My Take On eBay's New "Want It Now Service"

                                                                                         

I've been reviewing eBay's new "Want It Now" (WIN) service for the past couple of weeks. I'm fairly impressed.

While the service lacks some polish, it could be a valuable tool for some sellers. The idea is pretty simple: let buyers post their "wants" in the form of an auction and then sellers can "bid" to sell their products/services to the buyer. It's an intuitive model that has worked well in other venues already.

The problem is that the service lacks any real moderation by eBay staff or volunteers. There are a lot of WIN listings for "A Million Dollars" and "Your First Born Child" as well as many buyers who're asking the impossible: asking for items at unrealistically low prices.

Still, there are some great setups to be found - especially if you sell highly sought-after items (electronics, vintage retro-clothing, etc.), hard-to-find items (collectibles), or lower-priced used items (books, music CDs).

I talked to three different sellers who've used WIN to sell items to buyers and got about the same feedback from all three.

One seller had a vintage record player for sale that had been listed on eBay several times and was then collecting dust in his closet. He checked WIN on a whim and saw someone looking for a similar player. He offered it at bid and the record player sold - he even made a little money on the deal.

Another seller had a large collection of baby clothing she wanted to get rid of, but knew that listing most of the items one at a time would be impractical and time consuming. She happened to check WIN and saw a new mother looking for a set of clothing for her new baby. She offered it and sold the lot in one shot.

The third sells books and videos online through eBay and other sources and is regularly checking WIN to see if a newly-arrived item has any instant buyers as part of his routine when listing new items for sale. He's made several sales in this manner and says it's a great augment to the occasional back-order sale on Amazon.com.

For my own business model, I have little use for WIN except for the occasional item that might come into my hands. Many consignment and estate sellers might find WIN useful as part of their sales strategy, however.

I feel that if eBay can improve this new section steadily and make it even more useful than it is - especially through moderation and advertising - WIN will become a great tool for sellers. It's a great idea and has many uses that should be obvious to the seller. For now, most of us can consider it a curiosity to be checked into occasionally, but nothing more.

About the author:
Aaron Turpen is the proprietor of Aaronz WebWorkz, a web services company providing consultation, development, and more to small businesses online. Aaron publishes several newsletters regularly and is the author of many ebooks, including "The Layman's Guide to Doing Business Online" and "The eBay PowerSeller's Book of Knowledge." Visit him online at http://www.AaronzWebWorkz.com


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