Listia-
Is anyone on Listia? If you're not, you should all really sign up. Okay, so Listia is similiar to ebay, everything is for free.. more less.. you bid on things with just bids that you get on there. You CAN buy bids, but you don't have to. You can earn bids by logging in every now and then to your account. You can get bids by Signing up for starters. You can get bids for connecting it to facebook and bids for connecting to Twitter as well. You can get bids on random auctions for posting them on facebook. You can get bids for inviting friends and if they ever post an auction. Sometimes you can get bids for bidding, it'll give you points and sometimes it will then say.. you have found 5 bids while bidding. I earned over 300 bids before ever posting an auction. I've only posted one auction. I wrote another on Listia about how some things work so I'll copy what she wrote to help you also better understand if you think about signing up--
"Some sellers offer free shipping if the bidding reaches a certain level, but the buyer has to pay for shipping below that. I have some bead auctions that offer a second lot of the beads above a certain level, this is called a "tiered" auction ... i.e. the winner get's a second "tier" of items above a certain number of credits.
In either case, the seller just gets however many credits the bidding ends at.
I offer free shipping on everything ... it really brings in lots more bids, and you get 15 credits from Listia (up to three times a day) for listing with free shipping, and another 5 credits for a photo, so I get 20 credits for up to three listings a day ... i.e. 60 credits, which is 1800 credits a month! The free shipping does get expensive though ... anything under 13 ounces packaged for shipping can ship for three or five stamps, but I usually spend $20-$30 a week on shipping. Aver 13 ounces you have to pay for Priority shipping, which starts at $4.85 if you buy the postage online.
My feeling on the shipping cost is that I'm pretty much ahead ... I've won a number of very expensive items (including a new Dell mini computer) because I get a lot of credits. It helps if you list the same types of items at one time, that way you might get one person who wins multiple items, which saves a LOT on shipping! Another way to save on shipping is to offer a bunch of items at one time in one auction. If they are things people want, you'll get a lot of bids and only have one shipping cost.
Gotta have GOOD photos to get a lot of bids, though, generally, and a good description. If you watch the auctions with stupid titles and descriptions and bad photos, they don't bring in many credits! "
