How to Successfully Run Mystery Auctions on eBay - By Avril Harper

The term ‘mystery auctions’ is self-explanatory because no one ever knows precisely what they are buying at mystery auction. A strange state of affairs, sounding impossible to most people, but big business all the same, and featuring some of the highest finishing prices on eBay, including, recently:

* Holiday Stocking Mystery Auction, Coach Handbags + fetched $2676 (See Footnote)

* Win Big Baby Mystery Auction Cash Box fetched $3,100 (See Footnote)

That’s very small fry compared to the early days of mystery auctions when prices of several thousand dollars were common for really weird items such as expensive gifts bought and confiscated from a cheating partner, spare change removed by the seller from a drunken husband’s pocket.

Most mystery auctions involve bidding on a box or envelope, possibly empty, usually with contents, but never with enclosures fully described. So you’ll find envelopes offered containing an undisclosed sum of money, boxes containing specified items like toys or collectors’ stamps without further detail, the contents of a cheating husband’s pay packet (was it a bonus week, back-paid overtime, a nice fat redundancy cash payout?). More exciting still are envelopes that might contain a fortune or may even be empty or, at the other extreme, boxes packed with genuinely useful and valuable items sellers simply need to dispose of to generate cash flow or room for more stock.

The main rule for a product to qualify as a ‘mystery’ auction is that a substantial part of the listing must remain secret. Clues may be given to the contents at the beginning and various stages of the auction as long as content remains substantially a mystery.

Footnote

Strangely, neither of those sellers are still registered on eBay, which probably has much to do with dishonest bidders and non-paying buyer scenarios typically confronting mystery auction sellers. Don’t be deterred, there are easy ways to avoid problems like this, and mystery auctions really are a very good way to make money, honestly, and generate lots of happy, repeat customers for your business.

A New Trend in Mystery Auctions

Sellers sometimes give a rough idea as to contents to help visitors make an informed decision to bid or pass on a particular auction. This is a growing trend, often involving very high perceived value products such as collectibles, land and property, investment opportunities. Many professional eBay Mystery Auctioneers focus on specific product types for their auctions, such as scrapbooking and jewelery making supplies, collectors’ stamps and postcards, even land and Japanese militaria. To illustrate:

- eBayer - mlig-auctions - sells land and currently has multiple mystery auction listings for large and small plots of land with bids extending to many thousands of dollars and never an auction closing unsold.

Currently he or she is offering:

MYSTERY LAND AUCTION=21+ACRE+ROAD &CREEK FRONTAGE=RARE!
ALL 1st BID LEVELS WIN CA$H+ALL BUYERS WIN FREE PARCEL!
(Bidding currently stands at US $12,501.00)

- Similarly offering land and other investment properties are eBayers:

auction-land-sales

certified-investments

* Most collectors are magpies, liking nothing more than a good rummage through packages of unknown items relating to their special collecting interest, be it: stamps, postcards, Johnny Cash memorabilia, stock and share certificates, or virtually any other portable collectable (‘portable’ because multiple large item lots can be heavy and expensive to post, so small is usually best).
- eBayer – affiliatedcoins - (feedback 11933) currently promotes a number of mystery packages containing one theme collectibles, in this case Japanese Memorabilia. His auction reads:

MYSTERY AUCTION: 1942 WWII JAPANESE MILITARIA

Avril Harper is an eBay PowerSeller and provides hundreds of business opportunity articles href="http://www.avrilharper.com">http://www.avrilharper.com. She has produced a free guide - 103 POWERSELLER TIPS - which you can download with other freely distributable reports and eBooks at href="http://www.toppco.com">http://www.toppco.com