Absurd Prices On Ebay

[Bendtracker1]

Starting an Item at 99¢ use to scare me as well.  "Gosh, I don't want to give the item away".  But I have come to learn that it usually gets bid on quicker and generally draws a final bid to close to what the market value should be.

One of our members wanted to list some stuff and had the same concern.  So I asked him this:
If an item that you wanted has a market value of $50.00, would you be willing to pay 99¢? ...."YES!"
Would you be willing to pay $5.00 for it?  "Yes"
Would you be willing to pay $35.00 for it?  "Probably"

Most of the time, if the item has any value to it, it will draw close to market price.  Once in awhile, you will have nice surprise when it goes for more than you paid for it or you get more than you thought it was worth. 
Ebay is like a day of fishing:  Sometimes you have a great day and other times you come home skunked!

If your using Ebay as a way to make a living, you'll probably have to work at it.  If your using Ebay as a way to clean house, thin the herd or get rid of stuff that you've upgraded [I'm speaking of modeling in this sense] and use it like a table at a swap meet, then Ebay can be a great way of doing this, a world wide swap meet.  Enter in to it without the illusions of money flying into your pocket.

I've seen where an item got listed for close to the market value one week without drawing a bid, then the seller re-lists it at low starting bid and have more than once seen it end for higher than they had it listed the first week.  I had this happen to me on more than one occasion!  I watched an item, but not bid on it, thinking it would be re-listed cheaper later.  When it did get re-listed, I watched as it climbed over the original price  and wishing I would have jumped on it the first time around 

[SleeperN06]

I had one guy who was actually stalking me. I think I have told this story before. back in the days where you could still see the high bidders screen name, I had this guys that would bid on everything N scale that I bid on, and always out bid me at the last second. at first I thought it was a fluke, then when I went and bid on a specific part for my old car (1995 dodge neon ACR) very very specific part for a version of a car that most people don't know about, let alone know if they have. He bid on that part too, and out bid me. I got pissed and wrote the guy an e-mail asking him what his problem was, and why he was screwing with me. His reply was "it is just by chance, but if you want the stuff that I won, I will sell it to you for 20% above what I paid plus shipping." Then I knew that he was screwing with me.

So, the next part is really dirty, underhanded, against the rules, and just all around not right, but I think the guy deserved it.

I had a buddy that was selling a older Minitrix 2-10-0, that was out of quater. I had told him the story, and he had this idea. Basicly what he sugested was to get into a bidding war with the guy, get the auction as high as possible, then in the last 5 miniutes, he would delete my bid, or I would retract my bid (this was back when you could actually do that). Long story short, the toolshed ended up paying $3,250 + shipping for a out of quarter 2-10-0. Guy actually paid up, then e-mailed me and offered the whole "20% over" deal again, needless to say I told him to shove it, and he never bothered me again.

anymore, I don't buy or bid on anything on ebay anymore because their is too many people with more money than brains, and keeps people like me that buy junk for parts from getting reasonable prices. Not only that but forget about getting anything that says NP on it for a reasonable price, Although I was able to get a couple of IM F7B units for about $50 shipped, and recently $20 for a walthers NP coach, I hope that is a sign of things turning around. we will see.

Wow, that’s quite a story and entertaining in a weird way. Thanks for sharing that, I like to hear stuff like that so I know what to expect. I wonder how many more stories like that are out there.

[SleeperN06]

One of the many fees charged by eBay is the listing fee. This is based on the starting bid. Many sellers list all of their items at 99 cents to keep the listing fee low, especially if they have a lot of items. I almost always list mine at 99 cents. It's only a risk if you have items of marginal value; if your items are good, then the market will determine their worth, and I usually get fair prices for what I list. I think out of the hundreds I've listed, maybe only one or two went for 99 cents. It's also a good way of raising the chances that something will sell, and it was very rare for me to not sell something.

Obviously this is not a tactic to take if you're selling something really valuable, such as a brass loco.

I need to be taking notes, because I’ve learned more here than I could get out of eBay. 

[victor miranda]

I really get tired of the accusations of "shill" bidding. I have bought and sold over 500 items on Ebay and never ran into anything that I thought was shill bidding. If it goes higher than I am prepared to pay, then I walk away, simple as that.  I have run up against the same person over and over again that would pay whatever it took to win an item and would constantly out bid me. I finally realized, another will come up for auction eventually, just be patient.

hi skipgear,
I like this paragraph except for the starting sentence.
logicly, the second part is the correct thing to do in any acution.
and is what I do. 

some shilling does happen.  and yeh it is tiresome to hear about.
I get second chance offers and see more than a few items
I have not won get relisted...

