eBay Hacks

To Bundle or Not to Bundle

A simple approach to choosing how and when to bundle your items for sale.

One of the most common mistakes sellers make on eBay is selling too many things together as a “lot.” Sure, it’s easier to list fewer auctions, but bundles are usually worth much less than the same items sold separately, and may even be less likely to sell.

One of my favorite eBay anecdotes involves a single auction for a large lot of model trains, for which I paid approximately $800. I then turned around and sold about half the collection, all told, for about $800. I estimated the value of the remaining items to be about $1000, all of which I effectively got for free. (This is similar, in concept, to arbitrage, but relies more on skill than on simply taking advantage of inefficiencies in the marketplace.)

Obviously, the original seller of the collection would’ve earned quite a bit more money had he listed each item separately. But how could he have known?

The most direct approach is to compare the expected value of a collection with the total expected values of the separate items, as described in [Hack #33]. But this can take a lot of time, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find another auction with exactly the same items.

So instead, just ask yourself this question: How likely is it that any single bidder will want all of the items I’m selling?

Bidders who buy large collections or lots typically do so with the intention of reselling some or all of the items. Since they’d only do this ...