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Other seller keeps lowering his price by 1 penny
 

Hey guys here is my situation:

I sell a particular item and I have one or two main competitors.

The new e bay search listings make us compete to have the lowest price (lowest price gets the main "featured" listing) and everytime I lower my price by 1 penny it seems they lower theirs. As if they have a program running.

Is there anything I can get that checks the lowest price and beats it by a penny?

If this doesn't make sense please let me know and I will reword it.


New e Bay searching system sucks!

Sounds like you have healthy competition - maybe some other folx will chime in with specific programs but none that I know of.

Instead of focusing on undercutting which will hurt you and the market, how about focusing on your listing more to attract buyers?
You can study your competitors' listings and figure out what you can do to make your listing a better value?

In a sense if you are selling high value items, you want higher value buyers And they'll find you regardless even though you are not on top of search result.

Just an insight.

If you are selling 100s-1,000s of the same item then you need to create a listing with no ending time, and establish a selling history. I have a listing that has shows it has sold 10,000+ items (same listing active for 4-5 months), and I have 4 sellers below me that are selling for $6-8 lower and I consitantly have people buying from me over the others. Making your listing look quality and having professional photos edited (by yourself or someone else if you dont know how) helps as well.

Guys I do all of that ^

It really does come down to who has the lower price by a penny. Do you know why? My certain category shows the top rated seller with the lowest price (even if its by a penny) as the MAIN listing. I am trying to stress what I'm trying to say but most of your categories are not like mine and don't display like mine.

Main seller = most sold

I have TONS TONS more sold that him, yet we constantly compete for lower price by a penny and I know for a fact he is using a program.


Its not being at the top of the search result. Thats not it at all guys. This is a whole different thing. eBay implanted a whole different search system.

For example I noticed it applies to cell phone category, go search for "new iphone 4" and tell me what you see. Thats the problem.


Also : When I am not the main listing = selling ZERO items a day. ZERO guys. As in none. But when I am the main listing I sell TONS. My listing is better, my account is better, my sold is higher, everything is competitive if not better than his.

Quite. Its not that I mind. But eBay should've left it how it was. Because then it would be actual competition instead of a bidding war. This is no fun.

Pretty sure I know exactly what category you are in based on the description you gave. There are programs out there that will automatically lower the price on Amazon. Sure there are some for Ebay also. Did you try googling it?

take your price Higher,but offer better PICTURE'S and description&shipping service .

always works for me.

Offer free shipping and add more details of the specs of the item that gets buyers attention!

Guys I do all of this already.. Im not new to the game lol.

One of my main items sells for 14.99, all of a sudden my sales dropped quickly so I did the research to see why. Two new sellers of the products selling it for 14.98 and 14.97.

We all have 100% feedback, good pictures, write ups etc. so I adjusted my price to 14.88 and the sales went back up and then some.

Remember buyers are cheap and want something for nothing. You have to make them believe they are stealing something from you.

Yes, buyers are so cheap even 0.10 cents makes a huge difference.

If hes using a program to lower have you tried drastically lowering your price just to trigger his, then reraising?

Or if his lower price is set by lowest auction in his category/keyword set a low volume auction with a drastically lowered bid and some sort of impossible way to buy? Immediate pay required or paypal disabled or something?

Progam or no program, makes no difference.

You BOTH want the sales. As you mentioned, the lowest price from a TRS gets the featured box. You BOTH know that.

But what you are REALLY looking for - a way to stop him from lowering his price after you lower yours - does not exist.

All you can do is watch your listings closely and re-price if it makes sense to do so.

Your competitor may or may not be using a program. He might just be a bit hungrier for the sale than you are, checking his listings several times an hour. But let's say he IS using a program. What difference would it make? It just makes the race to the bottom go that much faster.

I agree, there is a tipping point Jeff. What I have found with my lowering to a smaller amount without killing the product or sales forced the two competitors to either stop listing, raise the price back up and list at a different time and for longer or shorter days.

Forcing the competition to make a move like this is what I was after and for me it worked so far.

If lowering the price down 0.10 ruins the product then we are all in deep poo because China is dumping so much 0.01 products on Ebay US that it is a wonder any of us make any money.

It is how we have to play the game to make money so be it. If you cannot make some marketing changes here and there to tweak getting your customers then we all might as well quit.

I know it is frustrating. There are times when I have worked a profitable niche for over 6 months, then someone else comes in and does the penny thing, or DRASTICALLY lowers the price.

I either try to compete, find a new niche or move on to something else. And the competition can be BRUTAL.

My little business has to support a total of 9 people, 2 dogs and 3 cats - all living in the USA. But I have to compete with sellers from other countries that can afford to make less money since their cost of living in much lower than it is here. If that were not bad enough, I also have to compete with the college kids who are doing this for beer money.

But that is just reality. I don't like it any more the the OP does, but I just have to deal with it.

This i how a nice item that is selling well one month sells for close to nothing because everyone just competes, competes and competes until the item is sold for rubbish..Best offer sounds about right in these situations

Thanks for all the replies guys. I think I will just compete over the weekend then raise my price and we can just start from there I suppose.