What would you price this at?

[musicyouneed]

What would you price this at.  I have a Taylor Swift brand new CD.  Prices are all over the map.  On Discogs it is for sale at $220 and it is not brand new.  On ebay, new has sold for:  

What would you list it for, would you do it for auction?

[mrdutch1001]

Sellers can ask any price they want for any CD new or otherwise, but that doesn't mean that the CD will be sold for that price. Like anything else, the right buyer must be willing to purchase at that price.CDs are only worth it to someone who actually collects and/or plays CDs. CDs are like cassettes...a thing of the past, so only those die-hard collectors will pay a good price for them.  A specific artist is only of interest to specifically interested persons. So with 12,000 various Taylor Swift CDs currently listed on eBay, there is no way to know how much value to place on any given CD. If that particular CD has a selling history here on eBay, give it a go with a price in its competive range and maybe try auction but place the start bid at a price that you are comfortable with should there not be a huge bidding war. 

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

Discogs is a good reference point for prices, but there is a placement difference marketing wise between the two. eBay is more mainstream. Discogs is popular for what it is, but for the general public it is very niche. Something like a Taylor Swift CD is unlikely to realize a higher price on Discogs because the type of person who would be a big Taylor Swift collector is more likely to look on a website like Amazon or eBay.

I think your price is too high based on the comparable prices. I also think that you're very unlikely to sell it without enabling the Best Offer given that your price is above all the other comparable prices, and almost every sold listing sold via Best Offer.

Looking at sold listings, it seems like 400-600 CAD is the most optimistic range. I would likely price it around $699 and turn on Best Offer. I would not turn on auto-accept, but I would turn auto-decline on and keep it set at somewhere around $300. You will get a lot of low ball offers that are a waste of time. That way, any $20 type offers will at least boost your visibility in the algorithm at no extra effort to you. (Not that boosting visibility matters as much for a niche item like this.)

I'm familiar with the media and media collecting world, but I don't follow Taylor Swift close enough to know if there are any trends that would cause this title to drop in value. I suspect that this is not a title you want to hold on to and wait years to sell, because most collectibles across the board are dropping, and while Taylor Swift is an A+ celebrity, pop musicians are cyclical. When you're talking about your market being a very small amount of people willing to speculate on a $500 CD, it only takes a few people dropping out or losing interest for the value of the item to go down substantially. I could be wrong, but if you wait a year to sell this, it's probably not selling for the $500 it goes for now. 

For whatever reason, a bunch of these seemed to sell over almost the same day at the end of April. Either it was someone buying multiple copies to grade, a coincidence, or there was something related to the album or Taylor Swift that would have implored people to buy all the available copies around the same day. So that's another thing to consider. There could be a single person out there snagging this up on eBay, and once that person exits the market prices will likely go down because as popular as she is, this is a very niche collctors item.

Based on all the info available, you absolutely need to add best offer. Your price is slightly too high, but if you add Best Offer it might mitigate that. For an item like that I would hope to sell it within 4-8 weeks max, and try to optimistically get somewhere between $400-$600. Looking at sold listings, a worst case scenario looks to be $200-$300. 

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

The OPs price is high, likely based on looking at the other copies available. 

With that said, they are correct about that specific CD being worth a few hundred dollars on this market place. 

Taylor Swift does not own the masters for her first few albums. She also saw a massive rise in popularity a decade or so into her career. That is part of the reason she releases the "Taylor's verions" or whatever they are called of her old albums. She owns the songwriting, but not the recording masters. This has lead to the original versions being OOP and very collectible.

There is also a trend in "grading" unopened media. Similar to how people grade sports cards. Like most collectible trends, it has cooled down a little bit since the pandemic, but it means that a certain niche type of collector will speculate and grade key movie or music titles that are unopened and out-of-print.

It's possible that with this specific title, a lot of the sales aren't going to big Taylor Swift fans, but are actually going to people who look at the CD the same way a sports collector would look at a big rookie card. Like an investment vehicle. A small amount of people scooping these up would explain the massive disparity in sold listing prices. 

I think OP is more on the right track than they are on the wrong track, and maybe it will sell for 800 CAD - but I would suspect that's a bit too high. I think at the very least if they add Best Offer, but otherwise good for them for identifying what they had and not accidentally listing it for well below market value. 

If they have an account with any of the services that archive eBay sales beyond 90 days, there also might be some value in exploring what the long term sold prices have been for this CD. I suspect this CD selling for $400-$600 is based on a few people speculating over the short term. If so, that could mean that if OP holds on to it for a few months and those people speculating lose interest or drop out, that it could end up dropping to well below what a soft sale price would have looked like if they priced it to sell right away.

[byto253]

Searching sold listings by New and Ended Recently shows a range from $10 and up.  It appears that the Gold sticker on the front is the thing that makes a huge difference -  I think that is the Hype sticker?

Then recents show $300 US to $1k or a graded one.  Regardless of how you want to list it, I would get it up quickly before the bubble bursts.    

Price wise it comes down to what you would be comfortable getting of course.  To try and maximize you can either over-price it somewhat and accept offers, or put it up for auction with a starting price starting at your comfort level is.  I would put this on .com in US dollars as well.  

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

If you search 'Taylor Swift 2006 CD' there are only about 150 available, with 300 sold in the last 90 days. That is an exceptional ratio of sold items for a piece of media. 

If you click sold listings, at least a dozen have sold in the last few days. Most have sold somewhere in the 70 dollar range. There are a few 20-30 dollar sales, but they are likely BINs that were underpriced. 

The last Brand New one sold on May 24th for nearly 300 (possibly lower through BO).

The last Brand New Graded one sold for 1300 this month, although with anything graded there is always the possibility of shill bidding and a sale not going through.

Just sharing how I would look up and price a collectible like this. I think OP is mostly on the right track. One thing you have to understand is that there is a hysteria about graded media being the next big collectible (like sports cards). There is a finite amount of key sealed OOP titles. That is likely why there is such a premium on sealed first presses of this CD compared to pre-owned copies that aren't sealed. ($600 VS under $100).

[byto253]

Did you notice that the higher priced ones had the gold "hype" sticker on them?  I didn't look too long but that was my impression.   

We also do not have the actual disc to look at, and I wonder if it is a Canadian edition, which can sometimes affect value.  I do very little with CDs but with Vinyl LPs, that is a factor.

Either way if it was mine it would be going up ASAP before the Era's tour buzz is totally gone or a video emerges of the artist that may be unbecoming! 

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

Yes, I did notice that. 

In the CD collecting world, two CDs that would be the "same thing" to a non-collector can have very different values based on a variety of different factors. 

The info I gave is how I would approach researching the market for the item if I came into it myself. I am fairly confident with my assessment, although I am always open to the idea that I may be wrong.

My suspicion is that the value of this sealed title is being driven by speculation from people interested in grading CDs. That is why there is such a large difference between the price of a pre-owned copy ($60 CAD) and a sealed copy. While people do pay a small premium for brand new OOP items, the rate that these are selling at and the price they are selling at leads me to believe that the hysteria behind sealed media becoming a collectible is driving the price. People aren't buying these to open and play. 

I think that if OP priced it at 599 CAD BIN, it would be gone within a week or two unless something changed. 299 CAD BIN, gone within a few days.

[reallynicestamps]

It's still in the stores?

Best sellers in my experience don't sell online unless you can beat delivery time from Amazon (tomorrow) or price - and big box stores who buy in much larger lots than you can.

Most of my experience has been with books in forming this opinion.