Overpriced cards

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by HerbK

I totally understand your point.... you're the one who stated concerns about your mark-up being "five cents", not me. If you think your profits should be somewhere in the area of say, 25% for example (which would be reasonable), then you should have stated that.

The discussion is a valid one .... There's no logic whatsoever in listing cards (or anything for that matter) on eBay with a 500% mark-up. I know there's always a fool to occasionally pull the trigger ... but those are few and far between.

You took my statement out of context, or I didn't explain it well. I said: "If I price all of my cards at a price that will earn me five cents profit - guess what? They won't sell for the asking price (or they rarely will)." My point being that EVEN if I only ask for a nickel profit, they still will rarely sell for the asking price.

Ebay has evolved to a point that some (if not most) buyers assume a mark-up above market value, that might not even exist. From my example, maybe it is only 5 cents, but the buyer is assuming it is much higher. Most simply aren't educated about values - this forum is certainly an exception.

Edited to add: I really don't want to get into my own selling strategy much, but I think that it is imperative for sellers to have a very good understanding of current market values for the items they are selling. If you don't know what your items are worth, and you only have a small number listed, your mark-up has to be higher than a high-volume dealer who is a smart buyer and understands market values. But everyone has a different business model. I remember being outbid a few years ago on a beautiful T205 set. I went as high as I possibly could, given my pricing strategy and overhead. But I later saw the set broken out on ebay by a huge dealer who had thousands of items listed. These cards were marked up much higher than I would have felt comfortable with, but the seller is a bright guy, so it must be working for him. Basically, if you have enough inventory and enough capital, you can do anything you want, but that's true of anything.