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IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH.......

Started by THE_BEYONDER,

27 posts in this topic

THE_BEYONDER

THE_BEYONDER

Posted
Posted

....."TESTING THE WATERS"?

 

I was thinking about putting a few books up for auction, that I don't really have any INTENTION to sell(HIGH reserve). I'd like to see what their "market value" currently is. Just wondering if this "practice" is frowned upon.........

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Darthdiesel

Darthdiesel

Posted
Posted
....."TESTING THE WATERS"?

 

 

As long as you double-bag first... tongue.gif

 

Test the market but be prepared for some hate mail regarding teasing folks or telling you to wake up and smell reality with your crazy high prices...I got em all when I listed my Origin 1 CGC 10.0 for ad purposes...even got placed into the CGC Hall of Shame...

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ArAich

ArAich

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I decided to "test the waters" on my GL #116 9.8 by putting a reserve of $200 on it with a starting bid of $9.99...and guess what....someone bought it and is very pleased with the purchase...so go ahead and test....but be prepared for someone to actually buy it... wink.gif

 

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lighthouse

lighthouse

Posted
Posted
I decided to "test the waters" on my GL #116 9.8 by putting a reserve of $200 on it with a starting bid of $9.99...and guess what....someone bought it and is very pleased with the purchase...so go ahead and test....but be prepared for someone to actually buy it... wink.gif

 

Well considering how few 9.8's there are of that book, I am not surprised someone bought it... It's on the wantlists of more than one person I know...

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lighthouse

lighthouse

Posted
Posted
....."TESTING THE WATERS"?

 

I was thinking about putting a few books up for auction, that I don't really have any INTENTION to sell(HIGH reserve). I'd like to see what their "market value" currently is. Just wondering if this "practice" is frowned upon.........

 

In response to the original question, which I didn't respond to in my first response... tongue.gif

 

Running a reserve auction with a high reserve will give you jack-diddly-squat in the way of information as to what the market value is... A lot of people don't bid on ANY book that has a reserve, and lots more will only bid if you are willing to reveal the reserve.

 

A lot of the folks who would be most interested in the book will pass it by because they will choose not to participate, so instead of finding out how much the 2nd most interested guy was willing to pay, you will likely find out what the 22nd most interested guy thought it was worth...

 

Ask the folks around here. Lots of them won't place a serious bid in a reserve auction where they have no clue what the reserve is. In part because they don't want that information out there for when the next copy of the item shows up. Do you think murph0 is going to place a $14K bid on a book he suspects won't meet reserve, when doing so will alert competing bidders of his interest when the next one shows up? Not likely...

 

The best measure of market value if you want to keep the book, is a method which is completely against eBay policy and I cannot recommend, is to run your auction without a reserve and have your buddy put in a late snipe for an obscene amount. Preferably using a dummy account so you can NPB him and get your fees back. This method will tell you exactly what the market would bear, and you keep your book... Put up your 9.8 copy of Hulk 141 with no reserve and have your buddy snipe it with 2 seconds left at $14,999. You can't set a dummy snipe of $15K because eBay has separate rules for bids that high.

 

This method also results in seeing the max bid of the guy who wants it most, which may be a good deal more than what he would have had to pay to beat the 2nd place guy. If you decide you like the bid, just NPB the auction winner and sell to the other guy for his max...

 

As I say... this is definitely a violation of eBay rules, and I cannot recommend it. But it works flawlessly, and it gives you a whole lot better results than running a reserve auction would...

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blowout

blowout

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Posted

A very good post 'House, and highlights some of the problems when trying to gain market value from an eBay auction.

For best results use a data collection service like GP Collectables (not that I am particularly endorsing their product). I just think that it is very difficult to obtain a credible market view from ONE eBay auction, no matter how you run it.

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lighthouse

lighthouse

Posted
Posted
A very good post 'House, and highlights some of the problems when trying to gain market value from an eBay auction.

For best results use a data collection service like GP Collectables (not that I am particularly endorsing their product). I just think that it is very difficult to obtain a credible market view from ONE eBay auction, no matter how you run it.

 

And that's part of the reason why even the results from data collection services are flawed...

 

How many of them take into account which auctions were BIN's in the first two hours and therefore do not reflect the market? If two insufficiently_thoughtful_persons in the same week list their 9.4 Hulk 181's with $1000 BIN price, the data on those sites is shot to hell... No one would actually believe that the books had dropped that much in value, but you have to separate prices that are the result of market pressures from those that represent ignorance...

 

Darth made mention before on that Wolverine 10 that went stupidly low... That datapoint is now in the mix and "reasonable" sellers get raked over the coals for asking prices that are still at market levels. The market price didn't change, there's just now a record of someone who got a huge bargain.

 

I'm not discounting the work that various folks have put into the data collection. Their service is valuable, and worth a membership if you deal in the books they track. But without outlier rejection for idiotic BIN prices, the data is flawed...

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lighthouse

lighthouse

Posted
Posted
Here's a good example of BIN outliers - a BIN of $2.50 and a BIN of $65 on the SAME book.

 

I'm amazed that $2.50 auction lasted 6 hours... If the buyer didn't fall out of his chair when he saw the listing I'd be surprised...

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lighthouse

lighthouse

Posted
Posted
But you must admit... it would work... tongue.gif

 

Probably even twice... smile.gif

You're all gypsies, tramps, and thieves.

 

I'll trade you two cans of tuna for your first-born... tongue.gif

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COI

COI

Posted
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Using a reserve to test the market value usually only works with rarer/high end books. As lighthouse said, some bidders avoid reserve auctions. That tends to be true on low-mid range stuff, especially stuff that can be found every few days. But on bigger stuff, reserves won't be passed on by serious buyers, and are expected more often than not. I will never list a $1000+ book again, without a reserve or high starting bid. I did this before, starting the auction at 12 cents, and got burned.

 

Also, if you want people to really try with their bidding(for market value), I don't suggest announcing this on the forum. Although there is nothing wrong with test auctions, I won't bid on test auctions because it would be pointless.

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THE_BEYONDER

THE_BEYONDER

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"Also, if you want people to really try with their bidding(for market value), I don't suggest announcing this on the forum. Although there is nothing wrong with test auctions, I won't bid on test auctions because it would be pointless. "

 

 

I was thinking about the "market" beyond the reach of this forum...... 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

 

 

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COI

COI

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I was thinking about the "market" beyond the reach of this forum......

 

Wha??? Ebay is beyond the reach of this forum?

 

What I mean is that there are a lot of lurkers on this forum, more than you might think. So if you announce you're running a test auction, a number of people may not bother to bid. And if people don't bid, you won't be getting bids on your test auction, therefor the test would have flopped.

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sfilosa

sfilosa

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Also, you will pay a listing fee and a reserve fee. That might be 5% of the books value just to see what you would get (maybe).

 

And as other people have said, the day and time of the auction can make a HUGE difference in the final price. Especially if there are no other books similar to the book you are listing. Usually, to get top dollar, there needs to be several high quality books ending near the same time. This way, people (like myself) hang around and try to snipe books. If there is only one book that I kinda want, I will probably do something else instead.

 

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