AW Daily - Tips & Tactics - Before the Auction: Choosing Categories

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Seems easy, right? When listing an auction you simply select the most appropriate and obvious category for your item. But savvy sellers know that there can be more finesse involved when deciding upon a particular category. Read on for some helpful hints that can improve your auction sales and expand your potential audience.

Calling All Categories
Obviously you don't want to confuse bidders by listing your items in inappropriate categories. Certainly there are right and wrong categories. That being said, by choosing an alternate and less obvious category for your item you can open up your auction to a whole new audience. For example, booksellers sometimes will avoid listing in the mammoth book categories and instead list according to the book's subject matter--books on computers might be listed in the computers or software section, and so on. As one seller pointed out in a Message Center thread, ''You can snag someone interested in the subject, who just didn't know they needed a book!''

Just take a little time to consider other categories and who your target audience is and which category pages they're likely to browse. A little creativity and innovation can lead to more hits, more bids, and more profits.

Remember that some categories are so large that your item might get lost in the shuffle. Try listing in a smaller yet still appropriate category. Also, if you're selling more than one item or similar items, conduct a little market research by listing items in different categories. Then sit back and see which category is the most successful. If it turns out that one category is doing particularly well, then consider updating your other in-progress auction or auctions by changing the item's category.

Relist It
When sellers relist their auctions, they usually make a few changes (lowering the price, altering the description or title, etc.) to try to turn around an unsuccessful auction. Another common tactic is switching categories.

Here's a good example (taken from the AW Message Center) that illustrates the benefits of not limiting yourself to one category. A seller started selling her dragon and fantasy sculptures in the most obvious category: sculptures. But after receiving no bids, the seller thought about her target audience. By doing so, she realized that in her local area such sculptures usually do well in comic book/gaming stores. So she switched categories and listed her sculptures in the role-playing games category. And voilà: bids and sales. ''By changing my category,'' said the seller, ''I not only hit people who may be looking for that type of thing, but it's a smaller category and I also get the 'impulse' buyers.''

What If I'm Not Sure?
There are times when sellers, especially new sellers, might not be sure about which categories to choose for their items. In those cases, it's best to do a search for the same item or similar items and find out where other sellers have listed their items. If your search results show listings in more than one category, determine which category is soliciting the most bids for that particular item: There's your category of choice.

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