Do Ebay stores make money selling overpriced cards?

[JP]

Oh, he knows exactly what he has. I wrote him and told him that that Demmitt is not rare, and maybe worth $30-40. And he said he knew that, that he just put that price to attract sales. And I asked him what he would do if someone bought it mistakenly thinking it was the RARE St. Louis one. He replied that he would go through with the sale, because if someone is dumb enough to make a mistake like that, it is their fault....classy guy!

[calvindog]

Thought this was funny as I was thumbing through some of the new items listed in the pre-1930s section and noticed a few Cobb cards being sold by yepbg for 5-7x more than they've sold for in the past year:

He had 2435 items end in the last 15 days, and sold a total of 12 of them. Lucky for us, the unsold ones are back on ebay....

[JP]

You think even 6 of those 12 were real transactions? I wonder about these sellers with hundreds of items for sale at ridiculous prices. If none of their items "sold", their lack of recent feedback would start to cause people to be wary of buying...

[Peter_Spaeth]

This is interesting. The seller referred to previously has a PSA 2 Home Run Derby Ernie Banks with a BIN of 750.

http://cgi.ebay.com/1959-Home-Run-De...item483a4d6959

Another seller has a PSA 4 of the same card with an opening bid of 250 and a BIN of 325.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Ernie-Banks-1959...item414ee05b63

[JP]

I wonder which one "sells" first. You can also find 4,000 such examples looking at Levi's buy it nows. It must be worth the time to list them, though, as this fad has yet to die down.

[calvindog]

Peter, that's a tough call. I think I'd go with the PSA 2. After all, think of what a thrill it would be to buy one from him. There is some added value to that, don't you think?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Jeff, I am at a loss to understand the business model; I mean I could understand it if a seller genuinely was open to reasonable offers and just preferred to avoid ebay and possibly paypal fees; but that does not seem to be the case based on what has been reported.

[ScottFandango]

Originally Posted by JP

I wonder which one "sells" first. You can also find 4,000 such examples looking at Levi's buy it nows. It must be worth the time to list them, though, as this fad has yet to die down.

this FAD started when Microsoft CASH back and programs like BING Discounts were enacted...

i remember getting 30% off of any BIN, an this turned into some great deals..

then the sellers caught on (caught up) and RAISED the BINS to accomodate the discount the buyers were getting....

now that these promotions are down (or maybe 8%), the sellers havent reduced their prices, they have kept them at the 30% markup level....

and EBay low listing fee is PROMOTING this behavior....

used to cost more to list it high, NOT ANY MORE

[Edwolf1963]

This was a great question/blog - I've often wondered the same thing about these eBay "stores" and who would buy anything from them when they are easily 2x or more over reasonable fair market value. I hadn't seen yepbg's stuff until recently - the ones that always stood out to me (aside from the obvious in Levi/707) is Higbee's and the examples shown earlier from bighitsportscards2008 (as in you take the "big hit" if you buy anything from them)

What gets to me more about the eBay model is that whenever I do make an offer to someone in Stores, I'm usually countered with an "off eBay" response - yet eBay gives many these sellers their "Top Seller" certificate/stamp of approval!