Seller's market

From: Mike Ford <mikeford_at_netwiz.net>
Date: Sat Mar 27 02:55:08 1999

>Auction prices would yield useful informaton IF . . . and only if. . . there
>were a completed sale to go along with a set of finishing prices published
>on the web. What's damaging to the usefulness of what we have now, e.g.
>eBay, is that they allow an auction to run to completion, record the final
>(winning) bid, and make no assertion whatever about whether the sale
>actually happened. As a consequence, putting your goods up for auction on

The completion rate figure I have seen for eBay is 70%. Out of that 30%
that don't go through, a lot are from people who choose to list with high
first bids, ala the guy who keeps about 100 auctions going all the time,
each one for a single item like a hard drive sled, or a front bezel with a
first bid amount of $9.95. Only about 20% of those items get any bids, and
many sell with just a single bid. There are other equally harmless reasons
items don't complete, but if you see half a dozen auctions for similar
items, and each auction had a half a dozen different bidders, they final
prices are about as good an indicator of fair market price as I expect you
can find.

If I am serious about an item, or the price seems odd on some of the
auctions, I follow up and read the ads, or email the people. Many times
prices differences are fully explained by condition or shipping costs
revealed within the ad.
Received on Sat Mar 27 1999 - 02:55:08 GMT