Why Won't More Vintage Card Auctions Include A BIN?

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Posted By: T206Collector

As a collector who regularly sells cards on ebay, I do not understand why more sellers don't include a BIN with their auctions? It seems like the result of a fundamental misunderstanding of how auctions work. Auctions do not earn sellers the highest bid prices -- they only earn sellers a marginal increment over the second highest bidder. That means that high bidders are often getting an item at a price less than what the highest bidder was truly willing to pay.

If your BIN is too high, you'll just end up with the same auction result as if you never included a BIN; but if your BIN is just right, you may sell an item higher than would you would have gotten in auction.

I guess the answer will be that sellers think that more often than not their BINs might be placed too low, below that which they would have earned if they had just let an auction run its course.

Still, it's amazing to me that more auctions don't also incude a BIN number -- some figure that would be an above-expectations sale.