Best Auction start/end times? and other selling questions

[RLSGROUP]

Hi,

I am new to SW but was very active selling on Ebay for several years (100% positive feedback on 4,000+ lots), and
would appreciate some "guidance". On Ebay there were certain times/days when you wanted to start/end
auctions for stamps because the viewership was larger and people were more willing to buy.

I was wondering if there were "best times/days" to start/end auctions (and store listings) on SW for PB's, sheets,
etc.? Some of my items are clearly for the beginning/casual collector, others for more serious collectors, and I am sure
that the best timing varies according to the demographic actually viewing the items. Any thoughts on this?

Also, just curious, since early '08, when the stock market began to crash, how much % of dropoff in sales
did you experience and when did the sales start picking back up again?

Finally, I know that the viewership of SW is quite different than on Ebay (thank goodness!) and a different style of
listing is probably warranted. Would any of you be willing to look at some of my listings and make helpful
suggestions as to what i might want to do differently on SW and why? (Probably best to send me a private email
on this part of the post). Thanks in advance to all of you for reading this post.

Bob, APS #201538
RLS Group

[michael78651]

Bob, you can go to the store listings of the sellers who have the highest feedback and look at their listings to get ideas of what works for them. Regarding starting times for store items, it doesn't really matter since store items stay active until sold. On start and end times for auction items, I don't do much in the way of auctions, but a couple of sellers here have it down to a science. They may chime in on their methods, but they have posted about them in the past. You might want to do a search for "auction start time" or "auction end time".

[bels99]

First general suggestion, add a link to your StampWants-BidStart store to your forum and email signature, so we can easily access your store and listings.

Second general suggestion, make forum posts about your listings. You might be surprised how many sales come from forum members who read your posts.

I'm sure other forum members will also look at your listings and offer suggestions by PM. In my experience, this is a very good and helpful community.

r, peter

[bels99]

Also, just curious, since early '08, when the stock market began to crash, how much % of dropoff in sales
did you experience and when did the sales start picking back up again?

Other sellers may have had a different experience, but I have seen no real change or correlation of sales with regard to the economy. I think that is because I have relatively few listings. Whenever my listings number well over 1,000 items, then I see a marked increase in sales. Note that I don't do auctions, just store items.

And as others have noted in other threads, you have to have a much larger number of listings before your store will feature prominently in the store directory. But I don't think most buyers start with the store directory. In my experience most buyers start with a search, and then having found something from a seller, browse his or her listings and buy even more.

r, peter

[RLSGROUP]

Thank you Michael and Peter for your excellent feedback and helpful
suggestions. I have done as you both suggested and will be looking to substantially
expand my listings in the next few weeks.

Regards,

Bob

[EclecticCollector]

Someone here was doing a study of sales. Wasn't Coco having Peter keep track of sales by time and day? Whatever happened to it?

[michael78651]

It was Doug that has it. Peter may have some info too.

[EclecticCollector]

Thanks Michael

Doug, are you still charting?

[cocollectibles]

Hi Mike. I do believe it was Doug. I was tracking something else but lost track of that!

[EclecticCollector]

Hi Mike. I do believe it was Doug. I was tracking something else but lost track of that!

Near impossible to keep track of who's keeping track and what they are keeping track of.........

Do you know why you never end a sentence with a preposition?

[michael78651]

If you end a sentence with a preposition, you leave the reader hanging at

[cocollectibles]

Well that depends what the discussion is of.

[michael78651]

But you could always take that from.

[cocollectibles]

Unless there's some heavy duty drugs that you're on.

[michael78651]

The "on" used in that context is an adverb, not a preposition.