8mm Forum: Ebay is funny ...

This is topic Ebay is funny ... in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on October 04, 2008, 05:27 PM:

You can really never tell with ebay ...

21 people watching "Starchaser: Legend of Orin" and no one bids.

Usually that's due to people assuming you'll get desperate and lower the price, (which if it's my item, and this is, I don't lower the price), which I don't do as a general rule.

It is frustrating, and then the things you couldn't give a darn about, sell for a rediculous amount.

It's been talked about on the forum before, but I'm always fascinated by how much stuff sells for. For instance ...

This 35MM print I have listed (once again) is at 99.95. It doesn't sell. If this was a Super 8 print of this very same title, it would probably sell quickly and make a good deal more than 100.00, though it would be in a obviously inferior format.

Funny, huh?

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on October 04, 2008, 10:35 PM:

I can understand that happening, though. No doubt: 35MM is a photograghically superior format, but Super-8 being what it's designed for means a lot more people out there are going to be able to show prints, so the demand will be greater.

Posted by Stewart McSporran (Member # 128) on October 05, 2008, 06:15 AM:

I'm prepared to bet that most of those watchers were from this forum. I was certainly following it just out of curiosity.

There are quite a few auctions that I watch just to see if someone is mad enough to pay the insane prices asked. Or, it might be a film I have and I'm curious to see what it sells for.

Posted by Larry Arpin (Member # 744) on October 05, 2008, 12:00 PM:

Osi-Post this on:

http://www.35mmforum.com/forums/

Just click 'register' in the upper left corner. I'm sure there will be a lot of interest.

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on October 06, 2008, 12:27 AM:

My dear Osi....

(based on your title)...this is not funny at all. This is to show how the auction works.

If you put the price high, people are only watching to see what will be going on.

If you put the description without a marketing strategy, .i.e wording, details and PHOTOs than some potential buyers may have seen it but decided not to bid.

So the basic principle of auction is to get the highest possible price. If you start it from $1, there some people may try to get their luck ... and "some" can be 100 people around this ebay world.

And if that happened then these 100 ebayers may start a bidding war to result the highest (= best) price for you.

cheers,

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on October 06, 2008, 10:19 AM:

I hear you Winbert,

However, I have found that if I have something that is worth a good deal, and I have started it at a dollar, (or some other extremely low starting bid), it tends to only go up a few dollars and nothing more.

So, I start out with at least a very reasonable bid for the film. (100.00 dollars for a 35MM feature is quite reasonable) I then do as good of a description as I can, which I did, also catching up on ebay's goofs, (as in this time, upon re-listing, it put up the shipping calculator instead of the 45.00 dollar shipping which it was supposed to have, incredibly frustrating!).

But, as I said on the auction this time, at the bottom ...

" I don't do Flea Markets "

In other words, if there are people just waiting for me to lower the price on something that already low, then they'd best look elsewhere, as I'm not into losing money on anything. Now, if I'm selling something for someone else, and they okay dropping the price somewhat, that's a different story.

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