How is the economy affecting the sale prices of your bears?  Are you flexible with your auction and website pricing?  How should you price your bear?

We have noticed that many artists, despite the economy, are holding strong with their pricing both on their websites and at auction sites.  Because collectors are spooked and not making discretionary purchases as they did in the past, bear and other collectible sales have dropped off dramatically.  What we do see, however, is that collectors are still buying - they are just buying less expensive items.  How can you, as a bear artist, still make those sales without reducing your prices too much?  We all know the many hard hours that go into making a bear and, honestly, if we charged by the hour for our work we would have to charge lots more than we do! 

Consider auction pricing:  Collectors don't like bidding against a reserve price.  A very low starting bid with a reserve might attract some attention and a bid or two, but most collectors won't bid against a reserve.  But to list your bears without a reserve at a very low starting price is truly frightening!  It could possibly turn out that you only get one bid!  Can you possibly risk giving your bear away after all that work?  I don't know about you dear reader, but my heart can't stand the absolute terror of watching the auction close with only a minimum bid!   But sometimes the risk is worth it, and if you can find a middle ground beginning price where you are more comfortable you may still come out with a reasonable price for your bear.
 
Try this:  List your bear with no reserve, using a starting price that is acceptable to you if the bear is sold.  Make sure it is low enough to entice collectors to bid but not so low that you would be devastated if it sold at that price.  Very often collectors watch an auction on an item they want and wait until just before it closes to place a bid - the final price usually goes up way beyond your minimum in the heat of the last minute bidding.  It also pays to do some research before you start listing so you know what similar bears are bringing at auction so that you don't price your listings so high that they won't sell at all. 

If your heart is weak and you must list with a reserve, we recommend setting as low a reserve as possible to protect your investment while at the same time enticing collectors to bid.  Be sure to keep in mind when setting your reserve that a large percentage of merchandise sold in internet auctions typically sells for less than so-called book value - especially in todays' market.