The continued downfall of ebay - the latest problem and a work-around solution.
 

I'm surprised no one has brought this up on Net54 about the latest ebay annoyance.

Since the end of December, if you want to see what an item sold for when "Best offer" was used, ebay no longer provides the selling price.

I like to track and keep records of what high-end items sell for, so that I can see where the price is heading on particular items. That has not been possible since the end of December.

I found a discussion on the internet and learned of a work around. When you search for "completed items" Click on the item you want to learn more about.

Where the url has ebay.com, just insert another non-U.S. country and you will see the final price.

here is an example of before and after using Australia:

The current, broken way:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2011-TEXAS-R...item232677c0ff


The Better way:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2011-TEXA...item232677c0ff


I'm sure it won't be long, until ebay changes the listings for all countries.

When sellers want to sell the same items over and over, I guess ebay wants to continue to help sellers, at the expense of buyers. The new changes helps keep buyers in the dark about what items sell for.

Thanks for the heads up on that -

I find this practice no more or less annoying than when BST sellers delete their selling price after sale.

.

+1

+1
I have been finding the best offer annoying though. Thanks for the tip

the Australia link no longer works for me - guess they have changed it already...

I've seen a lot of people using .ca

All the international sites will eventually be switched as well - we've seen it happen before. Once again, let's fix what ain't broken.

Which reminds me... hey, Paul (BBG)- how does this fit in with your "semi-transparency"?

Might be a pain, but if you do a search of closed items and have them listed at highest or lowest first you can see where your item would fall in price. It doesn't give you the exact price but it gives you what it would fall between.

It's really strange for me. If I go to the completed listings and check the Buy It Now selling price, and then click on the item, it changes! This is when I do it from my Android. One item said it sold for $750. When I clicked on it, it said the final price was $999. What am I missing here?

Sounds to me like you should bid with your Android because the final price is lower.... :p

This annoys me also.

In searching the web for a solution, I had read that ebay phone apps have not been changed yet to hide the actual selling price.

now I see that the "history" link which shows the number of offers is gone. when I use a different country the history and offers will show up.

Why does ebay contineu to torture me?

This is a great trick, thanks to the OP for sharing.. I just got ca and co.uk to work, and got prices on a few I'd been really curious about. Didn't think it had until I clicked on the items again and it showed price and comp price in pounds.

+4 (if I counted correctly!).
Val

How does this affect VCP?
 

What impact will this hidden "final sales price" have on VCP and other trolling info re-packagers? I would guess that eBay's new practice will make it impossible for such re-sellers of info to account for a BIN/BOs.

I think deleting pricing on our BST is a polite thing to do for the buyer. But that is just me and I know others disagree. The only thing I don't want to see over there, and this is in the rules, is folks deleting all info. That will get you a warning. The reason being is that if everyone did that it would kind of look stupid over there... :). I think we have one of the most active BST's on the net, for vintage cards, and want to keep it that way. Everyone does a great job as I very rarely need to get involved. Caveat emptor over there too. Be careful, you are on your own, for the most part.

+5

I am still trying to get my sea legs, so to speak,

As far as ebay problems, we at Net54 are a very small percentage of sellers and buyers on ebay. Just look at the number of different catagories. We collectors on NET54 sometimes forget this and complain about it often. EBAY is not there just for us.;)

Joe

I also noticed this... it is very frustrating... however I think ebay does it to keep the value of cards up... since vpc is based off of auctions... a high price that was sold for a best offer might be recorded at that high price... thus propping up the value of the particular item... it is very frustrating

Do you use VCP to determine your prices on cards?

As Joe said above, Ebay couldn't care less about the value of cards or most collectibles in general (which are but a sliver of the overall eBay pie), and certainly didn't tailor their approach to dupe VCP into showing higher prices for them. I do think the general sentiment is the same though: If they make it look like sellers are getting higher prices for their merchandise in general, it encourages more casual observers to jump on and sell their own stuff. It won't fool the hardcore eBay users, but that's not who it's aimed at. Just another instance of eBay making a grab for attracting new customers and in the process making things harder for their established users.

Edited to add: Good grief, I didn't realize who I was responding to. I still stand by my comments, but just, good grief...

If Andrew used(s) VCP for pricing...he should have an idea what a t206 wagner goes for?

Andrew...that is a very serious accusation towards ebay and vcp...oh wait...you have no credibility...never mind