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Am I doing Ebay wrong?

falter

falter

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2011
Messages
6,570
Location
Vancouver, BC
I seem to be a serial loser as a seller on ebay. Despite selling the exact same items as others, mine always come in way lower than theirs did. I'm curious - is there a penalty of sorts because I'm Canadian? Is that what it is?

For example, I sold a computer recently to someone for $2k. He immediately put it back up at $3k and got it. He was based in Europe. I happened to have a second unit even better than the first and tried at his price and then on down from there but never got a bite.

This kind of thing happens to me all the time and I'm not sure if it's just a geographical penalty or what it is. I just can't seem to realize the same prices everyone else (especially US sellers) do.
 
You're probably not doing anything wrong.

I bought a real estate property. A year later I resold it for 20% higher. Now properties in that location are listed for 20% higher than what I sold it for. Did I do something wrong and sell too soon?

I just found another property. I figured the they would take 20% less than list price. They did. Then neighboring properties that were 20% higher than the list price of the property I just bought, dropped by 20% to match what things are "selling" for. I think they might go lower, but I will never know. Are they doing something wrong?

I am not a real estate investor. I am just looking for a better home for the family. But it's weird, I guess I was involved in both a market value increase and decrease. But the fact of the matter, appearances doesn't matter. There is alot more going on than you know. It about a seller and buyer deciding on a price, and what motivates people changes all the time. And it's true, right now, money seems to be plenty in odd cases.
 
It's simply the age old supply and demand scenario for a particular product in a certain area. You didn't do anything wrong, you just weren't in the right place at the right time.
 
Yeah no, I get that prices fluctuate a lot - but it really does seem like I always fall short of the average. I can see 6 things go for an average of $500 within days or weeks of my auction, and I'll be at $350.

I was just curious - I wondered if Canada being 'foreign' meant things trade at a discount or something.
 
falter said:
Yeah no, I get that prices fluctuate a lot - but it really does seem like I always fall short of the average. I can see 6 things go for an average of $500 within days or weeks of my auction, and I'll be at $350.

I was just curious - I wondered if Canada being 'foreign' meant things trade at a discount or something.
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That's because you're too close to all of this and it's more like business than a hobby. When the average smuck like me goes on line to look for this and that, I usually jump on it if it's affordable, because it probably won't be there in the next day or so. On the other side, I recently sold a fairly new Ryzen 7 3700X for a few buck more than I paid for it last summer. There again the market kicked in because there was a shortage. Right place time and place. I've been waiting to dump a NIB C64 and now may be the time for that. So, do you think that whoever bought you item could have resold here in NA for the same price? You're Okay.
 
Well, they did just that. Literally I sold it to them, shipped it out to them in Europe, and then they had it up on ebay within a week of receipt for another $1000 above what I sold it for, and it was showing up in the US ebay so fairly good odds it sold there. My sales cover NA, Europe, etc. I stay away from certain countries for obvious reasons.. *maybe* he sold there.

But yeah this isn't a one time event. I watch the market very closely day to day. So I know a Netronics ELF II never sells below $400, just as an example. But if I put one out, it'll come in well below that. Not a few bucks, like $100 or more. And meanwhile there'll be an ELF II before it and a bunch after that sell for more.

So yeah, I just wondered if maybe i wasn't getting the same exposure being from out of US or what it was. I know American sellers get sketched out over international shipping.. I wondered if the same was true of US buyers. But then that doesn't explain the Euro guy I mentioned earlier.
 
Maybe the European buyer already knew of someone wanting this? And jumped on it knowing he/she could sell for more.
 
Lets be honest no two vintage items are exactly the same because of condition and location. Having something shipped across the border takes time and more money then something local.

I have seen plenty of people try and get top dollar for items that sold in mint condition but theirs were in very crappy non working condition.

You list the same thing every month for a year and the prices will all be different.

I sold a couple VT-525 units and I know the buyers got them to resell at higher prices down the road which didn't bother me because I got what I wanted for them.
 
falter said:
For example, I sold a computer recently to someone for $2k. He immediately put it back up at $3k and got it. He was based in Europe. I happened to have a second unit even better than the first and tried at his price and then on down from there but never got a bite.
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Sounds completely normal to me. Not sure what computer it was you sold, but most have very different prices in Europe compared to the USA, UK, etc. Also, there are import taxes, customs, and so on. So that guy took all the risk to buy it from you - importing it to Europe, and there, much more people were interested, because it was already in Europe.
 
