As often as I can I check ebay for various baseball cards. Im trying to get down to just CERTS but as we all know there is always a card or a player who we all just have to have, so sometimes Im on the look-out for anything. Aswell as the cards Im going to sell, Im always checking to see if other people have same cards listed, or how much the card has sold for, to decide whether or not it worth me listing. In searching thousands of listings, I have come to one conclusion. Peope are scared to put items up for bid unless it a super hot card. 85% of any vintage player or HOFer's cert is a BIN or best offer. Same thing goes for most low serial #'ed cards. This is my third auction where I have had a GU'ed card #'ed /50 or less of a Superstar or HOFer up for bid. Most people seem to want their $49.95 (or whatever price) or nothing. Or they start the bidding at $9.99. If the market dosent warrant those prices they go unsold, and ebay makes their .45 (or whatever) listing fee and then most times the item is relisted at same price. I find this extremely ammusing when a few people have the exact same card listed as BIN. Some of the listings for $20 more then another seller is attempting to sell his for. Of course none of the cards are selling. If they put them up for bids, people would be able to bid to where they felt comfortable and card would get sold. This all stems from people trying to get a steal on ebay and the sellers trying to set a bottom, but the only person they helping is ebay by paying listing fees for cards that will never sell at those prices. Some people hate ebay because it has resulted in the lowering of prices. Others love it because they dont have a card shop in their area, and they are able to find any card they want. I say if you want to sell an item and your comfortable with how much its sold for in the past, put the item up for bid!!
Ebay listers scared to put items for bid?
- Thread starter abeabe
- Start date
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The real big problem with ebay is that sellers will research a specific item to see what others are selling for with BIN, and lower their price by $2-5 in hopes of making a quick sale and subsequently the value of that card drops dramatically after the low sale. Case busters don't really care, they just want to flip product to continue their search of the big hits!
I have been selling on and off on ebay for 6 years and when ebay raised their seller fees by 500% they no longer were the biggest online marketplace for sports cards. Other sites are doing well, with lower seller fees and the like. I love and hate ebay at the same time! It's a buyers market for sure!!
The_Glavinator
Always looking for Glavine!
I have been selling on and off on ebay for 6 years and when ebay raised their seller fees by 500% they no longer were the biggest online marketplace for sports cards. Other sites are doing well, with lower seller fees and the like. I love and hate ebay at the same time! It's a buyers market for sure!!
The_Glavinator
Always looking for Glavine!
What other sites are you finding better than ebay?
checkoutmycards.com
The only problem with this site is they are slow and you have to SEND them your cards. but cards are selling between 33% -80% of book value, of course that depends on the card.
Ebay isn't making out like a bandit, because most of those sellers are listing with the free listings. They don't pay anything unless the item sells, and if they get what they want, they can absorb the fees. Just my thoughts on it.
Uh, last time I check I am paying about 25% in fees! The only time I don't get charged is if a BIN is re-listed as an auction style listing. I still have to pay listing fees!
The_Glavinator
Always looking for Glavine
Free listings rarely wind up being free, once you add pictures or any upgrades, it's not free. Even the large EBAY stores pay a monthly fee, so ebay definately making out either way. With final value fees they obviously make more if an item is sold. My main point was the stores that do mostly buy it now's have taken the fun and ability to get deals out of ebay. With alll the talk about book values being a thing of the past and having little relation to how much cards actually sell for. Sellers who do not open cards for bidding are not letting the market find its own common ground. They are setting a card at whatever price they want, many of them way over BV, others way under and they sit and hope someone buys it. When a card is up for bid, it gives everyone and anyone a chance. Until the card reaches a price they are not willing to pay, or the auction ends they have a chance to purchase at a price they choose vs. what a card store sets price at.
tglg is right, you get so many free listings each month. So sellers can use those free listings to list at prices they would be happy to sell for. Although, the free listings only work on Auction Style items, not Buy It Now items.
I agree with you for the most part. One thing to consider is the reason some sellers have listed a card with a high BIN, it gives them a bargaining point. It also depends on what the seller paid for the card. Just like in my card shop. I price things @ book price to start the bargaining price. I don't sell cards at book price but there has to be some standard for pricing besides ebay.
steves
Bench Warmer
Ebay listers scared
I have in the past both bought and sold on ebay.The problem I see is as a seller you can make goog profits,but this site is flooded.Most cards I collect are common cards,so I trying buying in lots.But as as a seller it is hard to compete with a lot of the dealers,because they are card dealers,where I am a card collector.I sell some but not alot. so here is a site where you buy,sell and auction.All cards start at $0.25 bid,they have baseball,basketball,football,hockey and others.Also they have a stores,where you can buy from dealers.This site is SPORTLOTS.COM. Give it a try I use it everyday.
