eBay Question about local sales

[toystoryduo]

Okay eBay experts... I have another question for you:

I have an exercise machine that I have not used in at least 5 years. We are thinking about listing it on eBay (after some research of course) and are wondering if there is such a thing as a local auction. This machine would cost a lot of money to ship somewhere and DH came up with the idea to keep the auction local so that he could deliver it. It's just sitting in my garage gathering dust right now and to make some money on it would be great. So, is there such a thing as a local or regional auction? How successful are they in your experience? Is it appropriate to charge the winning bidder say $20 for my DH to deliver it? Any tips when listing it? Thanks for your help!

 

[ibleedblue]

There's not a built in way to list something as a local auction. What you can do is in the item description say that you will NOT ship the item, but will deliver for $20 within a 20 mile radius. Or if someone lives further than 20 miles out you can say that you'd be willing to meet them somewhere at your 20 mile point. I've never sold anything like that on ebay before, but I have seen listings for excercise equipment like this in the past. Do a search on excercise equipment, then look at the completed auctions and you should be able to gauge how successful this approach might be.

 

[kashkdz]

Originally posted by toystoryduo
Okay eBay experts... I have another question for you:

I have an exercise machine that I have not used in at least 5 years. We are thinking about listing it on eBay (after some research of course) and are wondering if there is such a thing as a local auction. This machine would cost a lot of money to ship somewhere and DH came up with the idea to keep the auction local so that he could deliver it. It's just sitting in my garage gathering dust right now and to make some money on it would be great. So, is there such a thing as a local or regional auction? How successful are they in your experience? Is it appropriate to charge the winning bidder say $20 for my DH to deliver it? Any tips when listing it? Thanks for your help!

When you post an item on ebay you enter your location (city,state) of where you are selling the item. Sometimes when peple are doing a search on ebay, they will use the 'Items Near Me' feature. This will list only those items within a certain mile radius of the state selected. Now, as a seller the best method to ensure that your item sells as a pickup item only is to make sure that your city,state info are correct on your listing, AND make sure you state the delivery methods clearly in your auction. You could state something similar to "Item is too big for shipping, therefore item can be picked up onsite or delivery to your location can be arranged for a nominal fee." I've sold many items (though no excercise equipment) on ebay, and stated that item was too big/bulky that I'd rather not ship, so the item needed to be picked up. I was really suprised with my success and was really amazed by how many people use ebay, especially those that lived minutes away that were looking for what I was selling. Hope that helps and good luck !

 

[Tina]

Here is a link to the Soloflex that I sold a few weeks ago. Since this is a completed auction, I hope its ok for me to post here. This should give you some idea how to list the item. I had a small bidding war towards the end between to local people. I'm very happy with the price I got. I even bought this item originally on Ebay about 4 years ago!!


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=48847&item=3667938066

 

[PatriciaH]

Our good friend is very into salt water aquariums and has sold a lot of tanks, lights, and actual corals and fish on Ebay! He states that they must be picked up and he will not ship and has done very well selling on there.

 

[toystoryduo]

Thank you everyone for the tips and thanks Tina for the link. It is very helpful!