GPA Analysis and Past eBay Sales No Longer Accurate, Warning! 4 4

[Squad008]

So if anyone has already written about this then I apologize for missing it, I just thought that this was important to discuss.

 

The short version: eBay recently made some changes to their site which significantly skew the sales prices of CGC graded comics on GPA Analysis and eBay past sales listings for all sold comics (both CGC and Raw).  I explain below if you care to read the longer explanation.

Recently, probably 3-4 weeks, eBay made some slight changes to their site.  One new feature that they added is causing the issue and it leaves A TON of room for manipulation, which I think is starting to happen.  The new feature I am talking about is the added ability for a seller to send an offer directly to a buyer on any Buy It Now listing (note this is different then a Buy It Now or Best Offer item).  

So a potential buyer messages a seller that has an item listed strictly as Buy It Now.  They give an offer in the message, nothing new.  In the past, the Seller would either have to lower the price the item was listed at in order to accept the offer or revise the item and make it a Buy It Now or Best Offer.  Now, sellers have the ability to respond to messages received from potential buyers with direct offers.  I believe the button says "send offer."

So whats the big deal? Well, when a seller was forced to lower the price on the listing, or change the listing to Buy It Now or Best Offer, then both GPA Analysis and eBay sold items records would reflect the final sales price.  This made it possible to accurately track all sales.  However, and this is a HUGE however, sales of items that are listed strictly as Buy It Now which are sold via the new "send offer" button are recorded in eBay sold item history as being sold for the FULL LISTING PRICE.  GPA Analysis is also recording these sales at full listing price severely skewing all sales data.

Example: Seller A lists a CGC graded comic as Buy It Now or Best Offer.  Seller A gets an offer, it is accepted, and the ACTUAL sales price gets recorded in eBay sold items history and GPA Analysis.  Seller B lists a CGC graded comic as Buy It Now only for $200.  An interested buyer messages him saying will you take $100 for the comic.  Seller B responds to the message by clicking the new "send offer" button with an offer price of $125.  The buyer accepts and the item is sold for $125.  eBay sold items history will show that the item sold for the full $200 listing price and GPA Analysis is also recording the sale at the full asking price.  

How do I know: I know because I recently sold two of the same exact modern comics on eBay within a 7 day period.  Out of curiosity, or possibly procrastination at work, I sometimes check up on comics I sold to see if it was a good/bad transaction.  The comic is relatively new so there are only a few sales.  I noticed the last sale was pretty decent so I click on the GPA 9.8 link to see when the sale happened and realized that there are only two transactions for this comic record, i.e. both of my sales.  The prices listed by GPA were the full listing prices at the time of the sale, they were not the price paid by the buyer.  I then went back on eBay, did a search for the comic, looked up sales history, and sure enough, eBay has it listed as if it sold for full listing price without any indication otherwise.  Best Offer listings of course have the slash when a seller accepts a best offer for less then listing price.

I thought that this was very odd and then a recent trend that didn't make sense to me popped into my head.  I had been noticing that a lot of hotter modern raw books were selling for 50% to 60% of listed 9.8 CGC copies that are for sale on eBay.  I've noticed a ton of raw books selling for way more than they ever should based on current 9.8 prices.  I kept looking at the listings and seeing that they were not Best Offer listings and that they didn't have any slash.  Then copies of the same book is listed by the same seller or other sellers asking for more than the last sale and they kept selling with prices going up really quickly.  

I was very confused, it just made no sense that some raw books were selling for upwards of 75 to 80% of the asking price for 9.8 graded copies of the book that were listed.  Now it makes sense and it smells of a new shill bidding scheme on both raw and cgc books:

Example: Shiller A realized the flaw in the eBay sold listings and has 25 copies of a hot modern that has been slowly going up, say went from $25 to $40 for raw NM copies over the past four months.  He lists one at $60 and a buyer emails him asking if he will take $35 and he responds with a "send offer" for the $35.  Now he realizes that all potential buyers see the $60 sale listed on eBays sold listing history and he lists another one for $70, has a friend or his shill account message about the item, sends an offer for basically nothing but now has the last sale listed at $70.  Other sellers raise their prices and buyers start to buy at higher price points thinking the comic is about to take off.

