I’ve been trying to sell some stuff on eBay and always seem to price things too high, I guess. At least, I rarely get a bid on my sale items. Is there some technique for figuring out how much something is commonly selling for on eBay?
There are actually two ways that you can use eBay to figure out the going price for something: the average “Buy It Now” price on auctions still running (people who use those are usually pretty confident that they’ve pegged either the going market price or just a wee bit lower than the going rate) or looking at just completed auctions.
Let’s check out the Edirol R-1, a nice little Mp3 recorder that I’m interested in selling on eBay myself. A quick search for Edirol R-1 reveals that there are just a couple for sale:
As you can see the first one is current bid up to $304 and the second has a Buy It Now of $349.99, so it’s a reasonably safe first guess that about $350 is the going price for this item.
On the left side, however, there are additional search options that are well worth checking out:
As you can see, I’ve checked “Completed listings”. That’s all there is to digging up auctions that have already finished up on eBay. Just click “Show Items” to do the completed items search, and we find:
This is darn useful: the average completed item sale price was about $250, though the price varied dramatically with a low of $254 and a high of $438 (which included a spare 1GB card). That last one is worth examining closely because in fact a 1GB Compact Flash card at Amazon.com is only $29.95, so if adding a $29.95 item can result in the auction closing for over $100 more than the typical value of the device, I’d say it’s a smart step to add it!
At this point, I like to actually review the items that had the highest sale prices, to see what categories they used, note the key words in the title, and even examine the picture. Whatever they’ve done, that’s what you should do too to maximize your sale value!
Finally, to come around to your original question, you can see that if the average item closes for a certain price, you want to have your opening bid for your own item below that point. In this case, if the opening bid were $350, say, we’d be pretty unlikely to get any bids and the auction would likely close without a winner.
You might also consider starting your auction quite a bit lower than what you believe is the going price, trusting that the auction process itself will bid the price up to the going rate in the marketplace. Indeed, when you’re looking at a completed auction, you can see the bidding history by clicking on “XX bids” in the top section, like the “28 bids” in this auction:
Here’s just a small subset of the entire bid history:
Notice the opening bid? $1.00. And this auction ended at $307.00.
Kinda makes me think of Dirty Harry: “D’ya feel lucky, seller? Do ya?”
This interesting article was original written by Chuck Eglinton, contributing editor to AskDaveTaylor. Thanks for your help, Chuck!
I have a old oil can and I NEED to know how much it’s worth..
I have a New York Daily News News Paper from June 6, 1944 any idea what i can list it for?
I have a Texaco Silver Keychain fob with the star of screw drivers attached. Any idea of what I am talking about and does it have any monetary value??
YES, I TOOK YOUR ADVICE & WENT TO THE http://WWW.PRICICLE WEB SITE, BECAUSE YOU HAD SAID, THAT WAS 1 WAY TO GO ABOUT FINDING OUT WHAT SOMETHING WAS WORTH. I WENT TO THAT SITE, & I HAVE NO CLUE, HOW YOU CAME ABOUT THAT BEING A GOOD SITE TO GO TO. WHEN I WENT THERE IT KEPT SHOWING UP PRETTY MUCH ONLY 1 AREA TO CLICK ON. THEN WHEN I WOULD TYPE SOMETHING INTO THE “SEARCH AREA”, IT TOOK THE DUMBEST PART OF MY KEYWORDS, & WOULD TAKE ME OFF TO AREAS THAT WERE NO WHERE NEAR WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR. IT WAS SOMEHAT OF A INFORMATIONAL SITE, BUT NOTTTTT ABOUT WHAT A ITEM WAS WORTH. LOL, I TRIED SEVERAL DIFFERENT THINGS IN SEARCH BOX, & SAME THING. TOOK ME WAYYYYY OFF OF ANYTHING I WAS TRYING TO GET INFORMATION ON. JUST FOR 1 OF MANY EXAMPLES I TRIED TO FIND VALUE OF= BOXES OF “DIAMOND POCKET SIZE STIKE-ANYWHERE DOMINO MATCHES”. THEY ARE JUST THE TYPE OF MATCHES, THAT PEOPLE HAD TO USE, PRETTY MUCH BEFORE A LOT OF PEOPLE STARTED TO USE LIGHTERS. SO PLEASEEEE LET ME KNOW OF A REALLL SITE, TO WHERE I CAN JUSTTTT TYPE IN ITEMS I HAVE, & GET AT LEAST ESTIMATES OF THEIR VALUE. THANK-YOU VERY MUCH.
I have a signed copy of the book written by Robert hughes as you may know he died recently. What is it worth. In reasonable condition. Thanks
have 6 pokemon gold balls from burger king in origional packaging want know what they would be worth on ebay.
I have a 1978 Indian Moped (4 Stroke) I would like to know its value. Can you please help. Just a rough estimate of what the top dollar it would run for. Its in great condition, runs great, is battery and gas powered and also has the pedal option too. I have it for a long time and decided to dig it out of the garage and start askin a few questions about whats its vaule is…thanks for whatever help you can offer me!
Jessica Jones
Hi
I have a sinclair soverign calculator dating back to around 1976 silver colour.
whats it worth
Rhonda, what I did was go to eBay and search for “Nashville Predators Jersey signed”, just to find six listings that match, each with a buy-it-now price of about $175. That doesn’t mean that’s what it’s worth, however, so what you should do from there is check the “closed auctions” and see what these *sold for* rather than just were listed. You could also check with a sports memorabilia store too, if you have any in your area. Try the phone book or (of course) Google. Good luck!
I have a original Nashville Predators Jersey (1998) with all the team signatures on it and have no clue what it is worth. Can you help?
Thanks
There is a site out there called http://www.ValueJockey.com. You can post something up and other members will tell you what it is worth. You may also get some good selling tips.
I have silver dollars and ben franklin half dollars. How can I find out what they are worth before I sell them ?
There is another way, you can go to a site like http://www.pricicle.com and just type in what it is you are thinking of selling. They store all of the sold prices from recent months on all kinds of eBay items then present you with the top price and average price of that item.
It’s free too.
I was wondering if you have any idea what several
children’s illustrated encyclopedias would be worth. They were published in 1960. My mom bought them each week when they were offered through a grocery store.
I’m afraid I have no idea about that, Shaine. I’d just try digging around with Google to see if you can find any mention of these misprinted ornaments and hopefully you can get a sense of their worth. Good luck!
I have a set of Starbucks To Go Cup Ornaments from Starbucks. One of the cups has the logo printed backwords, any idea what I should list it for on ebay?