.

There is another benefit to this technique as well. We all know that auctions with early bids tend to attract more bidders. Several bidders see my BIN offer and realize that it disappears once a bid is placed. So they bid at the minimum level to kill the BIN offer for other potential bidders hoping they can get it for less. That is OK too because it gives me an early bid."

For more effective eBay selling techniques and information, visit written by Skip McGrath of eBay Seller's Resource Site.