GPA Analysis is Very Dangerous Right Now: this trend holds true for all CGC graded comics recorded by GPA Analysis.  I noticed that hot moderns, one in particular, that had been rising fast over the last six months from about $250 up to about $500 had leveled off.  Then it just skyrocketed over the past two to three weeks breaking that $500 mark with multiple $600, $650 and a $700 sale.  This made raw copies start to skyrocket from the low to mid $100's to NM copies consistently selling for around $230 (on auction and some even higher on Buy It Now).  Combine average sellers thinking that they will list their hot comic at an astronomical price, getting a very good offer via message on their Buy It Now Item and choosing to sell using the "send offer" button, and then throw in Shill sellers that have multiple copies, and you have a very unstable and unreliable market.

So that trend i was noticing with raw books selling for upwards of 50-60% of listed 9.8 CGC books now makes sense.  They aren't selling for that much, sellers are using the "send offer" button and selling for much less.  Although, there are definitely going to be some novice and new collectors that are going to over pay and get severely burned.  Same holds true for CGC graded comics and GPA Analysis prices.  Any seller can list any CGC graded comic on eBay for 10-20% over last GPA listed sales price thinking that if someone is willing to pay that high then it is worth selling. They will get messages with offer prices from buyers and some will sell for much lower than their recorded sales prices.

eBay was getting a lot of heat from their sellers regarding the recording of the or best offer sales prices.  Tons of websites with tutorials on how to be a smart purchaser on eBay directed buyers to find the item they want, find a seller that had it up with a best offer listing, go to the sellers profile and look at past sales to see how much the seller typically would accept below the listed asking price.  A lot of sellers felt like this information being available on eBay created a mindset with potential buyers only willing to make offers at or below previous discounted prices.

As a business, the new "send offer" button is a huge win-win for eBay. Sellers now don't have to worry about previous best offers that were accepted being public knowledge and sellers that only listed their items as Buy It Now will be more likely to accept offers below full listing price if the item has been listed for a while, they need money or get a good offer.  It also makes it appear as though items are selling at full price influencing buyers to be more content with paying the asking prices listed on other listings.  eBay is a volume business, more sales is a win, happier sellers is a win, and higher selling prices is a win.  

So the "send offer" button is relatively new.  Maybe 3-4 weeks old?  I can't remember exactly.  eBay also recently changed the way they display accepted or best offer listings.  You used to be able to see the exact sales price but now it seems as though you just see the slash indicating that a best offer was accepted.  I have made a few sales with or best offer on CGC graded comics recently and although it doesn't appear that you can see the exact sales price on eBay sales history (again, the slash is there indicated a best offer was accepted) GPA Analysis is accurately recording the final sales price on these sales.  I went on and check that the sales price I accepted was accurately recorded.

I don't know how GPA can sort this out, possibly all Buy It Now items should be excluded for the time being until there is a resolution, but that isn't for me to decide or figure out.

Sorry for the novel, I just realized about the wrong sales price being recorded on GPA and then realized that is why some of these prices are going crazy for both raw and CGC books.  Just be careful when looking at recent CGC and raw sales on eBay and GPA Analysis if they are standard Buy It Now listings.  The prices can be way off on what the actual sale was or it could be a new Shill bidding type tool to pump up the price of a particular comic that a seller has multiple copies of.

Unless I'm completely missing something, then you all have fair warning and watch out for any raw or cgc book that has jumped up in price the last 3-4 weeks.  When the dust settles and real sales prices are available, there could be a huge drop on some of these moderns or other more common books that are taking off, thinking 90's type drop on some of these.

P.S. if I did completely miss anything, or if there is more to this, would love to know.

[PKJ]

Interesting, I just completed an offer for a WWII memorabilia item and noticed in the completed auctions it was listed at the full price and I had paid much less. 

[Ryan.]

That feature has been around for several years.

[Squad008]

1 minute ago, PKJ said:

Interesting, I just completed an offer for a WWII memorabilia item and noticed in the completed auctions it was listed at the full price and I had paid much less. 

Exactly! eBay is recording these items as being sold at full asking price with no indication it sold for less. GPA Analysis is also recording these items at full asking. It's throwing the prices off on the last 3-4 weeks of sales.

[Squad008]

1 minute ago, Ryan. said:

That feature has been around for several years.

Really? I was only able to send offers previously on items listed with the best offer feature and they were always recorded by eBay at the actual sales price, not the asking price.

[Ryan.]

1 minute ago, Squad008 said:

Really? I was only able to send offers previously on items listed with the best offer feature and they were always recorded by eBay at the actual sales price, not the asking price.

