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eBay item does not sell, so increase price 40%, almost double the shipping

Jimmy

Jimmy

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2012
Messages
594
Location
Fort Walton Beach, Fl
I was recently following item 221185205341, which is a Kaypro luggable with a min bid of $99.00 and shipping of $37.00. No one bid on the item and I see this item has been re-listed this time for $139.00, I calculate the shipping to my zipcode and it's $67.00.

The seller is george_garage_sell. I have never sold anything on eBay but does things like this actually work, almost double the price and try to sell it again.

I have also been looking a couple copies of SPF/PC Verson 2.0 sometimes the price is $139.00 for one copy and $159.00 for what looks like an identical copy. At other times is $79.00 and $89.00.

I have not purchased a lot off eBay, but is this a common practice?


Jimmy
 
I have seen sellers do that a few times. Sometimes they have a large lot of items and the more they sell the higher they jack up the prices for the last few. I think they have a bunch of people watching an item and not bidding (hoping it gets relisted lower) so they jack it up a little to get people to commit since it won't get cheaper.

A year or two ago I was looking at some IBM 5.25" 1.3GB MO drives a seller had, he never lowered the price so I sent an offer for 3 of them and he finally accepted. Later on he REALY jacked up the price for the last few he had.
 
Reminds me of when I bought a boxed copy of Pegasus Prime years ago. First box was $25 and after that it was $70.

For the longest time there was a Lisa on Craigslist SF that every month the guy would jack the price up $100.
 
I've seen this with items before too, most recently I have been keeping an eye on an old educational Lego set which comes with an Apple II interface. As this gets listed on and off the price seems to occasionally jump, sometimes 'best offers' are considered... Previously listed around $1250 this was last offered at $2500 or so, which leaves me wondering if the seller even really wants to part with it at all.
 
I was trying to pick up an SE/30 with an ethernet card in it. The seller wasn't an expert on it but it sounded like it had bad capacitors, which was fine but obviously should affect the price. The seller had a BIN with BO. I explained this to the seller and gave them my offer ($100 shipped). They said thanks for the information but ignored my offer. I sent in another offer that got declined and then asked why I was interested in it... Eventually it didn't sell and got relisted a couple of times after more than a month went by. I stopped bothering trying to get it. Eventually he accepted someones offer for $100 shipped. I really wanted to reach through my screen and give him the bird...

Edit:Almost forgot the relevant part of the story. The seller kept playing with the price and format of the auction every time it got listed. The price would go up for awhile then back down.

Part of my business is to sell things on eBay. Last week I listed a Lenovo tablet laptop. Within a couple hours I had 2 or 3 different people asking me a lot of questions about it. I responded to their questions and then upped the price by $10 seeing as there was a lot of interest in it (and I found out a couple small details about the hardware/software). One of the questioners noticed and asked me about it. I said yes and told them that I thought it was a reasonable price increase given the new information about the laptop. None of the 3 questioners bought it but it sold about 5 days later for my new asking price. I can definitely understand raising the price sometimes but what most of these sellers do is just illogical.
 
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Whilst not Computer stuff I have sold things on E-bay that I couldn't give away on Freecycle. In this case it can be the bigger coverage but I sold a pair of Roofbars and a Garden shed.
 
I have put things on ebay for a price, then as it gets to the end of the auction, lowered the price to try and find a buyer. Nobody bids, so the next listing starts at the same price again. Sometimes you get a buyer, sometimes you don't. I've been selling off this pile of serial cards I acquired. Sometimes I get $12 and sometimes I get $35. Just depends on who needs what at the time.

My favorite is when I set a buy-it-now price with a starting bid just a few dollars lower. Someone bids at the lower price and then two or more people get into a bidding war and end up paying more than the buy-it-now.
 
I complained about this kind of ebay behavior once and was bullied off of the forum for opposing people's right to ask whatever they want for their property. :D I guess posters here are a little more relaxed about this kind of thing now.

OP you're lucky that there are a couple of other Kaypros up on ebay right now for more reasonable prices, including another 2x. These machines are common enough that if you wait you can definitely snag a good one for under $50. I have three and never paid more than $30 for any of them. Some of the kaypros with absurd BINs have been up on ebay for half a decade now. :rolleyes: Ok I'll leave again before people start getting out the pointy sticks.
 
Jimmy said:
I was recently following item 221185205341, which is a Kaypro luggable with a min bid of $99.00 and shipping of $37.00. No one bid on the item and I see this item has been re-listed this time for $139.00, I calculate the shipping to my zipcode and it's $67.00.

...

I have not purchased a lot off eBay, but is this a common practice?


Jimmy
Click to expand...

My guess is that the seller copied the template with the shipping cost from another item. When he re-listed he altered the shipping cost to reality. The increase in price probably due to the seller wanting to get his time and effort to pack and prepare for shipping back. My computer store sells some vintage items (degnanco.net), we learned that you have to pack the item after to you take pictures of it, so that you can accurately calculate the shipping cost, there is no other way.
 
billdeg said:
we learned that you have to pack the item after to you take pictures of it, so that you can accurately calculate the shipping cost, there is no other way.
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I don't understand why this is such a freaking surprise/revelations to many sellers (ebay, CL, forums, etc...). If you want accurate costs you need to know how big the damn thing is going to be and how much it weighs. But most people don't do it and either back out of the sale (after end of auction) or bitch and whine about how it cost them more to ship then they expected. Just had this happen to me last week. Guy under estimated shipping so to minimize his "loss" he did not bother to pack/box the item properly for shipping....
 
Mos6502 sorry that you were treated that way. I was a loan officer in a bank for 25 years and did a lot of collecting, trying to bully me would be like trying to poke hot butter up a wildcats behind in a telephone booth. I can been called about everything I know and some things I had no idea what were, in at least 17 differnt languages.

I have just never heard of if you are trying to sell something and it does not sell raise the price. I wonder if it works for houses and cars also.

On the shipping I would rathter they just say check the shipping charges to your address rather than saying the shippng charges are $37.00 and they end up being $65.00.
 
Jimmy said:
I have just never heard of if you are trying to sell something and it does not sell raise the price. I wonder if it works for houses and cars also.
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It is like I always say tight buyer right time. Raising/lowering prices makes no difference (in general) but if you happen to raise your price as someone hits eBay looking for the item then you get it sold.

I specially won't buy if you raise the price after I show interest. Had someone do that to me and then he actually emailed me to say why I "wasted" his time w/ questions and asking for more pictures if I wasn't a real buyer. I then, politely pointed out to him, that he did not send me the pics/info until his auction ran his course and he listed at a higher price afterwards. Haven't heard back from him since then....
 
eBay's default sorting of search results is "Best Match", which seems to rank higher-priced Buy It Now items closer to the top of the list. No doubt they do this to attract impulse buyers and thus make more profit for themselves. The "Best Match" sorting also might be ranked according to the average sale price of the item you're looking for. So if a particular item has an average sale price of $100, a seller listing it for $120 is going to be closer to the top of the search results than a seller listing it for $50.
 
Jimmy said:
I have just never heard of if you are trying to sell something and it does not sell raise the price. I wonder if it works for houses and cars also.
Click to expand...

I have heard of this working for houses. If someone is only searching for houses in a certain price range, they may not see yours at all if it's too cheap. Raise the price, and it comes to the attention of people that are interested.
 
Thanks everyone for the replys. I was not complaining, just curious if this works. I have very little expereince buying on eBay.

Thanks again,

Jimmy
 
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