Have you ever seen prices that made no sense?

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

Have you ever spotted prices that were out of the world based on reality? Spotted a few recently from a UK high volume book seller. Price "changed" (Went from 370 GBP to 6 GBP) when I accessed send message area to actual(true) selling price which most prospective buyers would just skip. Responses as follows.

We have an automatic pricing system which continuously reviews the prices of our items based on several variables, including market demand and availability.

Our listing prices can be updated many times each day so please check the marketplace listings to keep up to date with our prices.

All listings are uploaded with a set price to begin and then enter a queue for re-pricing.As we have a lot of items this can take some time, so I can only suggest to watch the item and it will re-price to a more reasonable amount.
​

And...

The high price given is an interim price to prevent multiple purchases.
Please check back later.

So if it is something you are really interested in, it may not hurt to email and confirm. Previously I thought that they were just sticky fingers on the keys. (I understand some sellers use a higher price when they run out of stock - stopgap until stock arrives)

-Lotz

[femmefan1946]

(I understand some sellers use a higher price when they run out of stock - stopgap until stock arrives)

This always struck me as a really dumb move.  You can't supply it, so why pay for listing*  something that you don't want to sell?

At least your example seems to use some sort of automated program to change the prices. I suspect most sellers using the "ridiculous price" scheme have to change prices manually.

And what happens when the new stock is marginally different than the listed one?

We have an Unsold Items List that is good for 90 days, no need to use up paid space while waiting for new stock.

*including using up Store space when something you could sell is shoved aside by these useless items.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

This particular seller had a major stock pile of listings with millions of feedbacks. It just triggered the ol' spidey senses and made me curious. Also, if they do have a large quantity of these "high priced" listings floating around in their database it could be messing up search results if you were not to choose by low price first. I search by distance religiously  preferring items located in Canada. This item came up 2nd or 3rd. 20 year old coffee table book with 2 copies available. Original value 15 to 20 Cdn. If it was autographed by Wayne or Bobby......Maybe!!!  🙂

-Lotz

[femmefan1946]

I use addall.com to research book prices and editions, and one thing I have noticed when I sort by High Price First is that these are often AZ prices -- and can be in the thousands for easily available paperbacks where most of the prices cluster under $20.

If your example is a mega-dealer, I'd put it down to fat finger typos and no one taking responsibility.  The fancy programing  probably has less to do with it than human error and hubris.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

Try a search for the following:

Bob Dylan - Desire/Blood on the Tracks/Street Legal - Bob Dylan CD LCVG The The

You can buy now for the ridiculously low price C $7,179.01 plus 5.10 for shipping. (From UK)

Then try a sort of other items highest to lowest.  Extremely interesting strategy.

-Lotz

[manitoba-eh]

A few days ago I came across a home security system listed at $12.00 US (in China). The pictures and the sellers description like always where copied from a website.
I smelt something fishy so I send the seller a message asking him/her "What is included for this price?"
The next day I receive a reply... "don't worry it run smooth"
Well, that didn't get anywhere near answering my question so I send another message (withing 5 minutes).... "So what your saying is that for $12.00 US your going to send me 8 - 1080P cameras, 8 power supplies for the cameras, a 8 channel NVR + power supply and a 2 Terabyte hard drive?"
No reply that day... no reply the next morning.... so I open the previous message and click on it to take me to the eBay page... low and behold the add was taken down, so I click on the sellers name and it comes up that he/she is no longer an eBay seller.
Just as I thought... a dumb scammer.
There is no way you can get that type of system for 12 bucks... they generally start at $350 and go up from there. Since then I've come across a couple that are selling for $25, sent both of them messages. One took the add down the other just ignored me.
eBay is like anywhere else, you have to know your prices.... if someone is selling something dirt cheap compared to everyone else on eBay you have to question it.

[femmefan1946]

It is surprising how often buyers are taken in by these scams. And how often those scammed buyers are mad at eBay -- which as in your case does remove scam listings and scam sellers on a regular basis-- for ending the too good to be true listings.

The one problem is that eBay does not make it clear to these idiots optimists how to get  refunded. When they close the listing, they leave no obvious path.  And you know these are not the sharpest needles in the pincushion.