foolish sellers with your .99 auctions in sports collectables

[jban5698]

when a baseline price has been set why would a seller go any less then that? I'll tell you why.. greed. to sell their items at a lower price than the next guy as fast as they can no matter how far they drive the values down. as long as you garage sale, swat meet salesmen continue with your under cutting the values of collectables the values will continue to drop to the point where your stuff will be worthless. but as long as you make a dollar i guess it's ok.. when a /99 Yakupov is selling for $40-60 because of these ignorant .99 cent auctions collectables will continue to dive .. Good job swap meet guys.. Yes this has been a problem for as long as ebay has been around but its the greedy seller that is the main problem.

[femmefan1946]

I agree with your premise, that a race for the bottom is bad for all sellers, including the 'swap meet' guy, but I believe the reason is not greed, but ignorance.

EBay still encourages new sellers to start auctions at 99 cents. Many, especially the less literate, get the idea that they MUST start auctions at 99 cents. We had a letter today that indicated that.

Many others do not understand the concept of markup, which is not the same as profit.

Others have never learned that there is a catalogue price.

Yet others don't know which cards are better. This may include estates disposing of collections .(Does your spouse know how much you spend on your collection? Does your spouse have any way of learning which are the better items?)

And of course, one thing that eBay showed collectors is that there is a lot more out there than they thought. The early reaction to this was a drop in prices (Beanie Babies anyone?). The later reaction was an uptick in interest among collectors who learned they did not have to deal with Comic Book Guy at the local strip mall to find more and nicer items for the collection.

But yeah, 99 cent auctions do no one any service, including the buyer.

[northern*electric]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

I agree with your premise, that a race for the bottom is bad for all sellers, including the 'swap meet' guy, but I believe the reason is not greed, but ignorance.

EBay still encourages new sellers to start auctions at 99 cents. Many, especially the less literate, get the idea that they MUST start auctions at 99 cents. We had a letter today that indicated that.

Many others do not understand the concept of markup, which is not the same as profit.

Others have never learned that there is a catalogue price.

Yet others don't know which cards are better. This may include estates disposing of collections .(Does your spouse know how much you spend on your collection? Does your spouse have any way of learning which are the better items?)

And of course, one thing that eBay showed collectors is that there is a lot more out there than they thought. The early reaction to this was a drop in prices (Beanie Babies anyone?). The later reaction was an uptick in interest among collectors who learned they did not have to deal with Comic Book Guy at the local strip mall to find more and nicer items for the collection.

But yeah, 99 cent auctions do no one any service, including the buyer.

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I used to do 99 cent auctions selling stuff I either received for free or I no longer wanted. I agree though that, for collectibles, a race to the bottom is bad for sellers.

[i*m-still-here]

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@jban5698 wrote:

when a baseline price has been set why would a seller go any less then that? I'll tell you why.. greed. 

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There are other reasons for doing that.

One is to "dump" the stuff.

EBay has become a dumping ground for experienced sellers who sell the good stuff elsewhere, but it's also great for experienced buyers because of the inexperienced sellers described above.

EBay welcomes them and so do I. 

While eBay has been babying electronics and Walmart-type-stores, it's morphed into a junk shop for collectibles with an atmosphere all its own.

[pierrelebel]

"Why would a seller go any less then that?"

Why indeed?

On a slightly different angle, I see sellers who seem to always accept offers for prices below the listed price?

Why?

After a while there is little credibility left in their pricing structure.

If a seller feels an item is worth a fair market value of $60.00 why list it at $80.00?

[bb_cool_stuff]

when a /99 Yakupov is selling for $40-60 because of these ignorant .99 cent auctions collectables will continue to dive.

Am I missing something here gang ?

Was the starting price .99 & then sold for forty to sixty ?

[i*m-still-here]

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@pierrelebel wrote:

On a slightly different angle, I see sellers who seem to always accept offers for prices below the listed price?

Why?

After a while there is little credibility left in their pricing structure.

If a seller feels an item is worth a fair market value of $60.00 why list it at $80.00?

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There are many individual reasons to list items with the BO option.  (Perhaps as many as there are sellers doing it.)

For example: A lot of sellers list items they know nothing about and so it does make very good sense to go fishing for certain items.

Also, there is no loss of credibility in an individual seller's pricing structure simply because for such items it's unlikely that the seller will have the same potential buyer(s) more than once.

There are many other reasons as well to list via BO.  Just one for example:  Not al items have a market value.

[i*m-still-here]

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@bb_cool_stuff wrote:

Was the starting price .99 & then sold for forty to sixty ?

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I see that happen all the time.

One seller I know consistently starts items under $10 and they sell for top dollar.

I find this seller interesting because she lists items that should sell for $50 or less and they sell for 3 times that amount, and it never fails.

I just don't get it.......... but...........

Kudos to her!

[pierrelebel]

"Not al items have a market value."

May be but not in the context of this thread.  I was replying directly to the original poster.  His post suggests a market price has been established.

[bb_cool_stuff]

His post suggest a market price has been established.

With the myriad of New Releases in the Sports Card Industry I would imagine a market price is only established until New Product is released.

After that I imagine card dumping takes place for whatever price they can get for the product.

Unique cards seem to always hold their value.

Must be a tough category to sell product.

[i*m-still-here]

Then, apparently, these posts only refer to a select group of items with established market prices and the comments don't generalize well to other collectibles.

Items such as sports cards and postage stamps have established fair market values.

Anything else?

[bb_cool_stuff]

Then, apparently, these posts only refer to a select group of items with established market prices and the comments don't generalize well to other collectibles.

In my category I would consider that statement to be accurate.

Would help if the OP could add some additional information to their original post.

[tobyshitzu]

I dont see competitors doing.99 auctions as damaging market price even if they sell for lower.  Its the ones who keep lowering their BIN to stay the lowest, particularly with multi quantity that kill pricing

[michaelbb2]

I find that the lower the starting price of an auction....the more interest you get...at least in my category.  I usually list Buy it Now items for way over market price and they do just fine but when I list the same items at auction starting at just 50 cents I get a scurry of activity and the items get bid up way higher then the market value and even the Buy it Now listings for similar items. 

why is this?

-people like the low price at first......watch the item and place a bid....then maybe feel pot committed and just bid to win not taking into consideration the actual value of the item or that there could be a Buy it Now item out there?

-these low starting auction items get better exposure?

-maybe the market value is too low right now for the demand?

In my opinion as a buyer,  an item listed at market value is not as appealing as one listed at 99 cents starting.  If a buyer doesn't do his/her homework before bidding though, they could drive the price higher than market value listed item.  I think this is what happens.

Perhaps in the category of sports collectibles there is not enough interest to support the 99 cent auctions.  If this is the case then maybe the market value should drop.  If it doesn't hit it's market value on eBay (debatably the largest marketplace on earth) then maybe the item is overvalued.  That would be a shame as I also love to collect baseball cards.