If I have a straight Buy it Now listed and someone sends a message saying, "Will you take $XX for it?" that message auto-converts into an offer. That has been around for at least 2 years.

[WoWitHurts]

GPA has never been the Gospel and I can go find inaccuracies at any time. GPA is a good tool but you as a buyer/seller need to do your own due diligence and buy/sale at what you think is fair.  One seller I know ties their for sale books to GPA but regularly ask 30% more of last 90 day average. So I imagine they are using other sources also to set price (or just gouging lol).

What you point out is just another reason not to accept GPA as gospel. It is a good starting point though.

[WoWitHurts]

4 minutes ago, Ryan. said:

If I have a straight Buy it Now listed and someone sends a message saying, "Will you take $XX for it?" that message auto-converts into an offer. That has been around for at least 2 years.

Yes I use this all the time. As recently as last week. Got a book for $50 less than the asking price on buy it now.

[Squad008]

15 minutes ago, Ryan. said:

If I have a straight Buy it Now listed and someone sends a message saying, "Will you take $XX for it?" that message auto-converts into an offer. That has been around for at least 2 years.

Interesting, did eBay always record the sales of these items at full asking?

[Ryan.]

16 minutes ago, Squad008 said:

Interesting, did eBay always record the sales of these items at full asking?

Sorry, never kept track.

 

[bababooey]

1 hour ago, Squad008 said:

So if anyone has already written about this then I apologize for missing it, I just thought that this was important to discuss.

 

The short version: eBay recently made some changes to their site which significantly skew the sales prices of CGC graded comics on GPA Analysis and eBay past sales listings for all sold comics (both CGC and Raw).  I explain below if you care to read the longer explanation.

Recently, probably 3-4 weeks, eBay made some slight changes to their site.  One new feature that they added is causing the issue and it leaves A TON of room for manipulation, which I think is starting to happen.  The new feature I am talking about is the added ability for a seller to send an offer directly to a buyer on any Buy It Now listing (note this is different then a Buy It Now or Best Offer item).  

So a potential buyer messages a seller that has an item listed strictly as Buy It Now.  They give an offer in the message, nothing new.  In the past, the Seller would either have to lower the price the item was listed at in order to accept the offer or revise the item and make it a Buy It Now or Best Offer.  Now, sellers have the ability to respond to messages received from potential buyers with direct offers.  I believe the button says "send offer."

So whats the big deal? Well, when a seller was forced to lower the price on the listing, or change the listing to Buy It Now or Best Offer, then both GPA Analysis and eBay sold items records would reflect the final sales price.  This made it possible to accurately track all sales.  However, and this is a HUGE however, sales of items that are listed strictly as Buy It Now which are sold via the new "send offer" button are recorded in eBay sold item history as being sold for the FULL LISTING PRICE.  GPA Analysis is also recording these sales at full listing price severely skewing all sales data.

Example: Seller A lists a CGC graded comic as Buy It Now or Best Offer.  Seller A gets an offer, it is accepted, and the ACTUAL sales price gets recorded in eBay sold items history and GPA Analysis.  Seller B lists a CGC graded comic as Buy It Now only for $200.  An interested buyer messages him saying will you take $100 for the comic.  Seller B responds to the message by clicking the new "send offer" button with an offer price of $125.  The buyer accepts and the item is sold for $125.  eBay sold items history will show that the item sold for the full $200 listing price and GPA Analysis is also recording the sale at the full asking price.  

How do I know: I know because I recently sold two of the same exact modern comics on eBay within a 7 day period.  Out of curiosity, or possibly procrastination at work, I sometimes check up on comics I sold to see if it was a good/bad transaction.  The comic is relatively new so there are only a few sales.  I noticed the last sale was pretty decent so I click on the GPA 9.8 link to see when the sale happened and realized that there are only two transactions for this comic record, i.e. both of my sales.  The prices listed by GPA were the full listing prices at the time of the sale, they were not the price paid by the buyer.  I then went back on eBay, did a search for the comic, looked up sales history, and sure enough, eBay has it listed as if it sold for full listing price without any indication otherwise.  Best Offer listings of course have the slash when a seller accepts a best offer for less then listing price.

I thought that this was very odd and then a recent trend that didn't make sense to me popped into my head.  I had been noticing that a lot of hotter modern raw books were selling for 50% to 60% of listed 9.8 CGC copies that are for sale on eBay.  I've noticed a ton of raw books selling for way more than they ever should based on current 9.8 prices.  I kept looking at the listings and seeing that they were not Best Offer listings and that they didn't have any slash.  Then copies of the same book is listed by the same seller or other sellers asking for more than the last sale and they kept selling with prices going up really quickly.  

