Are sellers who underprice items doing Ebay & it's other users a disservice?

[azadvert1sed]

I know Ebay is a competitive platform for sellers, but in my opinion some people appear to unwittingly take their pricing to extremes & spoil it for others. I'm not talking about shrewd dealers who undercut everyone else by small margins, I'm talking about sellers who don't seem to bother looking into any given item's value & sell things for WAY below these levels. Say for example a book that usually sells for £30+ is being offered by a few sellers for £10 or less. This creates a domino effect that usually ends up in others lowering their prices to compete.

Don't get me wrong, i realise we're all entitled to set prices as we see fit & some people are fully aware of values but need a quick sale. but i think some of the sellers who do this may not realise they're losing out.

In regards to this i also think it would benefit Ebay themselves if they made it clearer to anyone creating a listing with a "buy it now" price what it's trending value is. I know this info is accessible if you do some digging about, but more casual sellers may not have the inclination or know-how to do this. 

[nigel_paul_wright7557]

Some people cut their losses and dump stuff on ebay cheap to get rid of it.

The trick with ebay is to not compete with everyone else but sell something unique or rare.

You can then mark it up and make some money on it.

[theelench]

There are also some, presumably very inexperienced sellers who believe ebays 'recommendations' on the listing form.

They regularly tell me to start auctions for 99p

Or that the 'average price' for a BIN listing is £7.69.

A quick look at the Sold page shows that accepting either is often a mistake.  Auctions that start at 99p often sell for 99p.

Where ebay gets its 'Average' prices from, I have no idea.

But ebay doesn't care if it hangs it's private sellers out to dry, it would rather get a fee on a low price sale, as long as it gets a fee at all.

[tressygirl]

You mention... '  sellers who don't seem to bother looking into any given item's value & sell things for WAY below these levels.'

May I politely ask, why you then listed a lovely leather bag starting in auction for 99p, surely well below that item's value.

Would you be happy with one bid?  You'd then be obliged to sell  gorgeous bag for 99p,  plus the P & P.

[vinylscot]

If "a few sellers" are selling a book which you value at £30 for £10, would that not suggest that their price is more realistic than yours? If their prices are that good, I would imagine their products will sell pretty quickly, so they won't be a problem for long.

[jckl1957]

That is an interesting question but, in my opinion, your last point is not valid.

When I list my items, I do look at other, similar items and check out current istings and sold items.

Generally, my research doesn't have much impact on how I price my items.  I think it is all about your motivation for selling.

If you are a private seller with a large collection of, for example, costume jewellery, that you have accumulated over decades, mainly bought secondhand or been gifted, then you may not be considering profit.

I am an older person (the 1957 in my Ebay ID is a clue), looking to move to a smaller house, with two grown up children who have little interest in inheriting my stuff.  I don't want to give everything to charity shops, and actually enjoy selling on Ebay.  I am not motivated by profit.  I do not feel I am 'losing out' if I sell a necklace for £5 that other sellers are asking £30 for.  I don't price low to sell fast; I sold 4 items last week.

Am I 'spoiling it for others'?  Not something I have thought about but I don't think so.

Also, when you list an item with 'buy it now' in some categories, certainly in jewellery, you do get shown a 'median sold price' for the last 90 days so there is an indication from Ebay of how reasonable your starting price is.

[technthread]

With books it is reasonable for a seller who has one in very nice condition to hold out for the £30 whilst someone with an acceptable/good copy will take £10. I've got some Bukowski ones like that which I need to list and mine aren't worth what I'm seeing on eBay. That will account for some of what you are seeing and also for sure people don't always price match and under sell it. 

What I have seen as I get through selling a lot of books outside of eBay is that the big media buyers can sometimes get their pricing very wrong, it filters to eBay where they list and makes a book unsellable. This happens where the book is scarce but not necessarily valuable.. I see £3 books listed by a media buyer for £70, then the next media buyer lists it for £70 and so on. One look at eBay terapeak will show me maybe 1 sold a year or 2 ago for £3 and nothing since. They normally correct it eventually but it is a glitch in how they automate their pricing, sometimes it can be caused by a private eBay seller overvaluing their book and subsequent listers follow suit. 

[edwardian-dreams]

There's loads of professional booksellers on here who shift their stock for 3 quid and free postage

how on earth do they do that when that money is just enough for postage 

selling any book on here is difficult with that going on 

[technthread]

They have negotiated postage rates we can only dream of. And their business model works as they stock most titles so someone may buy multiple books as 1 order which makes up for the lower profit on single sales. 

[edwardian-dreams]

Ah ok thank you

still people can buy any book it seems for nothing and just pay for postage as it were

I suppose if you have something much sought after or rarer it's easier

anyway cheers

note to royal mail

bring back your book rates 

[bits_n_bobs_heaven]

I'm in the same position as  jckl1957 with regards to having totally decluttering the house and shed, giving bags of stuff to both charity shops & locals who are desperate and I'm only too happy to help:-) I've kept a few very good quality items to sell on eBay and once and if they go, I'll start clearing out some of my mothers items.

