Do you want to sell more of your inventory, almost effortlessly?  If you are a seller with duplicate items available, sending second chance offers to your non-winning auction bidders is a great way to grow your business and save listing fees.  The basic idea of a second chance offer is that after the auction, non-winning bidders can be given the option of purchasing a duplicate of the item they didn't win, at a Buy It Now price the same as what they already were willing to bid.

The benefit you get as a seller is no listing fees for making a Second Chance Offer (SCO), only the Final Value Fee when the offer is accepted.  You get highly interested customers who have already pre-qualified themselves by placing a bid on the original item.  You can choose whether you want the offer to last 1, 3, 5, or 7 days before it expires.

While this sounds great, there are a few points to be aware of if you are going to successfully sell with second chance offers:

Determine your Offer Price Limit

The minimum price you are willing to send second chance offer depends on your starting price strategy. In some categories or products, a $0.99 starting price strategy still makes sense, in other categories, the bidders have lost their bidding fever and the best starting price is one that will be profitable even if the auction gets only one bid.

SCO with $0.99 starting price strategy

Under the $0.99 starting price strategy, you obviously can't afford to offer second chances to EVERY SINGLE BIDDER who did not win your auction.  That bidder who didn't bid any higher than $1.04 is obviously much less profitable than the bidder who bid $23.27 on an item that ended at $25.00.  So where do you draw the line?  Who stays and who goes?  This is a decision that depends on your individual profit margin, sell-through ratio, and how much cash flow you need.  Most likely if you are selling repeatable items, you know to the penny what you can afford to accept and what you can't, and this is an easy decision.  Keep in mind when calculating profit to exclude the listing fee.

SCO with Profitable-at-One-Bid Strategy

More and more sellers start their auction items at a price that is profitable with only one bid.  Given the reduced number of bidders per auctions over the last few years, this is a reasonable approach.  If your item categories, or specific products have reached the point where you are using this starting price strategy, and still having more than one bidder, you are in a good position to really reap the second chance offers.  Say for example you sell a popular item that typically finishes at $20.00, even though you start it at $15.00 and would be happy to sell at $15.00.  Here is a great opportunity to send second chance offers to everyone who bid higher than $15.00.  Some sellers quite regularly turn a single item auction into 2 or 3 sales.

Personalized Note in the Second Chance Offer

eBay has recently revised the Second Chance Offer email to allow the seller to type a personalized message to the buyer.  I strongly encourage you use this to further convince the bidder to buy now, rather than find another auction and start all over again.  Many bidders are suspicious of Second Chance Offers, either because they are afraid of a scam email, or they don't know the seller has duplicates of the item, so they don't understand why they are getting a notification.  The personalized note is your chance to allay their fears, get the buyer thinking positively, and SELL!.   If you don't use the note form in the Second Chance Offer itself, at least send a separate email to the buyer.  This will have a large impact on whether they buy, or move on to another seller or another item.

Buyers are suspicious of Second Chance Offers

Many buyers on eBay are suspicious of second chance offers.  The first thought that goes through their heads, not knowing that you have duplicate inventory, is that you are going to take their money and not ship anything, OR they fear that a scammer who is not the actual seller is sending the offer.  This is easily remedied by sending them a note, either through email or saying something in the personalized note attached to the second chance offer.  In your note you can also tell buyers to check their My Messages folder on eBay to verify that the Second Chance offer is real.  Real Second Chance Offers will never have the title "Message from Ebay Member".

Check Your Non-Winning Bidders' Other Bids

It is prudent to make sure before you send a second chance offer to a bidder that, they are not already the highest bidder on another of your auctions running for a duplicate item.  They might withdraw their bid on the other item, causing the final value to not hit its target.  This can be a confusing situation for bidders, who sometimes increase their bid on another duplicate auction since their original bid was not enough to win.  Unless your buyers are likely to buy multiple of the same items, avoid sending Second Chance Offers to bidders who are the current high bidder on your other auctions.

Here's to your future success selling more using the Second Chance Offer feature- its a lot of fun! 

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This article remains copyright 2006 BrickSale.