I see some bidding that I am pretty sure is shill bidding.
if you can explain a bid for an atlas parts diesel at 19.90
I'd like to hear it.  there are other such... slightly under the mark bids.
that example should be 20.10 and that is a winning bid.

What I have not seen is any real pattern to it.

but it is a problem for the buyers in that real bargains are not possible
if there is a shill bidding.

the reserve price auction is the same result.

my favorite way to avoid shilling is to use this auction format.
you get one sealed bid on the auction.
 the top bidder gets the item at the price of the second place bid.

the Shills win a lot in that format. 
victor

[chuck geiger]

I've been working these: http://my.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MyEbay&gbh=1

And lighting fast - I'm outbid - That can't be real, EBAY is doing this with
an auto respond right....

[SleeperN06]

I've been working these: http://my.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MyEbay&gbh=1

And lighting fast - I'm outbid - That can't be real, EBAY is doing this with
an auto respond right....

I think that might be the wrong link because it took me to “MyeBay”

[Pete Steinmetz]

I think that might be the wrong link because it took me to “MyeBay”

Me Too. I thought for a second someone was messing with me.  Just a glitch.

[chuck geiger]

I have won a few, some just get driven so high, you want a field to
say: YOU WIN

[chuck geiger]

WTF, bidding on some structures...bid ends at 66.00 and it jumps to 140.00 saying I
owe that...I emailed the seller and will talk to EBAY in the morning...Any idea what
happened. I never touched the keyboard or increased the bid - I watched a bunch of
bids and numbers clicker fast and then the amount...140.00

[SleeperN06]

WTF, bidding on some structures...bid ends at 66.00 and it jumps to 140.00 saying I
owe that...I emailed the seller and will talk to EBAY in the morning...Any idea what
happened. I never touched the keyboard or increased the bid - I watched a bunch of
bids and numbers clicker fast and then the amount...140.00

That almost happened to me. I submitted an early bid just to get me in and have a reminder when it was getting to the end. I was entering a small bid and forgot to put in the decimal point. I caught it when it confirmed my bid.  This is why I asked if the seller could see the bids.. 

[chuck geiger]

Yeah I'm done, I won a few odds and ends I will have to pay double the price of the item for shipping...The guy
with the 66.00 jumping to 140.00 emailed me and told me that he understood I didn't understand the automatic
bid process in the last few minutes. Told me I couldn't get this for 66.00



It appears you are new to eBay, so I'll try and explain:

When you put a bid number in the box, it will bid UP to that number. The only way eBay would have jumped to $140.00 is if you put a number in the bid box that allowed eBay to auto-bid for you, up to that number.. For example, if you put in $200, thinking that the current bid was $65, or what have you. eBay does NOT change your bid. It is also possible that you thought you put in $66, but made a typo and put in, say, $660.

It also means that someone else was willing to pay up to $140, and by you not understanding how eBay works, I am now out that money, and that buyer is not going to be able to get their goods.

So, I need to make this clear: You will not be getting this lot for $66, because someone else wanted to pay more for it.

I am sorry for your confusion.

I won't do this again, I will support model railroad flea markets and club swap meets.

[conrail98]

Chuck, did you ever get a confirmation email that had your max bid on it of $140 or something other than what you thought it was?

Phil

[chuck geiger]

No Phil last confirmation was 66.00 - Then the auction
ended and it said I won...then the amount was 140.66
then the email with the price of 140.66- I watched a
bunch of bids flash real quick with numbers then
it ended.

[conrail98]

I'd contact eBay then, something happened there that, even if you don't get what you wanted, they'd be aware of it,

Phil

[TiVoPrince]

Sniper  
bids set by others to react in the last few minutes (or seconds) of the auction.  Nothing illegal or immoral about that, it happens in a large percentage of auctions.  You can see one at http://www.bidnapper.com and use the free trial option.  There is a cost and in the end you will have to wrestle with the cost/benefit in your mind to decide if this is for you.

Set your maximum bid in advance and go on with your life.  Near the close of an auction the bids may come very qiuckly as sniper programs battle it out with each other and many bids incrementing by the minimum bid again and again until someone is finally outbid or the clock runs out.  Then you can look in your Ebay summary for the results at your liesure, winor lose I don't want to be up watching an auction ending at 03:45 Eastern Time.  Finding out if I won/lost ovre coffee the following morning is good enough for me.  Ebay has a similar service (where you very carefully enter your maximum bid) but it is not triggered by the timing of close of the auction, only by the bids of others including snipers.

Bottom line is Ebay automatically bid up to, but not over the amount you entered (even if you entered an incorrect amount) and confirmed when you bid on the item.  Hopefully the seller will not be out of pocket on the auction and the last bidder will accept the second chance offer...