ebay listing

[daniellelauren23]

why does ebay suggest you start items at .99  ??

[b86fiero]

Not all of eBay's selling suggestions are appropriate for most sellers.

Are you willing to sell an item for .99?

If not, ignore that suggestion and price it according to what you want to get for it.  

[house*of*paws]

Hi @daniellelauren23 

Probably because … unlike sellers … eBay benefits from ANY sale.

[robbie31415]

Your auction should ALWAYS start at what you feel comfortable with selling the item at.

You may only get 1 bidder.

It creates a bad buying experience when sellers cancel the sale because they started an auction at a price they arent willing to let it go at.

[maxine*j]

Because many of the people who write the eBay help pages for sellers and buyers have never sold or bought anything on eBay.

NEVER start an auction at less than you're willing to take if you have only one bid. 

In fact, my advice to new sellers is to not use auctions at all, as auctions by new sellers are targets for troublemakers and scammers.  In my opinion, new sellers should use Fixed Price, Immediate Payment Required, and not entertain Offers.

Although auctions are still fine for some items, the percent of sales on eBay by auction is now down below 15%, anyhow.  Most buyers don't care for auctions.  They like to find what they want, buy it, and get it, without messing around waiting for an auction to end and waiting to see if they won the auction or not.

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[lux.ra_14]

The only appeal of a 99-cent auction is to buyers who can get a deal or a steal.

I've seen auctions of some nice items start at that price, get multiple bids, and still only sell for several dollars. Something about the psychology of buyers seeing a cheap price and wanting it to the stay there. It's a losing proposition for sellers, unless it's a truly desirable item that bidders will definitely bid up to a realistic price. Not worth the gamble in most cases.

[evelyb30]

Only start at 0.99 if you know the market value of your item and that there are people looking for it.  Sometimes you can get an old-fashioned bidding war going and sell for over your best guess.   These days that's rare, but then again so are auctions.  If you're new, sell fixed price with immediate payment required (otherwise someone else can buy it from under the one who didn't pay.) 

[simba6]

Low starting prices attract bidders.     However, it's the pits if it sells for less then you wanted.  So, it's a suggestion not  necessarily  a wise one.

[reallynicestamps]

EBay is our landlord not our friend.

Any suggestion from eBay is good for eBay.

If it is also good for sellers (or buyers) that is an unintended consequence.

Never start any listing, Auction or Fixed Price, at a lower* price than you would be content with.

*Okay, Best Offers.  We can set  Accept/ Refuse parameters on Best Offers, and the  Refuse would be the lowest acceptable price.

EG Listed at $100 would happily accept $95  but would consider $85 if the Thing had been unsold for too long. The lowest price then is $85 and the pricing on the listing is based on that.

[chapeau-noir]

It's left over from when eBay was more of an auction format and most auctions actually had multiple bids - it was to attract people into the listing and get them to start bidding. Its been outdated advice for a long time now.

At least auctions now don't default to .99 start as they used to.