I was very confused, it just made no sense that some raw books were selling for upwards of 75 to 80% of the asking price for 9.8 graded copies of the book that were listed.  Now it makes sense and it smells of a new shill bidding scheme on both raw and cgc books:

Example: Shiller A realized the flaw in the eBay sold listings and has 25 copies of a hot modern that has been slowly going up, say went from $25 to $40 for raw NM copies over the past four months.  He lists one at $60 and a buyer emails him asking if he will take $35 and he responds with a "send offer" for the $35.  Now he realizes that all potential buyers see the $60 sale listed on eBays sold listing history and he lists another one for $70, has a friend or his shill account message about the item, sends an offer for basically nothing but now has the last sale listed at $70.  Other sellers raise their prices and buyers start to buy at higher price points thinking the comic is about to take off.

GPA Analysis is Very Dangerous Right Now: this trend holds true for all CGC graded comics recorded by GPA Analysis.  I noticed that hot moderns, one in particular, that had been rising fast over the last six months from about $250 up to about $500 had leveled off.  Then it just skyrocketed over the past two to three weeks breaking that $500 mark with multiple $600, $650 and a $700 sale.  This made raw copies start to skyrocket from the low to mid $100's to NM copies consistently selling for around $230 (on auction and some even higher on Buy It Now).  Combine average sellers thinking that they will list their hot comic at an astronomical price, getting a very good offer via message on their Buy It Now Item and choosing to sell using the "send offer" button, and then throw in Shill sellers that have multiple copies, and you have a very unstable and unreliable market.

So that trend i was noticing with raw books selling for upwards of 50-60% of listed 9.8 CGC books now makes sense.  They aren't selling for that much, sellers are using the "send offer" button and selling for much less.  Although, there are definitely going to be some novice and new collectors that are going to over pay and get severely burned.  Same holds true for CGC graded comics and GPA Analysis prices.  Any seller can list any CGC graded comic on eBay for 10-20% over last GPA listed sales price thinking that if someone is willing to pay that high then it is worth selling. They will get messages with offer prices from buyers and some will sell for much lower than their recorded sales prices.

eBay was getting a lot of heat from their sellers regarding the recording of the or best offer sales prices.  Tons of websites with tutorials on how to be a smart purchaser on eBay directed buyers to find the item they want, find a seller that had it up with a best offer listing, go to the sellers profile and look at past sales to see how much the seller typically would accept below the listed asking price.  A lot of sellers felt like this information being available on eBay created a mindset with potential buyers only willing to make offers at or below previous discounted prices.

As a business, the new "send offer" button is a huge win-win for eBay. Sellers now don't have to worry about previous best offers that were accepted being public knowledge and sellers that only listed their items as Buy It Now will be more likely to accept offers below full listing price if the item has been listed for a while, they need money or get a good offer.  It also makes it appear as though items are selling at full price influencing buyers to be more content with paying the asking prices listed on other listings.  eBay is a volume business, more sales is a win, happier sellers is a win, and higher selling prices is a win.  

So the "send offer" button is relatively new.  Maybe 3-4 weeks old?  I can't remember exactly.  eBay also recently changed the way they display accepted or best offer listings.  You used to be able to see the exact sales price but now it seems as though you just see the slash indicating that a best offer was accepted.  I have made a few sales with or best offer on CGC graded comics recently and although it doesn't appear that you can see the exact sales price on eBay sales history (again, the slash is there indicated a best offer was accepted) GPA Analysis is accurately recording the final sales price on these sales.  I went on and check that the sales price I accepted was accurately recorded.

I don't know how GPA can sort this out, possibly all Buy It Now items should be excluded for the time being until there is a resolution, but that isn't for me to decide or figure out.

Sorry for the novel, I just realized about the wrong sales price being recorded on GPA and then realized that is why some of these prices are going crazy for both raw and CGC books.  Just be careful when looking at recent CGC and raw sales on eBay and GPA Analysis if they are standard Buy It Now listings.  The prices can be way off on what the actual sale was or it could be a new Shill bidding type tool to pump up the price of a particular comic that a seller has multiple copies of.

