About a year ago I noticed my wife almost constantly would come home from shopping with random crap we or she didn't need. The near universal excuse was "it was on sale" or "if I spent $100 instead of $50 I got an extra $10 in (insert department store name) cash," etc. It dawned on me how people perceive the cost of something vs. the cost of missing out on something and I decided to use the theory on eBay. I canceled every BIN I had going and relisted them exactly the same but with additions to the titles such as:
"CHEAPEST ON EBAY!!!"
"10% OFF VCP!!!"
"LAST ONE!!!!"
"LOWERED FOR A LIMITED TIME"
No statement was a lie. If it listed as cheapest, it was the cheapest. If it was listed as lower than VCP or previous sales, it was lower. If it was listed as lowered, then the price was 10%-20% less than what I previously had it listed for. I also started sending extras with almost every purchase. If someone purchased a graded single I included a few raw commons from the same set. If someone purchased a newer high priced auto, parallel, or SP I included a pack of Topps or a team bag of base of the star player. I also removed the best offer option. The result was unbelievable. Items that sat in BIN purgatory for months with nothing but low-ball offers sold in hours and days. I was able to clear out crap sitting on my desk for years in a matter of weeks and most of it was priced the exact same as it had been previously.
Yeah, there is the occasional $30 card listed at $300 that you can shake your head at, but the vast majority are within range of a fair price, the main problem being the difference between what a seller
wants to get for an item and what a buyer
wants to pay for the same. If there is a discrepancy between the two it doesn't necessarily mean the seller is wrong, it means there is difference in the assumption of the item's value. This isn't Wal-Mart and there isn't a MSRP for most items we sell so transactions only take place when both parties shade into common ground. I discovered that when pressed with the possibility with missing an item they
want to add, both the mentality and the amount a buyer
wants to play can be manipulated. - Lord, that sentence sounds so evil when I type it.....
