Online auctions are a great way to make money.... All you need is something to sell! But you can definitely buy products (both new and used) in the "real world" and sell them online at a profit.... Before you do this, though, you should research what you think you can get for it online, by looking at current and past auctions for that item, so you don't pay too much when you're buying. Anyhow, it's a great (and relatively easy) way to make money....

Now, once you've got the basics underway, how do you get higher prices for your stuff? The results of a 3-year study of auctions of coins on ebay have just become available. The authors tells which factors make the price of the auction higher....

Here's my quick summary of the results, and there's a link to the full article at the end.... :)

Here are the items which can affect how high the bids are which your auction will attract....

• The Weekend Effect. Auctions on the weekend go for about 2% higher than auctions on weekdays. The reason why is because people are more willing to buy when they have more time to ponder the purchase, like they do on weekends compared to weekdays....
• The Photographic Effect. When an auction has an accompanying descriptive photograph, the final bid price is an average of 11.3% higher than similar items without pictures.
• The Reputation Effect. On ebay there is a system of rating your experience with a buyer or seller as positive or negative. New people start with no ratings whatsoever, and good sellers accumulate many positive ratings. A good rating on ebay increases the average final bid of an item by 6.8%, clearly because people feel more comfortable and safer purchasing from someone once they have a lot of positive feedback.
• The Auction Length Effect. Longer auctions tend to also get higher final bids, but this seems to be a diminishing effect with time, as the market matures....

I sell things on ebay myself, and I agree with these things (though I haven't tested the weekend effect, the other three items I've tested myself).

If you'd like to read the full article, please click on the link below.... :)

- Dien Rice


Experts Reveal Online Auction Secrets