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Zukum

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 15, 2007
54
0
Does anyone have an opinion as to whether or not I should sell my imac G5 on ebay this week? If I put it up for a 7 day auction, it will sell the day the rumored new imacs will be released (supposedly), and might lower the selling value. Maybe I should put it up for a 3 day auction to sell by Friday?
 
Does anyone have an opinion as to whether or not I should sell my imac G5 on ebay this week? If I put it up for a 7 day auction, it will sell the day the rumored new imacs will be released (supposedly), and might lower the selling value. Maybe I should put it up for a 3 day auction to sell by Friday?
Why would you sell it, it's not sure that the new imacs come on 7 august, but i hope , (see signature)
 
i think if you put it up after new iMacs are announced, it will lose a lot of its value quickly.

i would probably do a 3 or 5 day auction. remember, nothing is guaranteed to be released august 7th.
 
i think if you put it up after new iMacs are announced, it will lose a lot of its value quickly.

i would probably do a 3 or 5 day auction. remember, nothing is guaranteed to be released august 7th.

not true.

eBayers are notoriously UN-informed.

eBay will get you more than its probably worth, especially after a revision.

Go for it without worrying what exact date it ends on.

Just make sure you end it on a Fri-Sun night, never during the day and never during the week for maximum bidding.
 
Thanks everyone. This is good info. You all deserve 1% of my sell.
 
I'd also recommend a 3 or 5 day auction starting tonight.

Bad advice. Unless you think you are selling something special that people search for all the time (like antiques and rare collectibles)

Never do anything less than 7 days, it builds up watchers and gives people a week to find your auction.

Imagine the number of possible buyers youd be missing if you had it listed for even 1 day less.

Always do 7 days, you pay to list it why pay the same for less time on the market?

Stick with starting/ending on the weekends in the evening. Taking into account your time-zone vs PST. Dont want people in CA to miss out cuz they work until 5pm PST.
 
not true.

eBayers are notoriously UN-informed.

eBay will get you more than its probably worth, especially after a revision.

Go for it without worrying what exact date it ends on.

Just make sure you end it on a Fri-Sun night, never during the day and never during the week for maximum bidding.

my statement was not incorrect in that i agree that he could still get a fair amount for it (particularly on eBay) but it will definitely lose value. the question then is how much value he loses, which is dependent on who he sells it to and via what method.

with respect to the second issue, after thinking a little more, you might as well go for a 7 day auction. Sdashiki made some good points that can be summed up nicely here: you lose nothing by going with a 7 day auction versus a 5 or 3. i officially redact my previous suggestion.
 
Bad advice. Unless you think you are selling something special that people search for all the time (like antiques and rare collectibles)

Never do anything less than 7 days, it builds up watchers and gives people a week to find your auction.

Imagine the number of possible buyers youd be missing if you had it listed for even 1 day less.

Always do 7 days, you pay to list it why pay the same for less time on the market?

Stick with starting/ending on the weekends in the evening. Taking into account your time-zone vs PST. Dont want people in CA to miss out cuz they work until 5pm PST.

I agree with you on the advantages of a 7 day auction however in this situation, I'd rather have my auction end on Sunday night (a 5 day auction) a couple of days before the expected release of a completely new designed iMac. This is not just a speed bump and the new design will likely get lots of press.
 
I don't know about iMacs, but I was looking for an Airport Express for a while on EBay. No matter when the auctions ended, the winning bids all pretty much ended up around the same price: just below the refurbished price from Apple once you include the shipping and handling.
 
If I had another computer to use till the release in the case that they weren't updated on the 7th (although I think they are) then I would put it up tonight with a 5 day auction. That's just me though.
 
it's a G5 anyways.....so another revision for intel isn't going to hurt the value. I'm a big fan of the buy it now option and even the best offers as well. You're taking a gamble if you don't use a reserve or a higher starting bid for what you want.
 
Bad advice. Unless you think you are selling something special that people search for all the time (like antiques and rare collectibles)

Never do anything less than 7 days, it builds up watchers and gives people a week to find your auction.

