Dropping Prices on eBay Items Cannot Force a Sale

An overwhelming number of eBay sellers are new to running a business. For many, an eBay business is their first experience with a home business and they may lack skills, experience, and knowledge of how to price their items. A common mistake is dropping prices to force sales. This simply does not work.

Many eBay sellers assume sales will increase if prices are lowered. And while this makes logical sense, it doesn't necessarily work in the real world. Why? Because people do not buy solely on price alone - maybe they have in the past and had a bad experience. Lower price often means lower quality in many consumers' minds. Even on eBay. Bottom line:

Lowering the price devalues the quality of the product, it can change the expectations people will have about it. (Instigator Blog.)


The above snipped is in the August 2014 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. This quote jumped out at me,

"For some reason every small business owner I know is scared to death of raising prices."

This fits many sellers who read this blog or are involved in daily discussions on my Facebook Group (which now has over 15,000 sellers participating.) Is this why eBay is the garage sale of the internet? Because so many sellers believe being the lowest price is the only way to get a sale? I strongly disagree. I sell items all the time where my price on the exact same product is higher than another seller's price.

This concept goes along with what I have been saying for months about watchers on eBay items. Raise the price. See if buyers react. If nothing else, you can lower the price back down later or add best offer. Remember that being the lowest price seller isn't a great thing for your image because rock bottom prices often means poor quality, sloppy service, slow shipping, or some other negative perception in the consumer's mind.

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