Let’s Get Started with the Online Auction Business

Online Auction
Going Once, Going Twice, Sold!

The online auctions are making it easier than ever before to sell anything, anywhere to anyone!

All the upcoming entrepreneurs are tilting towards the online auction business and it’s just because- it is very easy. You know there’s an audience out there for your products.

All it takes is to shake the leg and hit the road!

To be excelled in this trip, you need to get & give the whole of it. No doubt there is a crowd of auctioneers, but for you to be a Power Seller,

you’ll need to get serious & treat it like a business. Appreciate your customers & continuously be in a hunt for the ways you can serve your bidders even better.

So before you begin, do the best of your research & find your perfect spot. In this article,

I am going to put the highlights on the steps an auctioneer should go through in order to get the most out of it.

If you don’t end up reading this entire post, here’s the TL;DR:

• Familiarize the online auction environment by getting into the shoes of your future customer.
• Figuring out what sells well in the online bidding market.
• Resources to learn more about the auction business.
• Setting up your space to get started with the business journey.
• Looking into ways you can list up your auctions.
• How customer service can be a game-changer for your business.

Get to know the online auction environment

The most crucial advice a budding auctioneer can get is ‘spend time on already well-established auction websites’. If you got no experience, try to learn from other’s experiences.

Surf different auction websites like eBay, bid on their products (go for the cheaper ones). Bidding will help you to get into the shoes of your future customers.

This way you’ll learn a lot about the environment. Since ‘a fresh pair of eyes that have never seen the work is the best judge’.

Explore the auction websites really well. Look out for the products that are doing really well.

Also, get the idea about the pricing of the auctioned products, their orientation, images, description and everything else. This will definitely help you in the near future.

Get aware of the online auction terminologies

If not all, learn the most common terms laying around the term ‘auction’. Some of them are:

• Types of auction business models & kinds of auctions.
• Popcorn Bidding.
• Online Auction Joining Fee.
• Proxy Bidding.

Auction Resources

Get help from the following resources to get a better understanding:

📚 Books

• Getting Started in Internet Auctions by Alan C. Elliott
• The Unofficial Guide to eBay and Online Auctions by Dawn E. Reno

💻 Website

Marsha Collier’s Cool eBay Tools

What sells well?

A good idea to discover what products you want to go with is to sell on auction websites (eg. eBay) for a few months.

Experiment with different categories of products and see which is grabbing the most of the attention.

After this casual selling, you’ll not be a novice anymore. Moreover, you will be standing with a lot of knowledge about the field you’re going to be in.

The preparation for Online Auction

After all the researching, now it is time to start setting up things. Choose the platform you want to use to set up your online store.

Once that’s done, decide the payment methods you want to provide to your bidders. The more, the better.

Coming to the products, invest in some good digital camera. As the images of your products can make or break the whole game.

After that, think of the product content, i.e., the titles & the descriptions. All these should be enticing enough to get the attention of the viewers.

It’s always good to take & work upon each product at a time with all of the efforts.

Try to make the description as unique as you can because this will help you define your product’s uniqueness.

Thus, will set it apart from the crowd of other auctioneers selling the same item.

📃 Further Reading

Build an Online Auction Website

Ways to list the auction

There are several manners of listing the auction depending on the type of prices you are setting up. Dropping them down:

-Reserve Price Auction System

The merchant sets a hidden minimum amount to which he wishes to sell the product for the least.

In other words, the merchant will only sell the particular item if the bidding amount meets or exceeds the reserve price set by him.

-Buy It Now (Fixed Price) Auction System

In BIN (Buy It Now) auction system, the merchant enables the option of ‘Buy Now’ with the product price.

So, if in case, some bidder wants to buy the product on the actual product price instead of bidding on it, he can do that.

This kind is basically in the inclination of both the merchant and the bidder (Buyer).

-Dutch Auction

This is a kind in which the price of the auctioned product is reduced from the first set price until a buyer is found. In other words, the winner pays the lowest successful bid!

Include a joining fee to avoid Multiple Bidding Auction Fraud- Explore!

⠀⠀⠀⠀

Customer service is the core of your online auction website

Customers make or break the business. That is why customer service is so essential. List all your store and payment related policies upfront.

Give your customers a live chat option.
Moreover, it’s good to provide them as many payment options as you can. A proper auto/manual email system is very crucial.

💡 Need Help?

Moreover, you can drop your query at shopify@webkul.com or raise a ticket at Webkul UV Desk.

Until next time. 👋