Seems like 75% of coins on eBay anymore have high starting prices close to actual value. Whatever happened to the 99c auctions?
If you refine your search say to auction listings only and sort by lowest price first you will see all the .99 auctions with probably quite a bit that start even lower than that.
Buy it now listings are good for retailers, but auctions still get the most action as far as watchers, page views, etc. eBay actually still recommends true auction style listings to all those selling on eBay (probably because they're guaranteed to cash in on fees in a short time period, whereas a bin listing could be on there taking up space for years and never selling). Personally, I use true auction for my coins except the $500+ coins, where I SOMETIMES stick with bin/best offer. Often times I try bin for a week and then auction it if it doesn't get offers, and it ends up selling for as much or more than my bin listing!
I use BIN for packaging supplies, ink cartridges, etc... for coins I normally check "auction only", though sometimes you can snag a BIN bargain by showing just those items with "price lowest first".
I started selling on eBay with only true auctions and low starts . . . lost my shirt that first year, but I didn't give up. I learned that true auctions generally realize fair prices if several different conditions are met, including the following: The offered coin enjoys a healthy collector base; A minimum of competitive listings are offered by other sellers; The listing ends at a time of day when most bidders should be watching; The listing does not end on a day when people have important activities consuming their time (Christmas, Easter, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Super Bowl, etc.) When listing lots of coins for sale, it's easy to lose sight of the importance of these conditions, and I did, so most of my coins sold for far less than they were worth, and less than I paid. The eBay / PayPal fees only added insult to injury. Wanting to be a successful dealer, and not accepting defeat, I thought through the reasons for the results I was getting, changed my listing practices, and ended up gravitating toward fixed price offerings. That's mainly because there's a fairly thin crowd of collectors knowledgeable enough and experienced enough to know and to pay fair prices for the kind of material I wanted to offer. I believe the reason we see far fewer true auction listings today than we used to is because more sellers have realized what I did, and changed their ways as well. There are still plenty of true auctions, but mostly for common coins, or in situations where the seller must have cash as soon as possible, and cannot patiently wait a few weeks, or even months for a coin to sell. I ask that you pretend for a moment that you are an eBay seller, and consider how painful it would be to sell your coins for 10 or even 20 percent less than you paid, and then owe eBay / PayPal another 10 percent of the prices realized. Would you not change how you sell as well?
Are you using redbook or other 'guides's' to say what the actual value is????? Maybe they are not 'true auctions' starting at 99c because people lose money on them if conditions aren't perfect. True auctions do well if you have a sufficient base of customers interested and willing to bid the coin up, and do extremely well if you have two or more customers who are willing to go further for the coin than normal. Many times those conditions aren't met and the person selling loses out to the buyer, and then has to lose more in fees. Think about it. Also think about it when you say things are being started at their or close to their 'actual value'. Maybe they are and maybe they aren't. Maybe it's just a more realistic starting point and it may prove that that coin's value is much more, or conversely much less (if the seller can't sell it at that price with several attempts). Plus one auction attempt that doesn't sell at a starting price may not indicate that that price is a bad price (meaning too high)..... it may mean that the customers for that coin weren't watching or wanting/able to purchase at that time.
P.S. I used to sell postcards on ebay, and most of my postcards were listed at 3.85 to 6.00 to start (auction....because who knows, more than one might be interested and I'll get more $$$ --- which did happen on occasion. One I started at about 5.50 ended up selling for nearly 50.00). I used 3.85 as a base because that was approximately 1/2 hour of a min. wage job at the time. I figured if someone wanting a certain postcard wasn't willing to spend 1/2 hour working (if they were min wage people, and much less if they earned a lot more) and 2.00 for postage then they didn't deserve my postcard. For collectors wanting to find one cheaper, they would have to spend a LOT of time and gas money going places (estate/garage sales, flea markets, etc) to look for what they wanted. In the long run, it's much cheaper for them to put together a collection for what they are looking for by looking on ebay and paying prices like that. So.... you might say the price is near actual value, but maybe you aren't factoring in what you will spend in time and money to go get one elsewhere.
Great point. As a seller of 150-250 coins a month, I have to factor in my time, the cost supplies, travel expenses, etc. For example, going to the ANA show in Chicago cost me about $500, then when I got back I had to spend $70 on 5,000 new business cards, $34 on a box of 500 bubble mailers, $24 on printer ink for labels, then I have to factor in the many hours of time taking and cropping pics, creating and scheduling listings. After all that I have to spend time packaging up coins, dealing with non-paying customers (about 3-5 per month on average). Then I have to pay the eBay and PayPal fees and subtract the $1.69 or more for the shipping label. Selling on eBay for profit isn't easy. I don't have to take the risk of running true auctions, but I do. Most times I make money, but every single week, I lose some money on a few coins I sell. That's a risk I take. Most times when I lose, it's just $2-$15. The most I ever lost on a coin was $150. But as long as I learn from my mistakes and keep a finger on the pulse of the eBay market, I can still sell successfully.
I seldom put stuffs through auctions anymore for the reasons that other had stated above. What I find works for auction is pre-sale or hot coins... in those cases, the seller at least get back the "cost."
