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eBay: contest for record highest asking price


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Just because someone has put something, anything on eBay for a ridiculous price does not mean you have to purchase it. If you do... well, there's a sucker born every minute. My wife was missing a bear from her collection of Godiva Christmas bears because in 2015 most were recalled for an unknown reason and only a few were released to the public. There's been one on eBay for some time at $999.99. I finally won one for almost a twentieth of that. Made her Christmas!

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Don't get me started on Beanie Babies! Back when they were hot, a PlayCo toy store near me had a great scale-model section.  I learned not to ever go there on Sat. morning to check out the kits.  The store was full of Beanie Baby nuts, hollering at the sales staff, digging thru the stock, and causing incredibly long check-out lines.  It always seemed to be adults throwing tantrums, trying to fill their collections or whatever.  A couple of times, people nearly came to blows over those things.

I also like the eBay threads.  They're fun, entertaining and educational.

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I also have to laugh when you see five people selling the exact same model and the prices wary wildly (for example from $150 to $500).   Do these people not look at completed listing and what others are asking and even at the low end of the price range whether anyone is bidding.  There should be a rule you must drop your price by 10% every time you relist the same item.  After the fifth time the asking price might actually generate some interest and bids.  Isn't the whole point to sell something?

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Sometimes....when models (or other items) are priced extremely high on eBay, it is to sell the same thing cheaper (although at a still inflated price) at a show or elsewhere. Most people check places like eBay and Amazon to see what things are "selling for." So if you are selling a $100 model for $500 and someone has it listed on eBay for $3000, you might actually find someone to buy it for $500 because they think they are getting a deal. As has been stated before, this will continue until folks have to pay for fixed price listings. eBay is like gambling anyway. You can list an item for sale for $100 and get no takers. You can start an auction for the same item with an opening bid of $1 and sell it for $300 (you can also end up selling it for $10).

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18 hours ago, vamach1 said:

Isn't the whole point to sell something?

Maybe, but not the point of Capitalism.

18 hours ago, vamach1 said:

There should be a rule you must drop your price by 10% every time you relist the same item.  After the fifth time the asking price might actually generate some interest and bids.

If you provided a platform from which people could sell their wares, would you intentionally decrease your potential profit by limiting the final sale values?

Edited by Casey
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Oh, I'll tell my Beanie Baby story...

Back in the day my daughters both were collecting these like every other kid they knew.  I made sure they only got the cheap ones and explained to them how this "instant collectibles mania" worked.  Still my eldest daughter wanted the Peace Bear.  It was up around $200 at the time.  We were at a flea market and she was crying when I wouldn't buy it, even when the dealer lowered his price to $160 for her!  Tough lesson!  Bad Daddy!  :o

Maybe 10 years ago I'm at a block long garage sale. At one of the houses there is a laundry basket full of Beanies and guess who is sitting right on top? Yup, ole Peace Bear!  They were marked a quarter apiece.  I held out a dollar and the lady didn't have change so I told her to just keep it.  She then tried to sell me the entire basket, including the basket, for $5.  Nope, I just needed this one.  I went to the other sales on the street.  Upon returning to my car, there was the basket sitting on the passenger seat of my Geo Tracker!  They didn't want these Beanies that bad!

So I took Peace Bear and wrapped him up like a present.  We were sitting at a dinner table when I presented this to my daughter.  I told her I wanted to make amends for something from her childhood, that I remembered all these years!  She opened it up and we both laughed.  I told her I bought it for a quarter and then presented her with the basket.  

She kept Peace Bear.  The rest of the Beanies went to good use.  She was a second grade teacher in a low income area.  She used them as rewards for the children!

 

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I recently paid $17 for a box. LOL I thought it was a kit... It's allllllll on me, as I didn't read the listing well enough. I'll keep it in the closet as a reminder not to click "buy it now" without taking a couple breaths and rereading the post. 

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6 hours ago, Casey said:

Maybe, but not the point of Capitalism.

If you provided a platform from which people could sell their wares, would you intentionally decrease your potential profit by limiting the final sale values?

