Psychology of the Buyer's Premium

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Posted By: boxingcardman

Reality, as others have stated, is that there are enough venues for sellers of really great stuff to allow them to demand 0% or even negative commissions (FWIW, I happen to think a total hit of about 20% is a fair figure for avoiding the hassle of listing, collecting, accounting, posting, etc. via Ebay). However, there are also enough sellers who won't have the leverage to get a cut of the BP. Raising the BP thus creates a pool of additional money from the people w/o the leverage to demand a cut; I suppose the auctioneer is thinking that the extra money from the BP will cover the commission and BP concessions needed for major items.

I think we are reaching a tipping point on BP, however, at least for "standard" cards. If the sum of BP and commission reaches a level that reduces the net to the seller to around the wholesale (dealer) price, it would make more sense for a seller to simply lay down his cards at a show and take cash from a dealer for them, rather than going to the trouble and delay of selling through an auctioneer.

Another "problem" is the phenomenon you see with car sales: customers wait for a sale. When the auctioneers started touting 0% commissions and the like, they started conditioning consignors not to consign at the rack rate.

Personally, since I can add, I don't care what the BP is as a buyer; I just deduct it from my bid. However, it seems to me that the auctioneers could greatly simplify their accounting by switching back to a commission-based structure.

I wonder if anyone has studied the various bidding structures empirically to see what works best for the auctioneer?

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