As for prices, well I try to be very fair and always allow for fair offers as profit isn't a concern because I'm selling my personal items. Whether this is considered as undercutting others or losing out on potential gains isn't really somthing I think about.

I list, they sell, or the items get gifted elsewhere, if they don't:-)

[azadvert1sed]

I don't look at auctions in the same way.. It's always a gamble when you do them & sometimes you just have to take your chances. The reasons i started bids at only 99p for this particular item is so it would appear relatively high-up in searches for "leather bags" when users used the lowest-to-highest price option.  If i started bids at £10 or £20 it probably wouldn't get much notice as it's not a particularly well-known brand. I also couldn't find many examples of sold listings for this particular bag so it's hard to gauge what it's original full RRP was. I'm hopeful that my approach will pay off as it currently has quite a few watchers. If it doesn't then someone will get a bargain.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

Would not bank on it selling for anything but 99p though!   I put an item on a few weeks ago (at the price i was happy to sell for) and had 12 watchers (something that rarely happens on my stuff), it sold for what i asked for.....   The number of watchers means absolutely nothing.

[theelench]

I'm slightly older than you, have already moved to a smaller flat and also have a large (glass) collection that my hiers are not interested in. Including a lot I stored when moving from London.

I also look at current and Sold listings to try to price items reasonably, I even try to use ebays "research prices" and have to say that I find doing so is often not at all helpful.

My glass is mostly Art Deco from the '30s, so a bit niche and ebays idea of 'similar' items so 'broad' as to often make their guide-prices highly inaccurate.  With most auctions ebay recommends that I start at 99p, but there are often examples where very similar (or even identical) items sold for far more.

With BIN listings I'm given a median price, but often I can find Sold items at say £10, £14 and £17 (I didn't know average were from the previous 90 days, so thanks for that info.), yet ebay thinks a median might be either £7.68 or £19.54.

I think the problem is the algorithm doesn't understand the subtleties of the niche.  If selling a candlestick (for example) it takes an average of several Sold items.  Not understanding that one particular Walther candlestick will regularly sell for £65+ but some, more common examples by (say) Chance Glass will sell for £6 a pair, if they sell at all.  Depending on what sold most recently(?) it will give a guide-price 'average' that is nowhere near what I'd expect for (say) a mid-range, Davidson item.

Sometimes ebay gets its wires completely crossed.  I recently related on another thread that when researching 'similar' items ebay showed me several pieces of glass plus a ceramic figurine of a dog!

All in all, sometimes they can be helpful but are just as likely to be totally misleading.  I usually know enough to know when I'm being mislead, someone who hasn't been collecting for decades will possibly accept whatever ebay says as being totally accurate.

[moldosgifts]

I take no notice of what others sell for, i take my buying price, add my costs, plus postage add in the small margin i need to make to feed my child and that my selling price. Buyers take it or leave it.

Occassionaly i will do a sale, offer or code that give a reasonable discount but that will mean well be eating porridge for a week. 😃

[johnwash1]

Back in the day, starting auctions at 99p would produce bidding wars.  Rarely so now.  Probably because most buyers want it NOW, so they ignore auctions unless a relevant one is finishing in the next hour or so.

[yorkshire*flower]

Basic economics of supply and demand im afraid.  We all want to make good profit when we are sellers but want it cheap as a buyer.  

[fotherbale]

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@johnwash1 wrote:

Back in the day, starting auctions at 99p would produce bidding wars.  Rarely so now.  Probably because most buyers want it NOW, so they ignore auctions unless a relevant one is finishing in the next hour or so.

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For things I am looking at, I find the exact opposite tbh. 

99p start has certainly attracted greater interest on things I have sold, and appears to do the same on items that I have watched.   High start prices and BIN (most of which generaly seem to overpriced also) do tend to put potential buyers off; the 99p gives them an initial sniff of a bargain, but my experience of such listings is that they generally finish at about the true value of the item, or higher. 

If you feel there is a danger that starting at 99p is going to put you in a loss making situation, perhaps you are selling the wrong things.  Stuff that finishes at 99p usually finishes at that value for a reason, and it isn't because people would rather pay more for it on a BIN or an auction with an overly expensive starting bid 😉

[kath3735_wxmjn]

I am sure that the seller who put the leather jacket on at 99p which i bought  a few years ago thought that and probably was not impressed that no one wanted it.  Really nice jacket, no faults with it and very much a cherished part of my wardrobe!  If they had put £5.99 i would still have bid for it.  I put on what price minimum i would like and sometimes i might lower it.  I am in no hurry to get the money, (even small amounts add up) and i have the time.   A lot of my low price stuff will be taken off when the car boots start but it costs me nothing but a bit of effort to have them on over winter and it is surprising what does sell.

[wappingpug2]

I just did what the seller is taking about.  Books are outside my selling niche, so it's usually just whittling down my personal collection to make space.  I tend to just send a couple boxes to Ziffit every once in a while, but if notice they are offering £2 or above, I'll research the book on eBay and sell it somewhere beteeen the book buyer offer and eBay sold listings.  I just sold a book that usually goes for £30 on eBay for £13, and if still took a fortnight sitting there to sell.  It was better than the £3 Ziffit was offering, and I now have more space.  Seller motivations are different.