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David was interviewed by quite a few journalists this week, including CNET radio and NewsBytes, for reporting what seemed to surprise the rest of the world, but was only a confirmation of what people who sell on auction sites already know:
The Average Selling Price (ASP) of consumer collectibles on eBay has fallen from a year ago. While the ASP was down an average of 25%, there were more auction listings for most of the items we studied. The decreased ASP in collectibles doesn't hurt eBay if they have a greater volume of completed auctions. So we wondered why eBay was so quick to refute our findings. (Note that they did not publish any figures that contradicted our study.) Here's the full release: http://www.auctionbytes.com/pr5301/pr5301.html.
We did not release our findings to show how eBay was doing; we wanted to know how eBay SELLERS were doing. When you factor in the many cost increases this year, the conclusion we draw is that sellers are working harder for less money.
So what can we do? Figure out how to work SMARTER! Figure out how to save time, how to get inventory that sells well, how to make our auction listings stand out from the competition and how to lower our costs. And AuctionBytes is here to help! For example, check out the "This and That" section below - there's a new online payment service that does not charge sellers fees!
We also have two "case studies" on how to list online auctions. Louis Rouse uses AuctionWatch.com's AMPRO software (a fee-based service) to save time when listing auctions on any of the major auction sites. And Mike Marino tells us how he uses HTML and Mister Lister (a free service) to list his auctions on eBay.
If you agree or disagree with Louis or Mike, leave a review in the Yellow Pages section at http://www.auctionbytes.com/bin/bizdirectory/biz-directory.pl?category=auctionmanagementsoftware. And if you don't see your favorite program listed, let me know, and I'll be sure to add it to the Yellow Pages so others can find it.
Two of our current advertisers offer auction management tools - be sure and check them out as well:
Easy Auction http://www.auctiontools.net?ab2today
Foo Dog Software http://FooDogSoftware.com/ab2.htm
So, work hard, have fun, keep informed. And look at the silver lining - as they say when the stock market goes down, this is a buying opportunity!
Ina Steiner, Editor
email: ina@auctionbytes.com
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