auction vs. BIN by set

[darwinbulldog]

According to my calculations, approximately 1% of the N172s currently on ebay are listed for auction (as opposed to just listed with a BIN price). For T206s the number is about 9%. I'm curious what accounts for the discrepancy. It looks like the population of buyers/sellers of N172s doesn't overlap with the population of buyers/sellers of T206s as much as I would have guessed, but that still doesn't answer the question.

[Sean1125]

I believe t206 is a more popular set, with more cards and so more hit the auction setting.

I don't think n172 is a good comparison in terms of trying to get a reasonable % because the sample size is insanely small.

I type in e-bay SOLD only"t206" 10,389 sold listings
I type in e-bay SOLD only "n172" 226 sold listings
I type in e-bay all completed "t206" 16,208 completed listings
I type in e-bay all completed "n172" 758 completed listings

Wow I cannot type today.

[thecatspajamas]

Do some experimenting of your own with listing similar cards at Auction and then at Fixed Price with an asking price that you think they "should" sell for, and I think you will answer your own question. Or just look at completed sales for similar cards listed at Auction vs. Fixed Price. Unless the item is both RARE and POPULAR, the Auction price realized will rarely measure up to the Fixed Price sale, though the Fixed Price sale may take longer to turn over.

There are simply many more sellers willing to take their time and fish for BIN whales than there are those who chum the waters with 99-cent Auctions.

Edited to add: I'm not sure if that addressed your question or not. Another factor may be the confidence that sellers of T206 cards have that multiple bidders will turn up their item in a search over those selling N172 cards. Generally speaking, if I don't think there will be more than 1 or 2 bidders who find my listing, I'm not going to risk running it as an auction.

[Matthew H]

Sean, I think it has more to do with value than popularity. If you have a t206 worth $40 and it only goes for $20, oh well. If you have an N172 worth $250 and it goes for $125, that's a bit harder to swallow.

If you look a bit closer you'll realize it's only a two sellers that list a majority of BIN N172s. The ones that are a good deal get snatched up right away. The rest are listed at retail and beyond.

[smtjoy]

I think their are so many more collectors (much more demand and supply) in the T206's, prices are much more established vs N172. When you can look up a T206 in VCP and see there might be 6-10 transaction over the last year or two, you can be a lot more confident that when you run an auction the price will be close. Now the down side it is unlikely to have much of a bidding war when you can wait a month or two and another will be for auction.

Its just the opposite for N172's, demand/supply is pretty thin and many cards might only have 1-2 transactions or less per player over a year or two so putting them up for auction you can be taking a pretty large price risk, if there is only one strong bidder then you the seller can take a bath, at the same time if by chance you have a very desirable player/pose combo you can get a nice bidding war and can exceed VCP and sometimes by a lot.

I have a small ebay store and I have no issues just auctioning off any T206 I get and will start at .99 for most. For N172's I would only list them with the starting bid thats an amount I am ok with it selling at and if it fails to sell then move it to a BIN.