What's it worth?

by Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.com, www.samizdat.com

Our online store at Yahoo
Our eBay store
My seller's profile at eBay (with all customer feedback)

The following article was written for GoTo Auctions (formerly known as AuctionRover). The rights have reverted to the author.

Whether you are buying or selling, you should check the value of the merchandise before starting.

For new or nearly new, brand-name goods, with only utilitarian value (not a collectible), you should first check the prices for identical items at online stores. In many cases, they can be quick and easy, using shopping bots such as Pricescan, BottomDollar, or MySimon. You certainly shouldn't pay more at auction than you would at a store. In fact, unless emotional factors come into play and you wind up bidding for the experience of winning, you should expect to pay significantly less, because of the extra effort involved in bidding, the uncertainty of whether you'll win, and the delays involved in actually receiving the merchandise, rather than just buying at a fixed price with an online credit card transaction. So if as a buyer your purpose is practical, and you know very well just what you want, you should do that research, and rationally arrive at your maximum bid, and not let yourself get carried away. And as a seller, you should do that same research when deciding whether it is worth your while to try to sell this particular merchandise at auction.

If the retail price is significant -- $100 or more -- it would probably be worth your while to take your research two steps further. First, check the collective buying sites/buyers clubs, such as Accompany, DealTime, and Mercata. There the more people decide to buy an item, the lower the price goes due to volume purchase.

Then, instead of relying on the major person-to-person auction sites, such as eBay, Amazon.com, and Yahoo, you should look at the retail auction sites, such as First Auction, OnSale, and Shopping.com. where the site is the venor and you compete for bargains on new or refurbished brand-name merchandise being sold as excess inventory. Such sites sometimes hold "flash" auctions, which only last for 30 minutes and which begin with starting prices as low as $1.

For collectibles, price research is far more difficult and the search capabilities at person-to-person auction sites are an important source of information.

The major complicating factors in this case are closely interrelated: condition and rarity. Except to the trained eye of the experienced collector or dealer, condition may seem very arbitrary or subjective. But condition determines both rarity and demand. There may be millions of this particular item in existence, but only very few of them in "mint" condition. And even if the kind of item is rare, there may be no demand at all for items in "fair" or "poor" condition, because the few avid collectors wouldn't be interested in anything less than "very good." A small, but clearly defined difference in grade can make an enormous difference in value.

Regardless of the site that you plan to buy or sell at, I'd suggest that you go first to eBay to research the value of collectibles, because their database of current and past auctions is so enormous. Click on Search, then on Completed Items. (You want to find out what the closing bids were.) Then search for listings of items very similar to what you have for sale or are interested in buying.

First scan the range of prices to get a sense of whether further research is likely to be worth the effort. For instance, checking "Lionel train," I see a fair number selling for $200-$300, a few for $500. One got a bid of $755, but the reserve was not met, so no sale was made. Another sold for $678.

Another had the starting bid set at $3000, and no one bid on it. And still another sold for $4737 (starting bid of $4600, only two bids). With a range like that, you would be well advised to seek expert opinion so you don't end up selling a $4000 train for $40 or even $400; or if buying, don't end up grossly overpaying. If you know collectors or can find local dealers, ask them for advice. If not, look for related newsgroups (at a Web site like Deja.com),and post your questions there.

For common categories of collectibles, like coins, stamps, baseball cards, books, and comic books, pay particular attention to the descriptions and the language used to describe the condition of the items getting the highest prices. In particular, check the language used by sellers with a number of items of this same kind for sale, in other words people who are likely to be dealers. What are the variants among items that to the initiated might seem identical? (e.g., "first edition," "double struck") What words do they use for the highest category of quality -- "excellent"? "uncirculated"? "proof"? "mint"? Having gotten a sense of the range of prices and the typical descriptive language from looking at the auctions that are finished, click on Search again, and this type take a look at active auctions, checking off "search title and description" and including the highest quality category (e.g., excellent) as a query word. Take a look at matches which have pictures and compare what is said with what you see in the picture. How large and clear is the picture? Is the seller describing all the obvious defects in detail? Pick a few items where the seller is obviously a dealer, and send email asking for a clear definition of the words used to describe the condition.

If you might want to buy many items of this kind (becoming a collector), or if you have many items of this kind that you would like to sell at auction, you should be much more thorough in your research, perhaps buying, reading, and regularly referring to books on the subject (which you should be able to find quickly by searching at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble).

Another related factor that is important to consider is to what degree can you trust the seller or can you expect buyers to trust you? We're not talking about integrity. We're talking about knowledge of the field and hence reliability and consistency of grading and describing the condition of the merchandise. If the seller has little of no feedback, buyers are likely to be skeptical of the written descriptions, depending more on large, clear photos. So as a seller, trying to get the highest possible bids, you should either go out of your way to build positive feedback before attempting to sell what could be a gem; or you should take extra special care to make sure your photos show everything significant about the item in great detail and, perhaps, from more than one angle. (NB -- that Lionel train that sold for $4737 seems to have been sold by a newcomer, amateur. But the listing included half a dozen clear, closeup photos. Seeing is believing, and believing can make a huge difference in price.)


 

This article and hundreds of related items by Richard is available, in plain text, on CD ROM My Internet: a Personal View of Internet Business Opportunities (B&R Samizdat Express, 2002) for $29. That same CD also includes the full text of his books The Social Web, Take Charge of Your Web Site, Shop Online the Lazy Way, and The Way of the Web. It is available from Amazon and from our online store http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat, where you can buy an entire library for the price of a book.

Other auction articles by Richard Seltzer

Can we help you build an Internet business? Richard Seltzer is an independent Internet writer/speaker/consultant. Click here for details. or send email to seltzer@samizdat.com

This site is Published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. (617) 469-2269. seltzer@samizdat.com

Return to B&R Samizdat Express
Buy Richard's book Web Business Bootcamp (published by Wiley) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471164194/brsamizdatexpres

Check our sitemap page www.samizdat.com/sitemap.html from which you can get to any other page at this site in one click.

<
Internet Business Showcase: