What If Someone Only Bids $1 For Your Item On eBay?

A common concern many new sellers on eBay have is listing an item for auction and then only getting one bid and having to sell it for $1.00. Ouch. That hurts.

Does this happen? Yes, it does. What can be done to prevent an item for selling at the low price of $1.00? Well, in the first place, don’t list it at $1.00 to begin the auction. Your pricing strategy really depends on the item you’re selling and the category. If you have a DVD, making the starting bid $0.99 is probably a good idea. If the bids never get any higher, you’re really not out a lot of money.

However, if you’re selling a high-end watch (like a Tag Heuer), you can still get away with starting the listing at a super low ball price. We actually did this for one of our listings. We listed a Tag Heuer Formula 1 men’s watch for $9.99 on eBay. It generated 32 bids and sold for $860. Were we nervous that it wouldn’t creep up past $9.99? No, because we had a reserve of $400, so if it didn’t meet the reserve, we weren’t obligated to sell it.

The reason why a low starting price strategy worked is because Tag Heuer watches are highly in demand. They are sought after by collectors. There’s a huge market for these watches and at any given time, hundreds of people on eBay are looking for Tag Heuers. Why didn’t we start the watch out at $0.99? Well, we could have…but didn’t want to give buyers the impression that the watch is cheap. Not that $9.99 is expensive, but for a high end item, starting it at $0.99 may make some buyers think, “What’s the catch?” or “There must be something wrong with it.”

So, in the case where an item is listed for $0.99 and it sells for only $0.99, this most likely means it isn’t a popular item. There isn’t a market for it among buyers. If there is no demand, then you’ll seldom get top dollar for your item.

One closing thought: if you lose money on the deal, that’s unfortunate but not eBay or the buyer’s fault. It happens. But you really need to know your item, it’s past sales history on eBay, take really good photos and write captivating descriptions. (This is where a professional eBay seller can come in handy).

What do you think? Have you had an item sell for an unexpected super low price?