Some profit is better than none at all.  I see the same stuff listed dozens of times waiting for that one sucker to bite.  There should be a relisting limit too.  Why waste everyone's time with stuff that's never gonna sell.

Edited by vamach1
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On ‎1‎/‎29‎/‎2019 at 10:52 PM, iamsuperdan said:

Amazon has the same problem. I've always wondered when I see something pretty common for a ridiculously astronomical price. There has to be a reason for it, because there are hundreds of sellers doing it.

Sometimes Amazon doesn't seem to do foreign currency conversion right. Or something.  Once I saw a Japanese vendor on Amazon offering a kit for U.S. $10,000. I thought, "That can't be right."  It wasn't, I went to the vendor's store and the price was 10,000 Japanese Yen.  Or a little less than U.S. $100, which made more sense. I have no idea why it translated to U.S. $10K.

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Then there is the fun part of being on the receiving end. Recently I listed several lots of out of the package 80's teenage mutant ninja turtles hoping to get some extra model supply cash. I was shocked to net just over two grand, one lot of miss-matched figures and accessories alone went for nearly $400.  Should have kept my excitement to myself though, most all of it went to new tile for the kitchen. Lesson learned 

Edited by FredRPG
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18 hours ago, Tom Geiger said:

Oh, I'll tell my Beanie Baby story...

Back in the day my daughters both were collecting these like every other kid they knew.  I made sure they only got the cheap ones and explained to them how this "instant collectibles mania" worked.  Still my eldest daughter wanted the Peace Bear.  It was up around $200 at the time.  We were at a flea market and she was crying when I wouldn't buy it, even when the dealer lowered his price to $160 for her!  Tough lesson!  Bad Daddy!  :o

Maybe 10 years ago I'm at a block long garage sale. At one of the houses there is a laundry basket full of Beanies and guess who is sitting right on top? Yup, ole Peace Bear!  They were marked a quarter apiece.  I held out a dollar and the lady didn't have change so I told her to just keep it.  She then tried to sell me the entire basket, including the basket, for $5.  Nope, I just needed this one.  I went to the other sales on the street.  Upon returning to my car, there was the basket sitting on the passenger seat of my Geo Tracker!  They didn't want these Beanies that bad!

So I took Peace Bear and wrapped him up like a present.  We were sitting at a dinner table when I presented this to my daughter.  I told her I wanted to make amends for something from her childhood, that I remembered all these years!  She opened it up and we both laughed.  I told her I bought it for a quarter and then presented her with the basket.  

She kept Peace Bear.  The rest of the Beanies went to good use.  She was a second grade teacher in a low income area.  She used them as rewards for the children!

 

Nice story Tom. 

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48 minutes ago, 89AKurt said:

Some funnies here.  Since I had clicked on that AMT Chevy van, been getting notices from eBay, it's been reduced ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS.  :lol:

I've been watching that one too. There are some days the price is all over the map! I'll watch it till someone bites.......or not.

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1 hour ago, 89AKurt said:

Some funnies here.  Since I had clicked on that AMT Chevy van, been getting notices from eBay, it's been reduced ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS.  :lol:

Drevil.jpg

Heh!  I saw that big price reduction too.  Like somebody above said...these people must never look at Completed Items. 

Edited by Mike999
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/29/2019 at 12:26 PM, Bucky said:

Amazon has this Revell Jeep Wrangler Rubicon Plastic Model Kit for $47.95.  Maybe the one on eBay is an earlier release.

 

 

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On 1/31/2019 at 9:12 AM, Xingu said:

Sometimes....when models (or other items) are priced extremely high on eBay, it is to sell the same thing cheaper (although at a still inflated price) at a show or elsewhere. Most people check places like eBay and Amazon to see what things are "selling for." So if you are selling a $100 model for $500 and someone has it listed on eBay for $3000, you might actually find someone to buy it for $500 because they think they are getting a deal. As has been stated before, this will continue until folks have to pay for fixed price listings. eBay is like gambling anyway. You can list an item for sale for $100 and get no takers. You can start an auction for the same item with an opening bid of $1 and sell it for $300 (you can also end up selling it for $10).

Really good point you made, and I can see this happening at times .

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