I have in the past both bought and sold on ebay.The problem I see is as a seller you can make goog profits,but this site is flooded.Most cards I collect are common cards,so I trying buying in lots.But as as a seller it is hard to compete with a lot of the dealers,because they are card dealers,where I am a card collector.I sell some but not alot. so here is a site where you buy,sell and auction.All cards start at $0.25 bid,they have baseball,basketball,football,hockey and others.Also they have a stores,where you can buy from dealers.This site is SPORTLOTS.COM. Give it a try I use it everyday.
i wont lie im starting to get scared to put items up for bid. i used to list up 10-15 auctions at a time when i would list them and i would list them all as legit auctions. and it would never fail that 10-12 of them would end below the average price by a decent amount.
after this happens so many times i understandibly get nervous about putting auctions up. so most of the time i will run a buy it now with best offer for at least a week or two even on hot cards and if they dont sell then ill put them up for auction.
but the area im different then most sellers is im reasonable with my bin. if a card sells for 75 ill usuallly put it up for 100 with best offer and take an offer of 70-75. but alot of sellers i see will list it up for 200 and wont take less then 150-175 for it.
after this happens so many times i understandibly get nervous about putting auctions up. so most of the time i will run a buy it now with best offer for at least a week or two even on hot cards and if they dont sell then ill put them up for auction.
but the area im different then most sellers is im reasonable with my bin. if a card sells for 75 ill usuallly put it up for 100 with best offer and take an offer of 70-75. but alot of sellers i see will list it up for 200 and wont take less then 150-175 for it.
That is so true about the best offers. Ive never once had my offer accepted, I will admit my offers are usually 50-60% of their asking price, but not one ever? I have had items up in the past that were competitively priced that I would have accepted 50-60% of BIN price, and never got a single offer. Probably people so used to being turned down, they don't bother offering less then $10 under the BIN price.
I don't really agree with this. I've had some cards that I consider PC but would also sell them if I got a certain price (usually high book or above). With the free listing at any price promotion ebay had, I was able to take advantage of that idea. I've listed and re-listed cards every month. Some took many months to sell and some still havent. I've sold quite a few cards at High Book though which is what motivates me to be patient. If I had started the auctions at .99 to let the market decide, the cards would have sold for next to nothing.
Checkoutmycards.com is a nice site.. I don't sell there but was able to find a Johan Santana autograph for cheaper than anything I could find on ebay (including normal auctions) + a few tough set needs and I only paid one shipping price instead of multiples from different sellers.
Checkoutmycards.com is a nice site.. I don't sell there but was able to find a Johan Santana autograph for cheaper than anything I could find on ebay (including normal auctions) + a few tough set needs and I only paid one shipping price instead of multiples from different sellers.
I had some kids in my store tell me about that site and I thought it was a good idea but, don't like the idea of sending my cards across the country to sell them and if I wanted them back I would have to pay shipping. I might try it once with a couple hundred inserts but nothing high dollar.
The_Glavinator
Always looking for Glavine
I understand.. I'm the same way. It's a nice concept but it's not something that I'd see myself doing.
im not sure on COMC it seems like a nice concept but the fees are a little ridiculous. its 20 cents a card to send them in and the fee for withdrawing money is 20 cents. so if you sell a card for 1 dollar your going to see 60 cents at the end of the day. but at the same time it seems like you can unload stuff you cant anywhere else. im going to send in about 70 interts/rcs to sell and see what happens.
Keep in mind too, that depending on how much you pay for processing, is how fast they will list them. I probably won't bother sending cards that will sell for $1 but it would make sense if the cards I sent sold for at least $3 ea. From what I saw cards sell for 33% -80% of book. Good luck on yours, and be sure to post something so we know how it goes.
