A weird thing happened on the way to the checkout...

[bitlogic]

I haven't got a great memory but I suspect this has happened 2-3 times in the last few months?

I bookmark / favourite an item which I may consider buying at some point in future.

Some weeks later I notice that item is out of stock.
I search on the same item and lo and behold all the other identical items are twice the price as the one I originally favouret'd  (or close to it)?

Soooo... what happened?

The item got more popular and all the sellers noticed and they *all* put their price up in lock step?

Do advance business selling tools / data miners tell sellers what their competition are selling at?

It does make one wonder...

[tressygirl]

Some sellers when their items are out of stock,  will deliberately increase the price knowing no one will buy and that keeps their item high up in the search listings.

Once in stock, price is revised to the correct one.

@bitlogic 

[skyesong99]

It may be the manufacturer/supplier increasing the wholesale price. The retailer sells all their current stock, orders a new shipment at a higher cost, so up goes the ebay price. This of course will apply to all the ebay sellers offering that item, and will happen to them all at about the same time.