auction v BIN on ebay

[Mark]

What is the ratio between completed BIN's above $200 and auctions above $200?

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Mark

What is the ratio between completed BIN's above $200 and auctions above $200?

Great Question! It's not letting me sort completed items by auction type - anyone know how?

[Peter_Spaeth]

An even more interesting question would be what percentage of BINs have been up there for over a year.

[Mark]

Peter
Yes, but those eternally present BIN's serve at least one purpose: they let me know the price at which many of my cards will not sell. By telling me what the cards are not worth, they are something like a poor man's VCP.

[Peter_Spaeth]

40 auctions, 4408 BIN

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Mark

Peter
Yes, but those eternally present BIN's serve at least one purpose: they let me know the price at which many of my cards will not sell. By telling me what the cards are not worth, they are something like a poor man's VCP.

LOL this is so true. When you see a card on BIN which you already own, you pretty much know what price the card will NOT sell for.

[dennis]

after 6 months i would think these "sellers" would lower their price on the BIN. (or at least offer a make an offer.) i have been outbid many times only to see that the buyer has put up the same card that they just purchased and more than doubled the price as a BIN. these cards never sell,at least if these sellers got the cards graded maybe they would have a chance to sell at double what they bought them for. oh i forgot if they get them graded they quadrouple the price! don't these sellers realize that people who might buy these cards know what they should sell for? these sellers should be embarressed.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Perhaps they think the recovery is right around the corner.

[Exhibitman]

Ebay has made it nearly 10x more expensive to auction cards rather than offering them at fixed prices. Ebay charges $0.35 to list a $200 item for BIN and $3.00 to list an auction with a $199.99 minimum bid. If you want to do a $0.99 minimum and a reserve of $199.99, you pay $2.15. So do I post my ten weekly items as BINs with best offer levels allowing for someone to make an offer ($3.50 total cost to me) or do I put them up in auctions costing me $21.50-$30.00? in a weak market, where every cent counts, the up-front costs alone are a consideration for a casual seller.

The market on Ebay also sucks right now on most categories of cards. Lowball bidders are doing quite well. I'm throwing down very low bids on a lot of cards and winning a surprising number of them lately. Do I, as a rational seller, want to sell into that meat grinder with no price floor? Since I don't do this for a living, I'd rather keep the cards than throw them away at a loss or at little profit, which is what a straight auction often means lately.

No, sellers are responding to external and Ebay-based stimuli about as they would be expected to under the circumstances. Unless Ebay takes steps to reverse the financial incentives, the skewing towards BINs will go on.

[mfs-1]

I've always posted my stuff with a $.99 starting bid. I would be a little concerened about doing that with my much higher valued cards, but then I would stretch it to a 10 day auction.
I mean, if you really want to sell it, there's really no other way to go about it.
Sometimes I see BINs go, but why take the chance of the card not selling?
...unless you have the time. It still costs ebay fees if you dont sell it, and your time.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Mark

What is the ratio between completed BIN's above $200 and auctions above $200?

Anyone able to research Mark's question? Just a cursory glance looks like more $200 sales have been made through BIN then via auction.

[makersmarkambassador]

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but when you search, I believe it pulls from stores also. That may be why there are so many BINs. Just a theory...I may be mistaken though.

I know when I do a search, I always get sellers stores in the search. It's sure is annoying, because I rarely buy from stores anymore due to them being over priced.

[JK]

I realize that BINs have been historically high, but I wonder what effect the Microsoft Cashback program has had on BIN prices. My sense is that as more and more sellers realized that buyers were getting cashback discounts, they began raising their prices even though the cashback wasn't coming out of their pockets - the thinking being that they could list it for more and still make a sale since the buyers would ultimately net out around market price after receiving their cashback.

I also wonder whether ebay has had the desired results after shifting to a more store oriented business. It seems to me that the more overpriced BINs you have, the more you have buyers contacting sellers and trying to make "off line" deals for which ebay ultimately gets no cut.

[hanksta]

One thing about BIN vs. auctions is the final value fee, with an auction the fee is 8.75% and a BIN (fixed price) is 12%.

Either way eBay seems to get their money, the lower fee to list a BIN but a higher cost when it sells.

[Leon]

It seems to me that the more overpriced BINs you have, the more you have buyers contacting sellers and trying to make "off line" deals for which ebay ultimately gets no cut.

My guess is that this situation is happening far more than ebay realizes.

[Matt]

I think eBay has some message filtering in place that is preventing people from receiving such communications. They may have a filter out there for messages including terms such as "fees" and "email" that cause those messages to never get delivered.

[HRBAKER]

Originally Posted by Matt

Anyone able to research Mark's question? Just a cursory glance looks like more $200 sales have been made through BIN then via auction.

I am not sure this is a valid question. God only knows how long most of those $200+ BIN sales were listed bf they finally sold. I routinely hit the "Auctions Only" tab as I have wearied of looking through the overpriced listings. I am ok with missing the occasional good deal not to waste my time.