The_Glavinator
They are definitely playing it safer. The days of just throwing it on ebay and letting it ride are coming to an end. A few years ago I stopped at Target. I grabbed a blaster of Topps series 2. I got home, opened the box, and I pulled an Eric Davis Team Topps autograph. I remember him growing up, I glanced at the odds and noticed it was a 1:2500 pack pull for the group he was in. that is 125 blasters worth of packs just to pull any group A auto. Then figure there were 4 players in group A (Tommy John, Don Zimmer, Davis, and Doug Drabek) means roughly 1:500 blasters had an Eric Davis auto. I figured that should have decent value. A quick check of ebay completed auctions showed me they were selling in the $1.25-$3.00 range. A $20 blaster gives me a 1:125 pull, that means roughly $2500 in blasters should get me ONE auto from that group and I'd have had to pull 7 or 8 of them just to cover the cost of 1 blaster. It quickly dawned on me I'd rather keep the card than sell it for $2 + $1.50 s/h, deal with paypal fees, ebay fees, shipping the card, and taking the risk of dealing with a goofy buyer. More people seem to be thinking like this. I went to Twinsfest last year, one booth had Fergie Jenkins signing auto's for $10. I paid $9 to get in, $1 for a nice 1976 Topps Jenkins, $10 to have him sign it. So I'm into the card for $20. If I sell it on ebay, it has no COA other than my word. It'd likely get $5-10 on a good day. If I spend another $25-40 for PSA/JSA to authenticate, I'm now into it for $45-60 and it will probably sell for $20-25. People are less and less willing to risk losing money on an item, so more and more are going up with BIN prices. If they price them high enough, even if they don't get a bite, a lot of times someone will come along and try to negotiate without having done their homework. I've seen $23 BIN's sold for a $12 offer and the buyer thinks he got a great deal until someone points out the last 4 sold for an average of $9.99.
For sellers that deal with thousands of auctions per month, Buy It Now's seem like a really great option.
First off, with the BIN you can have a listing for up to 30 days, while auctions can go up to 7 days (or 10, with an extra 10 cent fee). If you have hundreds or thousands of cards for sale, it saves you so much time relisting unsold items every month instead of every week.
There is also added convenience in not having to worry about when an auction ends. I usually like to have cards end weekdays around 7 to 10 PM in the regional time zone where I feel there is the most demand.. For example, if I have a Posey card, I want it to end in that time frame in Pacific Time. Pain in the butt? You betcha. But if you have an auction ending at a bad time it can DESTROY the price you are getting because we all know that most of the bidding happens in the last few hours.
Depending on the membership package they have, BIN listing fees can actually be pretty reasonable (as low as 3 cents per item as I understand it).
There also has to be some sort of fear involved as well. Chances are that they made some sort of financial investment in the cards they are selling. Auctions can be risky... Very risky. A simple typo, a bad title, less than optimum ending time, these can really hurt your sales. Why not take all the variables out of the equation and do a BIN?
What does really annoy me are sellers that have ridiculous Buy It Now prices and no "Best Offer"... Drives me nuts.
First off, with the BIN you can have a listing for up to 30 days, while auctions can go up to 7 days (or 10, with an extra 10 cent fee). If you have hundreds or thousands of cards for sale, it saves you so much time relisting unsold items every month instead of every week.
There is also added convenience in not having to worry about when an auction ends. I usually like to have cards end weekdays around 7 to 10 PM in the regional time zone where I feel there is the most demand.. For example, if I have a Posey card, I want it to end in that time frame in Pacific Time. Pain in the butt? You betcha. But if you have an auction ending at a bad time it can DESTROY the price you are getting because we all know that most of the bidding happens in the last few hours.
Depending on the membership package they have, BIN listing fees can actually be pretty reasonable (as low as 3 cents per item as I understand it).
There also has to be some sort of fear involved as well. Chances are that they made some sort of financial investment in the cards they are selling. Auctions can be risky... Very risky. A simple typo, a bad title, less than optimum ending time, these can really hurt your sales. Why not take all the variables out of the equation and do a BIN?
What does really annoy me are sellers that have ridiculous Buy It Now prices and no "Best Offer"... Drives me nuts.
I'm doing a little test on ebay this week. I have a George Kell cert/224, there is only one other of that card on ebay, it's a BIN for $39.95, which is over bv I believe. I started bidding at $4.99, already has a bid and has 3 days to go, I wont get $39.95, but my card will sell. How close to bv, we will see. Isnt that the point of ebay? to sell cards! not have them sit for months and months. As kraft said, and I was trying to get at in OP, was the BINs often are absurd even compared to other sellers of the same card.
