How to find the best Buy It Now price on Whatnot

Most sellers set Buy It Now prices by feel. Price too high and stock piles up. Price too low and your margin disappears. The good news is that you already have the data to do better: the prices you have tried, and how many you sold at each.

The two ways to get it wrong

Too high. Each sale earns a lot, but very few people buy. The stock you paid for sits in your warehouse, show after show.

Too low. Everything sells, but each sale earns almost nothing. You work harder for less.

The best price sits somewhere in between. It is the price where the number you sell, multiplied by what each sale earns you, is as large as possible. You can't see that by looking at one show. You can see it by putting a few shows side by side.

What you need to write down

For each price you have tested on an item, you need three numbers:

The Buy It Now price.
How many you sold per show at that price, on average.
How many shows you ran at that price.

Then you need one more number: what each item cost you.

The number of shows matters. Five sales a show over four shows is much stronger evidence than five sales in a single show, so a good calculation should trust it more.

A worked example

Here are the example values the free BIN price calculator starts with. The item costs $8.

#	BIN price	Sold per show	Shows run
1	$12	5	4
2	$18	2.7	3
3	$25	1.2	2

From those three tests (nine shows in total), the calculator estimates the best price at about $18.56. It marks this as low confidence, because nine shows is not much data, and it gives a wide likely range.

You can then slide the test price to see what would happen at other prices:

#	Test price	Sold per show	Gross profit per show
1	$8.16	9.99	$1.60
2	$32.93	0.86	$21.46
3	$50.00	0.41	$17.36

At $8.16 you sell almost ten a show but keep only $1.60. At $50 you keep more on each sale, but sell less than half a unit a show. Go too far either way and profit drops.

Why not just pick the price that sold the most?

Because selling the most is not the same as earning the most. In the example, $12 sold the most units per show. But each sale only earned $4 over cost. A higher price that sells fewer units can still leave you with more money at the end of the show.

What to do in your own shop

Pick one item you sell often. Repeat items give you the most data.
Test at least two or three prices. Run each price for a few shows so one quiet night doesn't mislead you.
Log price, units sold per show and shows run for each test, plus your cost per item.
Put the numbers into the BIN price calculator and look at both the best price and the confidence level.
Keep testing. As you add more shows, the estimate gets tighter. If the confidence is low, treat the best price as a direction to test next, not a final answer.