Imagine the number of possible buyers youd be missing if you had it listed for even 1 day less.

Always do 7 days, you pay to list it why pay the same for less time on the market?
i know when i buy on ebay....i search for the items with a shorter listing time. I don't want to wait and watch something for 7 or even 10 days. Most people on ebay want the item now. They don't want to chill for 7 days and hang out and bid. Usually the ones that do that don't pay or decide they don't want it. You get a majority of your watchers in the last 24 hours anyways.....so if you list a 7 day.....those 2 days aren't doing much.
 
i know when i buy on ebay....i search for the items with a shorter listing time. I don't want to wait and watch something for 7 or even 10 days. Most people on ebay want the item now. They don't want to chill for 7 days and hang out and bid. Usually the ones that do that don't pay or decide they don't want it. You get a majority of your watchers in the last 24 hours anyways.....so if you list a 7 day.....those 2 days aren't doing much.

I completely agree. Most serious bidders on the last day anyways, when prices are close to what they would expect and more mere $0.01
 
The more exposure you get the better.

People who want something right now are only looking for "Buy it Now" items, not auction items.

For those who want a specific item, they click "Watch this Item" and when the last 5 minutes rolls around, they bid.

More watchers typically means more bidders.

Just because you may search and bid on eBay one way, certainly doesn't apply to everyone. And it behooves anyone trying to make money on eBay to keep their item up for all to see as long as possible.


And EVERY decent auction, something that will sell not maybe sell, gets its winning bids within the last 10s, literally. But wouldnt you want 10 people bidding against eachother in the last seconds than 2 or 3?

Just because the last minutes of an auction are the only time people bid, doesnt mean you want a short auction.
 
it's a G5 anyways.....so another revision for intel isn't going to hurt the value. I'm a big fan of the buy it now option and even the best offers as well. You're taking a gamble if you don't use a reserve or a higher starting bid for what you want.

Agreed. I just sold my 20" iMac G5 on ebay. It didn't do too hot. Most people want Intels. If it was the core-duo then I would try to sell it. The G5's are pretty much out of date anyway. But maybe you can get someone willing to pay $2300 for it and wants shipped to Africa...like I got. :)
 
Agreed. I just sold my 20" iMac G5 on ebay. It didn't do too hot. Most people want Intels. If it was the core-duo then I would try to sell it. The G5's are pretty much out of date anyway. But maybe you can get someone willing to pay $2300 for it and wants shipped to Africa...like I got. :)

I hope you are kidding. Because that is most definetly a scam.
 
Agreed, eBay buyers are generally uninformed, and a new release next week won't hurt you. Set up a 7-day auction starting this sun to end next sun. That gives you time to get a new one and migrate your data. Even the G5 iMacs still have good value.
 
I recently got top dollar for my G5 PowerMac by selling it as a 3 day auction, finishing at 21:00 Sunday. There were a lot of rumors regarding the impending intel macpro release.

It didn't happen but I got more for my three year old model that others did for there one year old items. Shorter auctions, I believe, attract impulse buyers. Long auctions are for pedantics who have already spent weeks calculating every angle, researching every rumor, and written down their final bid limit.

No, you want a numbskull to slam a bid on it without doing any of the above. Start the auction at a buck, but with a fairly high buy it now option, maybe I'm tripping here, but it worked a treat for me!

Good Luck.
 
Items on ebay that always get bids, like iMacs, will always go for the same amount a similar model did yesterday or the day before...

The person who got outbid by $5 at the last second is going to bid on the next auction that comes around. And will most likely bid within $5 of that last auction's winning bid.

Do a search for completed auctions, look for items that are very similar to what you are selling, see what the avg going price is, thats what yours will go for 99% of the time.

So, if that avg price is attractive to you, dont worry about a Buy it Now (the fee is quite high on anything $1000+) and just start the bidding at $.99, because you know its going to go for that avg price.

eBay people are fickle though, see which auctions got the highest price, look at their photos and description, what did they do that, perhaps, got them $50-250 more for their item.
 
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