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Before the Auction: Starting an Auction Business

If you are making the move from casual bidder to bona fide seller, listing up to 50 items or more per week, it's crucial to have a sales system and schedule in place. This way, you'll have time for other business responsibilities, such as building up an inventory, preparing items for auction, writing descriptions, and so on. Here are some helpful suggestions on how to set up your own sales model.

Computer Literate
If you are shooting for the big leagues, you should probably retire that ancient 386 computer. Invest in a Pentium-233 computer with a 56K modem, Super VGA video card, and 17-inch monitor so that monitoring your auctions is not ridiculously slow and painful. Also, if you really intend to make money, consider paying for a more full-featured business account from your ISP. Such accounts are not that much more expensive than the cheapest consumer accounts, and provide better connectivity, customer support, and features, such as Web site hosting and added file space.

Listing Schedule
Depending on the volume of items you'll be selling, create a strict listing schedule. For instance, you may want to list every other day at one specific time and use off days to prepare descriptions, take photos, pack and ship items, etc. If you intend to auction hundreds of items each month and list every day, list exclusively in the morning, afternoon, or evening. An added benefit of always listing at one set time is that your auctions always will close at the same hour. This allows you to send your end-of-auction confirmations in bulk, which can be done seamelessly using Vendio's Post Sale Management tool, available in AW's Auction Manager service.

Speaking of Auction Manager, this AW service features a "Schedule" option, which allows sellers to specify the starting time of their auctions, regardless of the time they submit the listing. In other words, their auctions can be automatically listed while they are offline. Moreover, AW's downloadable bulk lister Auction Manager Pro v2.0 works in conjunction with Auction Manager, allowing sellers to schedule the start times of hundreds of auctions at once and bulk list them automatically at the date and hour specified. (For a complete explanation of the new features in Auction Manager Pro, v2.0, visit AW's AM Pro How To Use page.)

Auction Database
Active online merchants who sell at online auction will require an auction database where they can monitor their ongoing online auctions from start to finish. In the early days of online auctions, a spreadsheet program was the best bet. Sellers would laboriously create a set of "fields" to track their sales, entering in the auction item, auction lot number, listing date, closing date, listing fees, purchase cost, reserve/minimum bid, final bid, final value fee, buyer information (name, email, address), payment method, shipping date, shipping, handling, and insurance fees, and more. Worse, they would have to update the data by hand on a daily basis--that is, if they had the time and were truly motivated.

Thankfully, in the last year auction services companies, such as Vendio, have developed robust online solutions that automate the online auction process, from listing and tracking to inventory management and fulfillment. For instance, if you list your auctions through AW's Auction Manager, it automatically enters their titles and lot numbers into a secure database. Better yet, changes in your auctions' price, bids, and hits (tracked via counter) are automatically recorded and displayed on your account's password-protected Control Panel screen, eliminating the need to manually record the data in an offline spreadsheet. Moreover, all closed auctions can be viewed separately as they end, so the seller quickly can review their performance and restage them if they weren't successful. (We'll discuss online inventory management services below.)

If a seller's auctions close successfully, Auction Manager's Post Sale Management tool allows sellers to send customized winning bidder notifications with one click. It also notifies the seller when the buyer has responded to the WBN and tracks the delivery of the item, and more. In short, automated online post sale management tools can greatly expedite the fulfillment process, allowing the seller to get on to the next sale and make more money.

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