Sellers who price your books at multiples of GPA -- What's your endgame? 0

[UncleAnwar]

On 5/17/2024 at 9:00 AM, Stefan_W said:

I can think of four of reasons aside from trolling for suckers, which has already been brought up and is likely the most common reason. 

Sometimes seller buy too high are have a ton of cash sunk into a book. Good examples of that would be books bought in 2021-22 when the market was still at its high water mark. In the cases the seller can chose to just take the hit and move on, or they can just list it high and hope the market eventually catches up again. Ebay gives people 250 free listings so it costs nothing to sit and wait for a rise in the marketplace. 

A second reason is sometimes sellers may use big books to draw attention. There was a local pawn shop that had a few slabs on display including an X-Men 1, but everything was priced 4x or more actual value. I asked the owner about the pricing and he said it draws people into the store and led to extra sales on other items, so he didnt really want to part with it. For Ebay stores a similar thing would apply because high ticket items draw in followers who may buy the cheaper stuff along the way. 

The third reason is sometimes sellers are not really comic people, and they dont really get how much comics are worth. A local person had some slabs left to her when her husband passed so she listed them on kijiji as well as on Ebay. I spoke with her a bit and offered to help since she was asking 2x value and nothing was going to sell, but she was not interested because she trusted what her husband told her was the value ahead of what I was going to say. I dont blame her since there are less than honest people out there, but he kept her books for at least a year before the listings eventually disappeared. Not sure how that story played out in the end. 

Fourth reason I can think of, and that I used myself, is that Ebay shows images way better than sites like Facebook. A few years ago when I listed all of my slabs for sale on my Facebook group I uploaded them to Ebay with prices no one would possibly take, and then shared the link to my page along with a list of the real prices with my group. People were able to use the scans with hover-over blowups to examine the slabs closely and when I made a sale in my group I would just remove the listing. I eventually decided it was more of a hassle to keep up than it was worth, but it worked well while it lasted. 

All good points. But at the end of the day, sellers on eBay asking way over market value isn't an isolated thing. It has become an epidemic.

I really think the main reason is that so many "investors" bought during the COVID boom and now they're in way too much on these books and cant/won't accept that those prices are not coming backy anytime in the foreseeable future.

I used to buy on eBay all the time, and honestly I've got a severe case of eBay fatigue now when it comes to comics. It's annoying to look for books you want and have to weed through ludicrous aski prices every time.

One thing I do now is filter to auctions only.  That way you get the price that the market dictates. BIN has become pointless these days. For bigger books anyway. The big boys seem to rarely get listed at auction, since the sellers are most likely in too deep to let the book go for market value. 

For instance, I've been looking to upgrade my Fantastic Four 3. The vast majority of times this book is listed it's BIN or auction with a high starting price.

I miss being able to bid on books like this at auction and pay what they were actually worth. 

Edited May 27 by UncleAnwar

[Stefan_W]

On 5/27/2024 at 10:20 AM, UncleAnwar said:

All good points. But at the end of the day, sellers on eBay asking way over market value isn't an isolated thing. It has become an epidemic.

I really think the main reason is that so many "investors" bought during the COVID boom and now they're in way too much on these books and cant/won't accept that those prices are not coming backy anytime in the foreseeable future.

I used to buy on eBay all the time, and honestly I've got a severe case of eBay fatigue now when it comes to comics. It's annoying to look for books you want and have to weed through ludicrous aski prices every time.

One thing I do now is filter to auctions only.  That way you get the price that the market dictates. BIN has become pointless these days. For bigger books anyway. The big boys seem to rarely get listed at auction, since the sellers are most likely in too deep to let the book go for market value. 

For instance, I've been looking to upgrade my Fantastic Four 3. The vast majority of times this book is listed it's BIN or auction with a high starting price.

I miss being able to bid on books like this at auction and pay what they were actually worth. 

I had a table at a local comic show yesterday. It ended up being a very busy show and I had very few opportunity to walk around and check out what other vendors brought out. When I finally have a chance to do so I thought the prices were set high, which I get if they want to leave haggling room. I asked one vendor who I know about one of his slabs, and I pulled out GPA to figure out what they are going for. When I offered full market value for it he turned me down flat and said at that price he would rather keep it. I made a full market value offer on a book from a different vendor and he declined, but at least he was apologetic and explained that he needed to pull a higher amount out of that book to offset the price he paid for the collection it came from. At the end of my walk around, I had a short talk with a different vendor to ask how the show was going for him, and he was laughing because someone bought one of his books with a really inflated prices without haggling. 

Setting high prices for whatever the reason is hardly E-Bay specific. If there weren't rewards for doing so people would stop doing it. 

Edited May 27 by Stefan_W

[NewWorldOrder]

On 5/27/2024 at 9:33 AM, Stefan_W said:

I had a table at a local comic show yesterday. It ended up being a very busy show and I had very few opportunity to walk around and check out what other vendors brought out. When I finally have a chance to do so I thought the prices were set high, which I get if they want to leave haggling room. I asked one vendor who I know about one of his slabs, and I pulled out GPA to figure out what they are going for. When I offered full market value for it he turned me down flat and said at that price he would rather keep it. I made a full market value offer on a book from a different vendor and he declined, but at least he was apologetic and explained that he needed to pull a higher amount out of that book to offset the price he paid for the collection it came from. At the end of my walk around, I had a short talk with a different vendor to ask how the show was going for him, and he was laughing because someone bought one of his books with a really inflated prices without haggling. 

Setting high prices for whatever the reason is hardly E-Bay specific. If there weren't rewards for doing so people would stop doing it. 

That also depends on the book and how rare or common it is.

Hulk #1 vs ASM #300 is a different conversation. 

However if the book was common either the buyer was uneducated on the market value, trusted the dealer since they are a repeat customer, or couldn't be bothered checking because they have the money to burn.

Most dealers with common CGC books from 1965-now priced well over GPA have a bad show and then complain the show sucked. 

(I am not talking about a little over, I am talking well over)

Edited May 28 by NewWorldOrder

[ChiSoxFan]

I think I had mentioned in my write-up on the show that took place in New Orleans in January that the graded books I looked at seemed to be all priced really high -- and that was even for allowing a "premium" for dealers needing to cover what I imagine was some pretty high-priced tables/booths.  That said, the two slabs I ended up snagging from the show -- a CGC 8.5 JIM #83 and a CGC 9.2 Sub-Mariner #1 -- the dealer who had the books didn't even have them displayed, saying that he hadn't thought anyone at the show had "big" money to spend.  I ended up getting a good deal from him and left happy.  I had looked at an FF #5 that I thought was WAY overpriced, and the dealer wouldn't budge a penny, saying that the price was essentially what he was into the book, and he didn't want to take a loss on it.

There's a multitude of reasons why prices are high -- though there's a huge difference between "high, but someone might pay it" and "so high that only someone who has no info and a limitless pocketbook will pay it".