Here is how I look at it.. There is over 2 million visitors to eBay each day. If your listing coins and the hammer price is less than you acquired them for, then perhaps the acquisition cost was too high to begin with. Out of all the auctions I won, the items sold for a fair price. Maybe not as high as book, but close. If your coin is worth $80 in the book, and you list it for 79.99, it probably won't sell. I see this quite a bit. Then if it don't sell, it gets re listed again, and again, and again. I can see having a high starting bid on esoteric coins that 10 people might know about, so someone doesn't steal it... ...but for common stuff, I see no reason to list it so high.
1. No comment. 2. Most likely. 3. Perhaps. Or maybe you listed at a poor time so that the ending coincided with when people really don't like to end up bidding. Not everyone uses proxy bidding. Some like to judge at the very end whether they will bid or not, based on what they are seeing. Or perhaps there was a power outage or a natural disaster or something going on the day the auction was to end, and people who would normally bid couldn't get online to put their bid in. Or perhaps the person putting up the ebay auction took bad pics, or did other things, like listing in the wrong category or whatever. But it could be because the seller paid too much for the item. It happens. 4. A one person base of knowledge. Which is cool if you want to go only by your experience. However your base of knowledge could, as a quirk, be true. Not likely, but possible. Perhaps it's colored by your definition of a fair price. which is likely to be different from the sellers or someone else. Perhaps even all of the coins you got at a fair price, were, by most peoples definitions too high. Maybe that's why you got the win. That could happen. Maybe it did. And your statement that it was close to book implies that book is a good standard to go buy to find a 'fair price'. I doubt that is true. But even if it were, perhaps your judging the coin as being a grade that is equal to a price in the book, and getting it under that price, doesn't exclude that you (or any buyer for that matter) can judge the coin in question on pictures on ebay. You have to get it in hand. Plus your numerous posts about being dissatisfied with your purchases kind of belies that statement. Just calling your attention to that. 5. The listing price and the price in the book should have no correlation, other than in a general sense. The price in the book is someone's (outdated by the time it is published) of what a coin, in general, of that grade would value..... based on a lot of factors. Perhaps the coin selling on ebay was more in line with what might go as a CAC one if it was certified or has a special appeal to a number of collectors. Perhaps there are few collectors and someone marked it based on book, thinking it was a fair price. So many reasons this statement is not a good one to put out "as a fact".... even if the fact is as you said in #1: how (you) see it. Based on what I've observed of your experience and knowledge, you don't have the experience or know how to offer your opinion (as a valid opinion of what is actually going on) of what someone listing their auction item at is or isn't the primary factor in whether it gets sold or not. Especially when using a source for the value that has no known correlation to prices for an individual coin, examined in hand. The fact that it is then relisted again and again rather than relisted at a much lower price may be a selling strategy for the seller. If all sellers immediately cut the cost of all items that did not sell the first time, to clear out their inventory, that's putting too much importance of pricing being the only factor in whether it sells or not. It isn't. Sometimes a seller does need to lower a price to start selling an item, but it is not always the normal rule. Sellers have a lot to figure out, and it is not a science to do so. You can't just plug in A (auction starting point, dollar-wise) = B (book cost) - C (whatever substantial amount, perhaps a percentage of book value to discount to start the item), and use it as some magical formula to say something will sell or not sell. 6. Right....... who determines the esotericness of the coin. The book? or the number minted? And why be concerned about someone 'stealing' (or not being able to) an esoteric coin as opposed to one not esoteric? Shouldn't all coins on ebay be marked according to your standards so someone will be able to get them below book value? 7. No comment, since it is a continuation of #6.
Heres a few examples. 1932 Shilling for $7.00 starting bid, all it's worth, in reality not even that much. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1932-silver-Shilling-/171114633716?pt=US_World_Coins&hash=item27d73a19f4 1895 English Penny, Starting Bid 9.95. Not even worth that. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1895-ENGLISH-PENNY-/300957567797?pt=US_World_Coins&hash=item4612780b35 1984 GB mint set 8.99 starting bid, that's all it's worth, http://www.ebay.com/itm/1984-United...9403909?pt=US_World_Coins&hash=item5af484da05 You can go on for pages and pages of auctions like this. Starting bids are right on the money. To me it's a waste of time.
EBay used to offer free listings if you started at 99 cents, and that was why I did it. I'd often sell stuff for less than I wanted. When they ended that process is probably the same time a lot of people quit doing it. Most of my auctions I start at $1, and if they don't sell I'll relist it as an auction for $1 with a $1.30 buy it now (eBay now forces you to have a buy it now of at least 30 percent more than the starting price). If I know a coin is worth more though, I will start the listing higher, but always at a price where I think a person will pay. A surprising number of people will use the buy it now even though they could probably bid on it and get it for less. I am selling coins that I paid 10 cents apiece for, so I make enough for this to be worthwhile. For me it's more of a hobby than a business though - a way to get rid of my duplicates. It doesn't make sense to list coins at a price no one will ever pay though, and I also see this a lot. It can be frustrating when it's a coin you need and you can't find any other examples.