Unless I'm completely missing something, then you all have fair warning and watch out for any raw or cgc book that has jumped up in price the last 3-4 weeks.  When the dust settles and real sales prices are available, there could be a huge drop on some of these moderns or other more common books that are taking off, thinking 90's type drop on some of these.

P.S. if I did completely miss anything, or if there is more to this, would love to know.

[PKJ]

I won this book last month. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amazing-Spider-Man-3-CGC-5-5-OW-W-1963-Doctor-Octopus-Origin-first-appearance/222589211764?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

$1399 was the BIN, you can see it on GPA and I did not pay 1399 for it for sure.

[alexgross.com]

as for determining what offer was accepted on a buy it now or best offer, this ebay italy link works to tell you what price was actually accepted. just swap the item number at the end with the one you're interested in:

http://offer.ebay.it/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidsLogin&_trksid=p2047675.l2564&rt=nc&item=282231325940

 

[WoWitHurts]

http://www.watchcount.com/

Does not show the accurate selling price when items are purchased in this manner as well. I offered $190 on a $199 item and it shows in GPA as $199 as well as watchcount.

 

[comicquant]

While its been this way for at least a couple of years its still a good thing for people to understand.  Many people quote GPA whether is to get more for a book or to pay less for a book.  For me to get a realistic heartbeat I like to visit the websites of dealers that frequent shows.  Below is the list I use.

www.highgradecomics.com
www.dalerobertscomics.com
www.wwcomics.com (They have some past sales too)
www.reececomics.com
www.superworldcomics.com

Granted, there will be a degree of variance (Sometimes high) across these five but every one of them frequents shows so they are obviously doing something right.  All of them accept offers so most of the sites have a 10% to 20% buffer built in to their prices.  

[WoWitHurts]

3 minutes ago, comicquant said:

While its been this way for at least a couple of years its still a good thing for people to understand.  Many people quote GPA whether is to get more for a book or to pay less for a book.  For me to get a realistic heartbeat I like to visit the websites of dealers that frequent shows.  Below is the list I use.

www.highgradecomics.com
www.dalerobertscomics.com
www.wwcomics.com (They have some past sales too)
www.reececomics.com
www.superworldcomics.com

Granted, there will be a degree of variance (Sometimes high) across these five but every one of them frequents shows so they are obviously doing something right.  All of them accept offers so most of the sites have a 10% to 20% buffer built in to their prices.  

Some of those listed are substantially higher than both auction prices (comic link) and GPA. Others I am unfamiliar with, Thanks for the list.

[comicquant]

14 minutes ago, WoWitHurts said:

Some of those listed are substantially higher than both auction prices (comic link) and GPA. Others I am unfamiliar with, Thanks for the list.

Thats why I mentioned the buffer.  A lot of those sites offer consignment so you have to expect there's a rather large margin buffer built in.  Comic Link is good but historic sale prices are ephemeral.  If you use the exchange as a guide you could be looking at prices from last year.

[WoWitHurts]

Just now, comicquant said:

Thats why I mentioned the buffer.  A lot of those sites offer consignment so you have to expect there's a rather large margin buffer built in.  Comic Link is good but historic sale prices are ephemeral.  If you use the exchange as a guide you could be looking at prices from last year.

I only look at those which I bid on as reference at CL.

[Squad008]

Thanks for all of the replies.  I could have sworn that about 3-4 weeks ago an ebay message popped up when I logged into my account telling me about the new added feature of sending an offer.  Either I was dreaming or maybe it is a feature that eBay gives users after they reach a certain seller level?

Either way, would be interested to know if sales on eBay in the past using the offer button were showing up as sold for the full listing price and recorded that way with 3rd party sites.  Definitely for the past month.

If it was always recorded by eBay at the full listing price then I was in the dark for the last two years but this is definitely something that people should know.  Kind of explains some irrationally high Buy it Now prices, then again, there are people out there that buy New Mutant 98's in CGC 3.0 to 4.0 on eBay, yikes!

[Tony S]

Well, as someone that pays $119 a year for a subscription to GPA, I find this information both new and unsettling. I thought that on BIN's and offers, GPA ultimately recorded the actual sale price as reported to them by eBay.  I don't want pricing data that is skewed on the high side by recording BIN prices never actually achieved.  

I maintain that paying customers of GPA are better served by a smaller data set of sales that consists of high quality data than a larger data set that is of lower quality data.  GPA should exclude sales where they cannot be confident that was in fact the price paid.  As a paying subscriber, I''ll be emailing them my concerns.