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I feel like Charlie Brown on eBay


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A few days ago an Otaki C-5 sold for about $275 US. So I put mine up (knowing I'd never build it). It went for $106. Seems like every time I sell something, I manage to hit the bottom of the desire curve. I see all kinds of fantastic prices for stuff, then when I go to sell the same thing, nada. Minimum bids.

Is my timing just bad??

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I think in some cases it doesnt actually "sell". I think some owners have friends drive up the price and if they are not outbid by a sucker, they just swallow the fee. I went through the same thing recently.

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I think in some cases it doesnt actually "sell". I think some owners have friends drive up the price and if they are not outbid by a sucker, they just swallow the fee. I went through the same thing recently.

Yep, I've seen it happen all too often lately. Barely get any bids on what I'm selling, yet other, crappier stuff goes for hundreds...

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Happens to me when I bid. I miss the auction end of a kit I'm bidding on. Ends up selling for $15 and the last bid was 3 days before. I find another a little while later and make sure I don't miss the end of bidding. Clock times out, 3 people snipe at the end and it goes for $40 more than my top bid.

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I sold my Alps printer on ebay several years ago. The first time it went up for auction, it went up to a very good price, all the bids were by users with high feedback scores. At the last minute a "0" feedback noob won the auction and then proceeded to blow me off on the payment. By the time I got that sorted out and made second chance offers to the other (legitimate) bidders they had already purchased other units. Put it up for auction the second time and made about half of what I would have made if the loser from the first time wouldn't have bid. I had some choice words for that guy!

You're right though, all about timing and mine's usually bad!

Edited by The Mikester
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A few days ago an Otaki C-5 sold for about $275 US. So I put mine up (knowing I'd never build it). It went for $106. Seems like every time I sell something, I manage to hit the bottom of the desire curve. I see all kinds of fantastic prices for stuff, then when I go to sell the same thing, nada. Minimum bids.

Is my timing just bad??

One piece of advice I got from god knows where;

Try to have your auction end on the weekend---more folks looking at your stuff--theoretically

I guess

Cheers, Tony

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You know I have been doin' eBay for over a decade. And although complete auctions is a "general" way of finding values it always changs from week to week. I've had stuff that didn't get bid one week and months later relisted and they'd fight over it.

I got a chance once to buy some old stock from a LHS. I checked one kit and they were selling for around $50 +/-. So I went ahead and bought all 300 they had. They never hit that price again and I seldom got half the going price.

I had one Otaki C-5 and I believe it fetched $95

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One piece of advice I got from god knows where;

Try to have your auction end on the weekend---more folks looking at your stuff--theoretically

I guess

Cheers, Tony

I found that ending on a Monday worked better for me, theoretically being that people use their work computers to surf ebay, and if it ends on a Saturday/Sunday, they may not get the chance to bid at the last minute.

It worked for me, your mileage may differ. And yes, the Charlie Brown theory just may be spot on! Ebay is sometimes just all aboot the luck.

Alvis 3.1

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I've always had good luck with auctions ending on Sunday night.

The only other thing I can suggest is to make sure your listing is very thorough, with lots of pictures and a ridiculously full description. It puts buyers at ease, encourages bidding, and it offers some protection from jokers who may try to extort a refund from you with false/unreasonable claims. Also, it might help to look for similar items prior to posting an auction. Try to pick a time when your item will be one of the only ones available, if possible, to avoid direct competition with other listings.

And yes, some of those other auctions probably had shill bidders driving up the price. It's unfortunate, but it happens.

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