One way is to post a teaser a couple weeks prior to your announcement to generate enthusiasm and help people plan their buying sprees. A teaser should never be vague, for example, "I've got a ton of old Space sets to auction off; more info in a couple weeks," because you'll end up wasting your time answering three dozen personal e-mails and then posting a list of sets anyway. A teaser should be brief and should list specifically what items you'll be selling -- sort of like a movie preview.

Another way is to offer free shipping. This is an expensive offer, but it works because it frees people from worrying about paying $2-$3 for shipping on a $4 item.

Another way is to build a loyal following of bidders -- hold several auctions and do an outstanding job. People will come back if they know you offer good service.

Sadly, perhaps the most effective way to attract lots of bidders is to bombard the newsgroup with repeated and frequent updates. News servers typically drop news articles after a week, so if you post only once it's likely that half your potential audience never even knows about your auction.

A typical auction has between 10 and 30 participants. Most of these are bidders, some of these are just people who want to watch. In larger auctions, the number of bidders can get as high as 50 or 100.

8 Jan 96 [TSL]