Pricing high won’t damage your eBay sales. Here’s why.

A couple of weeks ago I talked about ‘undercutters’ in my weekly eletter and how you shouldn’t get into a price war! If you missed that eletter you can recap on my blog here.

Anyway, with this in mind, this week I just wanted to go one step further into explaining why you don’t have to lower your prices to compete with other sellers and give you a great little strategy that can help you.

So, to open an eBay shop or not? – that is the question – and quite a common dilemma for many eBay sellers, particularly those new to selling.

The main dilemma is this. On the one hand, as a newbie, you don’t necessarily want to incur the extra monthly subscription costs that owning a shop brings (£19.99 per month for a basic shop) plus you might carry the misguided notion that in order to sell on eBay you must be the cheapest seller and on top of that you might be um-ming and ah-hing about what products you should actually start sourcing and selling as well.

And this can be a little overwhelming and bring on a bit of a brain freeze!

So, first things first. You have to get started. Research a selection of products and preferably decide on a specific niche. If you are stuck for ideas, you’ll find plenty of fully researched and proven hot products over at The Source Report.

As I’ve said many times before, on eBay it’s not always about the cheapest seller.

Obviously, if you do happen to be the cheapest seller of a product and you also happen to be number one in the search results for the most popular and relevant keywords for that product then you will do extremely well! But the point here is that you shouldn’t let cheap pricing put you off because this is not what this strategy is about.

I’m going to explain why, and how having an eBay shop can help you!

Once you’ve got started, the key is to have variations in your products – in other words, multiple listings and so multiple income streams. The more listings you have and the bigger variety of products you have then the easier this strategy will work for you.

Now, this idea isn’t for everyone, but it can work for everyone! Lots of sellers like to stick to one niche only and just sell related products – and this of course does allow you to become an expert in your niche, gain respect and a good reputation. Others like to have fingers in lots of niches – and so have quite a diverse selection of products available to buyers. Whichever type of seller you are, you can test this and see how it works for you.

I know sellers who have eBay shops containing thousands of items, sellers who have inventories in the hundreds and sellers who have tens of items – however, and this is the thing – all of these sellers have three things in common. Number one, they only keep two or three of many of their products in stock at any one time!

The more popular the item the more stock will be required, for obvious reasons, but, and here’s the second thing these sellers have in common, many of their items are more expensive than their competitors! And this is where ‘pricing’ doesn’t matter.

But how can price not matter?

Well, because the third thing all these sellers have in common is that they all own eBay shops.

Have a look at this screenshot:

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Right under ‘Item Specifics’ at the very start of the listing for this product this seller has a link to their eBay shop (circled at the top right) then a ‘You May Like’ section beneath it on the left.

This section advertises this sellers other products – puts them right under the buyers nose immediately – there’s no messing about here!

So, as a buyer, you would need to scroll through the page further to read the details about the actual product you have clicked through to see…but the chances are that you will be tempted to click on any one of these other options first (they are all clickable links which makes it super easy) and BANG! Suddenly you’re in this sellers shop, browsing ALL of their products.

You don’t even need to have a ‘You May Like’ section. A simple phrase at the top of your listing inviting buyers to browse your other interesting products with a link to your shop will work just as well. The important thing is that you place it right at the top of your listing description – before your description of the original product actually starts.

Remember, you will have only one, two or three of all your other products showing as in stock, therefore when a potential buyer clicks through to your shop, they will potentially see a different item that they are interested in, see that there are only limited stocks available and immediately think that they must buy it before stock runs out – it’s a psychological thing!

Once a buyer is in your shop, it’s easy for them to become sucked in and forget that other options (and potentially far cheaper options) are available from other sellers. So, it’s quite possible that you can sell a product at a far higher price than your competitor – even if it’s exactly the same item! Sales like this occur because the buyer clicked through to your shop, found an item they are interested in, it was low on stock, so they purchased it immediately simply so as not to ‘miss out’.

Stock low – price high. 

Yes, I know it may seem like an odd strategy, but it works when combined with an eBay shop. Obviously you will need to price more competitively on some products – call them loss leaders if you like – in order to entice people to your listings and then click through to your eBay shop – but you only need to keep these to a minimum.

So, should you open an eBay shop? My opinion is yes, it’s worth the 66p (approx.) per day that it will cost you.

Should you be the cheapest seller? My opinion is no, pricing higher on eBay is not a handicap.

Should you invest in huge amounts of stock for one product? My opinion is no – not at the outset for this strategy.

Should you use psychological pressure to make people buy? My opinion is yes, absolutely!

Try it and see. Good luck.