Pricing Exercise - How would you handle it?

of course... But you know I didn't mean anything negative by it. $350 was a pretty reasonable sum to me then, as now.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Lizzie didn't do it. The butler did it.

 

I remember the first time I came across a listing for the "LIBERTE" French Line bronze medal about 15 years ago. I really liked it, so I placed what I thought was a strong bid of $250 using my sniping service. It ended selling for more than $1,000. In time, I learned from one of the French sellers that I used that it happened to be one of the most popular medals for maritime collectors. I searched for another one for quite a few years and never found one that sold for less than $500.

 

I agree with the strategy of listing towards the higher end as $300/ obo. That strategy has worked well for me on eBay. You will get some lowballs, but assuming it was one of the attractive items you messaged to me, I think you will get an acceptable offer. If not, you, as the seller, can always lower the price. In over 900 transactions on eBay, I have only had one or two where I was not happy with the results.

Not only do I sell coins, but I have also sold expensive guitars (my other big interest). Some of them have been one of a kind items, and pricing was difficult. With a 30 day buy it now, with offers, you get a pretty good idea of market value, and demand.

A few years ago, I sold a one of a kind custom shop built Martin custom guitar on eBay. At first, I got price resistance, but once the serious buyers came out of the woodwork, it went fine.

The 99 cent auction strategy works well with in demand items. I sold over 200 toned Morgans in 2015 (medium-high toners), with assistance of Shane Canup. That was a different story, as the toner market was very hot, and there was lots of competition.

Try listing high. You can go lower, but not higher, as the old maxim says.

 

Start too high, and lower your auction BIN price over time.
It's better than starting too low and then trying to raise it after everyone wants it.

 

Dude, that's harsh . . . . .

I'm glad you're in LA . . . .

Z

 

Do you not know that you can schedule auctions to last for 1, 3, 5, 7, or 10 days? You can also preschedule the start time to be whatever you want it to be.

Z

 

I believe plenty of people don't know that. Otherwise why have items end at 2 am (unless you want to give your fellow night owls a good deal)?

 

...are you sure...

 

I happen to know exactly what item you are referring to because I was watching it when you won at the lower recent price. I personally thought the older auction price was very aggressive.

What you want to ask for resale is your business - the most recent sale was a good deal but not by a factor of > 4x IMO. That being said, it only takes 1 person to want it at whatever price you ask. Guess it depends on how long you want to sit on it.

 

For transparency and to tell the complete story it should also be known that this same medal was in a subsequent auction at a large company (not on eBay) in between the two sales of $350 —> $75... and was unsold because it did not meet reserve (I do not know what the reserve was set at).

Take that for what it’s worth - but I’d still lean towards the 3.5 year old auction result of $350 being quite aggressive.

 

​

 

No I didn't. I don't sell. You would never know because no one uses those options. It always still comes down to a dollar war at the last 5 seconds anyway.

 

It doesn't matter, you can not really overbid you can only outbid.

 

I was out-bid by $2.50

 

I raised the bid just for fun. It's ridiculous

 

I did find that information and you are right that is part of the story too. I'm not sure why I didn't mention it in this thread (should have done so). Not knowing what the reserve was though does make it hard to judge. If the reserve was close to or below the $350, that tells us one thing (suggests that old auction result was optimistic) but if the reserve was well over the $350, that makes is more difficult to judge (only tells us that the reserve was too high but does not confirm that the $350 was too high).

 

Any reason you were watching but did not bid?

And as a general update: my original strategy was to price it somewhere in between the two sales (leaning a little closer to the lower price) without an offer option. I did have two watchers but no quick sale (not surprising). I sent an offer to those two buyers via the eBay seller offer feature (to test if a 15% discount would intrigue them). Once the offer expired, I decided to end the listing and repost it with a higher price plus best offer. Raising the price is a controversial strategy but I figured it was worth a try here. Not many people saw the original listing (based on eBay views) and the two watchers didn't jump at the lower price (suggesting they were unlikely to be buyers at a level I'd be happy with). Now the price is on par with the original auction result but has an offer option. I'll test this new strategy out and see what happens.

 

I would price at cost plus. Cost x2 or 3 up to the high number. If the coin PQ then 80 pct to 100 pct of high number assuming enough good profit (cost x2). I would throw out the low number.

Assuming it’s a single digit low pop coin I might start at higher than high number as I consider auction prices more of a wholesale vs what I would retail it for.