"Puzzling eBay Things" Topic

I've noticed that sometimes an auction does not attract any bids and so the seller relists the item for auction. OK so far, but a number of times I've seen items relisted at HIGHER PRICES than the original listing.

I'm wondering, if you tried to auction an item and you got no bids, wouldn't that suggest to you that the floor asking price was too high? So wouldn't relisting the item at a higher price also fail to attract a buyer?

Makes me wonder if there is a fee they are attempting to cover in the new price.
Some sellers have a price in mind and won't budge.
I only buy on ebay if it is a bargain and I really do not understand why anyone would pay retail.

David

It's called "EBay Strategy", Jim.
It's not supposed to make sense.

Seriously though, I've done that a few times when I wasn't strapped for cash. Sometimes it works.
The "rationale" behind it is that you have a brand new audience that never saw it the first time.

As for fees, I never pay a listing fee. Only when it sells.

There is such a thing as not charging enough. You list something for too low a price and buyers automatically assume something is wrong with it.

True.
Which is why I sometimes start the bid at $.99 USD and let it grow.
Sometimes starting it higher but at a fraction of its value gets no bids. When it starts that low, it gets bidders, and that can build interest.
Or you can start it closer to its value, and it looks more legitimate.
Two different approaches.

Like I said, eBay strategy sometimes makes no sense.

There's also the possibility that an item that attracts no bids at all is likely to only get one bidder if it sells next time, so a higher starting price may be wise given the risk of nobody bidding it up.

Ive had success listing things that didn't get any bids for a much higher Buy It Now price and selling it that way.

I've relisted items at a higher price and routinely sold them for many years.

There are as many ebay stratagems as there are ebay sellers. It MAY be that this seller watched his item viewed and followed by several interested parties who ultimately never bid. This has happened to me and it can be pretty vexing.

He could relist at the same price, hoping one of the "nibblers" from round 1 might bite, or he might raise the price. If an interested party thought the seller is going to relist over and over, each time raising the price, he/she might figure that now might be the time to bid, before it gets too pricey. In this way he might flush out a fence sitter.

It's possible.

I recall selling some leather at an indoor trade show years ago. Things didn't sell on Saturday so I doubled the price on Sunday, put a sign on it saying "last piece!" and sold out immediately on a Sunday morning. Go figure.

Always amazes me the number of things that are priced more second hand that you can buy them new ( the exact same things – do they assume all these things are out of production?)

Yes, the term OOP gets bandied around a lot. I hate the collecting mentality, I don't buy minis as an investment.

I always point out when I sell whether figures are still commercially available, it's good manners to my fellow hobbyists.

My other pet peeve is the interpretation of the meaning of "good condition".

I've seen some pix where there is barely any paint left on a toy soldier figure and the seller describes it as being in good condition. LOL!

I guess that "good condition" means that nothing is broken on the figure.

psychology