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. 

[moldosgifts]

Agree seller motivation is different a private seller should just be clearing their own stuff so profit is not the aim, a business like myself profit is the only aim or you close.

[vinylscot]

There's a trope being rolled out here, and on many more threads, that private dealers should not be concerned with "profit". While, to the literal use of the word, that is true, I think people need to realise that, even if private sellers are selling off their own possessions, they still (obviously) want to get the best price possible.

There is nothing at all wrong with that, and posters getting all het-up if another poster makes a small semantic eror is just a bit silly.

[resellability]

Hello one answer to your question is that the media companies buy at very very low prices and quite often from charity shops where they pay by the kilo , what they do is sort out the high value items and list them high and they dont mind taking a loss on the less valuable ones the good ones make them their money ,thet do the same with dvds games and cds.

[johnwash1]

---

@fotherbale wrote:

---

@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.

---

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 😉

---

I agree I'm selling the wrong things.  But I can't go back 30/40 years and change the stuff I'm now decluttering!  🙂

If you have a spare time machine and would like to start the bidding at 99p I'll be on it like a ferret!  😉