Pricing Your Crafts
EBAY Auction Power Book Review

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EBAY Auction Power presents a strategy for pricing your crafts that will seem completely radical to many.

The ideas in this book run counter to a lot of the traditional wisdom you'll hear about selling handmade items.

But it just makes so much sense! I'd really recommend checking this book out.

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The author, Jason Miles, and his wife, Cinnamon Miles, have a proven track record of successfully selling high-end handmade doll clothing and commanding exceptional prices using the strategies outlined in the book.

I won't give away all of the strategies for pricing your crafts that are laid out in the book, but I will say, the plan involves selling your items in an auction setting, like eBay, and starting with a very low price.

Two things that most artisans are loathe to do.

Keep an Open Mind and Reconsider Some of Your Assumptions

EBAY Auction Power shows how this strategy can work, if you do it right.

Most craft artists avoid selling on eBay because they think of it as a site for bargain hunters only. Therefore, the assumption is that it's impossible to get a fair price for handmade items there.

However, eBay is not just a place for bargain hunters. It is also a place for treasure hunters. And that's what well-designed and well-made handmade items are - treasures.

People use eBay to purchase difficult to find treasures that you can't just pick up at your local department store. And treasure hunters are willing to pay top-dollar for items they really want.

Cultivating that customer mindset is the key to selling handmade items at excellent prices in an auction setting like eBay.

Of course, it's not enough to just post an item on auction at eBay with a low starting price and expect it to sell for a couple hundred dollars.

There's an entire strategy you must implement to create the mystique and excitement around your items that will cause customers see them as rare treasures worth a significant amount of money and worth competing for at auction.

EBAY Auction Power outlines exactly how to create that mystique on all levels of your business including:

determining a niche that you can own
determining the message you want to communicate to customers and how you will do that
naming your business (which is a big part of communicating a message to customers)
improving your designs so they are clearly superior to your competition and worth premium prices
photographing your work (absolutely crucial for online sales)
writing great copy for your listings
getting traffic to your listings
managing your auctions to achieve maximum prices

This book really goes well beyond pricing your crafts.

It shows you how to build a cachet around your business, to elevate your handmade items in your customers' minds so they become valuable treasures they truly desire.

Even if you ultimately decide to use more traditional craft pricing strategies, you will still benefit from implementing much of the advice in this book.

EBAY Auction Power is available in Kindle format at Amazon.com. It really is an excellent addition to a craft business library.