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falter said:
I seem to be a serial loser as a seller on ebay. Despite selling the exact same items as others, mine always come in way lower than theirs did. I'm curious - is there a penalty of sorts because I'm Canadian? Is that what it is?

For example, I sold a computer recently to someone for $2k. He immediately put it back up at $3k and got it. He was based in Europe. I happened to have a second unit even better than the first and tried at his price and then on down from there but never got a bite.

This kind of thing happens to me all the time and I'm not sure if it's just a geographical penalty or what it is. I just can't seem to realize the same prices everyone else (especially US sellers) do.
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A few things. Folks in the EU are wary of buying from Canada and USE. Your power is different, the import process is full of red tape.
I feel that folks in the USA are also wary of buying from Canada, It should be painless but I gather its not.

Secondly, I feel high starting prices put folks off. If you list it at a price where folks think they might get a bargain, but also set a reserve...

lastly, for items of limited interest, after the first has sold the buyer with the deepest pockets has been removed from the Market, Look at the Apple I sales.... I don't think anything has reached the level the first one did...
 
I agree, that is probably what you are running in to here. Buyers don't like to buy outside of their country/region due to risks of scams, hassle, and shipping damage. If a seller in some other part of the world knows that an item is in demand locally, they may buy it, take the risks, inspect it, test it, possibly fix it up, advertise through their local channels, and re-sell it at a profit. Bonus points if the seller is well known in that area and has a very good reputation, and more bonus points if their buyers can pick fragile/heavy items up locally.

Also remember, a lot of this is about salesmanship. A good (and evil) salesman can sell ice to Eskimos.
 
falter said:
Well, they did just that. Literally I sold it to them, shipped it out to them in Europe, and then they had it up on ebay within a week of receipt for another $1000 above what I sold it for, and it was showing up in the US ebay so fairly good odds it sold there. My sales cover NA, Europe, etc. I stay away from certain countries for obvious reasons.. *maybe* he sold there.

.
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If it did go to Europe, and came all the way to the USA, I feel sorry for the final buyer because "Every stage in the shipping is equivalent to throwing the item down one flight of stairs"

It is true there could be a salesmanship component, also the good salesman has the right answer for everything, for example, if the prospective car buyer notices a stone chip in the windscreen, the salesman should reply "You always get that sort of thing in a performance car"
 
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Hugo Holden said:
If it did go to Europe, and came all the way to the USA, I feel sorry for the final buyer because "Every stage in the shipping is equivalent to throwing the item down one flight of stairs"
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I've had more broken computers shipped to me within Germany than from the US or even Japan to Germany. It's always a risk, but most damage happens at the first and last miles - not in between.
 
Well, we're about to prove or disprove my thesis on the Canadian ebay seller discount. I have this and a few other boards up for sale, as I finally bought a complete Altair for myself for Xmas.

Boards like these routinely go for hundreds, even missing parts. But I seem to be struggling to get above $50. Snipe bids might change it but I think they will end up going for a steep discount just because they're in Canada.

Some have griped about the flat shipping cost, which I've made clear is just a placeholder, true shipping to be calculated after the auction.

Anyway. Maybe snipers will pump things up a bit.
 
Nope. Wow. Either there's been a massive price collapse lately, I'm just unlucky, or ebay.ca stuff doesn't get the same exposure as ebay.com. Granted my boards were missing some parts.. but still.. 6x less than the last selling price? Ouch.
 
My guess is that is is partially geographical and also partly supply and demand. I am based in the Netherlands, and see lots of great items on "the other side of the pond" but by the time you calculate shipping, import duties and VAT it usually makes no sense to buy it. The guy that flipped your 2k computer for 3k over here would not be making anywhere near 1k by the time you take the above into account.... but yeah ... sucks when you see that...
 
IMHO, your C75.00 for shipping is incredibly high for a single S-100 board that could ship via US Priority mail for something line $15.00.

smp
 
smp said:
IMHO, your C75.00 for shipping is incredibly high for a single S-100 board that could ship via US Priority mail for something line $15.00.

smp
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Yeah that was a mistake - I went with flat shipping as I didn't have a box yet and wasn't sure how to handle combined shipping. I set it high, but I did explain I'd refund the difference. These cards used to go for $400-600USD depending on completeness, I found it bizarre that US buyers were turning away a card that up until today was only fetching about $35USD because the shipping was guesstimated at $75. Even if I'd stuck with that shipping figure, if they'd bid a few hundred bucks they'd still be getting it cheaper than previously. I only got about 100 views on each, which I thought was weird.
 
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