Buy It Now, Regret It Later?

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Posted By: bruce dorskind

Over the past year, we have carefully studied E Bay's "Buy It Now Offering
for high grade pre war cards,

As best as we can tell, the average "buy it now price is 1.8 times greater
than the average of the most recent prices on Vintage Card Prices.com

Furthermore of the 300+ cards we tracked (average buy it now price
of $875) less than 10% appear to have sold. It is uncertain whether those
cards were sold at the seller's original asking price.

In 35 cases we found that the card landed up in a Memory Lane or Mile
High or Heritage Auction within 90 days of being pulled from the
Buy It Now.

Our own personal experiences have been mixed. In the last year we made
12 counter-offerings on T and E cards listed under Buy It Now.
Our average offering price was about 65% of the original asking price.

We were successful in 8 of the 12 circumstances.

The other four cards landed up in auction. We won two, at a price
less than our counter-offer on Buy It Now


What has been your experience with "Buy It Now?"


Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

Did you guys find that of the 35 cards consigned to Memory Lane that the final selling price was higher or lower than the BIN price on ebay? Whilst I could see someone getting a good (but not great) deal on a BIN anymore, wondering if they reaped any more from Memory Lane. Did your staff notice any others BIN'ed and sent to OTHER auction houses as well?

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Posted By: barrysloate

I've never used BIN but it appears to me those are just "fishing" prices, and are never a good deal unless the seller doesn't know what he has. Bruce's research is excellent, and it demonstrates that sellers take the approach "if I can't get a crazy price now, I'll just consign it to an auction house later." Nothing wrong with it, I guess.

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Posted By: leon

I feel approximately 99.99% of BIN's are too high of a price. For every thousand or more I see I buy 1. Most of them are stupidly high.....by the same people over and over. There's no law against it so no big deal....I have picked up a few caramel cards, commons, for good prices that way.....I probably buy 400 items a year on ebay and about 3-4 of those will be buy it nows....

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Posted By: Matt

"The other four cards landed up in auction. We won two, at a price less than our counter-offer on Buy It Now"

If you're including the juice, that means that the sellers lost 20+% by not accepting the "Best Offer."

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Posted By: Craig W

I find what the Bruces say is true even for lower (PSA 3) grade vintage cards. I've made several counter offers at 70-80% of the BIN price and seldom even get a reply from the seller.

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Posted By: Dan Koteles

looking for a needle in a haystack. you have to go through NEARLY every dealers cards to find 1 or 2 good deals. WHen you can "cherry pick" these like buy it nows ,I guess you done your leg work, and...................

YOU GET YOUR CARD/S

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Posted By: cmoking

Think of it this way - if the prices were good deals, then someone would have snapped them up already, and we wouldn't see the same card over and over at high prices on BIN. That's why there seems to be so few at fair levels - the ones that are are bought up quickly, the ones that are high prices stay around for a much longer time. So ebay searchers see the high prices over and over, but may not even see the good deals at all.

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Posted By: Steve

I have used BIN as a seller and sold at a fair price.

I have never used it as a way to fish.


Steve

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Posted By: Matt

"Think of it this way - if the prices were good deals, then someone would have snapped them up already, and we wouldn't see the same card over and over at high prices on BIN."

I would modify that because there (in theory) is a middle category of things priced at or 5% above market value that should exist. Deals get snapped up right away, but there should be cards priced at or slightly above market value that would be available until someone who needed that card comes along. For the most part the BIN prices are WAY overpriced.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Yeah, what Matt said. When I put things up on BIN it's at 5-10% more than the average last 5 sales prices on VCP. Who has the patience to put up the same card on BIN, 200% more than it's worth, over and over and over? I just saw an Obak that I sold a year ago for $175 on ebay now listed at $675 on BIN. Shockingly, it didn't get snapped up.

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Posted By: Jeff

While this is almost certainly true, what I've also seen is dealers putting out the same over-riced BIN inventory on every eBay cheap listing date, over, and over, and over, until I have certain dealer's inventories memorized (Wayne Varner's $500 Diamond Star #94 Ferrell, for instance)... there's a ton of cards on BINs and in eBay stores on BINs, but they are routinely so vastly overpriced, I feel like a moron offering anything close to VCP (which is often half or so of the BIN Price).. I feel like if the dealer is seeking such a huge premium over VCP, then there is really no point in talking to him.....

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Posted By: Jason L

I have used them to sell items quickly for needed cash.

When you put a card up for a fair price or maybe even a slight deal compared to actual recent market, you would be surprised at how fast it will sell, particularly when you have some of those super-high, always-listed examples of the same card out there...I sold a Stan Musial within 15 minutes of listing, if I recall correctly.

I buy using BINs if I see something that I don't see often, if I am impatient, or if it's a fair price...I'm not always the best shopper...but I am also buying cards at far lower price levels than the Bruces originally asked about...so take it with a grain of salt.

In other words, I will hit a BIN for a 1989 Fleer Kirby Puckett PSA 9 if I don't have it, and I've had a bad day, even if the price is $12!

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Posted By: shane leonard

Our experiences with Buy it Now is that we are happy. We have bought some pretty nice items over the past couple of years and we are extremely pleased.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

should it be Shane Leonards?

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Posted By: Bob

Bruce, I think your post is valid but a caveat would be that there are 3-4 sellers who continually flood eBay with the same overpriced BIN cards, so the results might be a little skewed.
I agree with a couple of the posters who said when they sell with a BIN it is not a fishing expedition but a good price. When I can make a little money on a card (to plow back in to buying other cards) and yet give the buyer a real deal, I don't hesitate. These cards go quickly...
I used to have some success in making an offer on a card which is about 75-80% of the asking price, but lately a lot of sellers seem stubbornly determined to get 100% and never sell their card. Economy? You think it would have the opposite result.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

There's a difference between a BIN price offered and a BIN price bought.

If I put a cornflake on eBay with a BIN price of $1 million, the $1 million price doesn't have any serious relation to the value of cornflakes or what someone would be willing to pay. Needless to say, the auction will end without a buyer.

This is why price guides use 'prices realized.'

I certainly hope no one uses my $1 million BIN in determining the going rate of cornflakes.

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Posted By: Jason L

If said cornflake was in fact made of Gold, with an inlay of diamonds, and came with indisputable provenance and DNA evidence as having been mistakenly eaten and then regurigated by Elvis (during his younger, leaner years), well...then perhaps that BIN will be hit indeed! Faster than a normal listing, I'm sure, if it was further proven to be present on Roger Clemen's private jet, or perhaps offered up as payment by Client 9 for services rendered!

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Posted By: davidcycleback

A good rule of thumb for calculating prices or similar data is to start by throwing away the high and low numbers. More often than not these two numbers are freaks and/or errors. At the least, they are aberrant, which is why they sit at the extremes.

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Posted By: Matt

David - that's an excellent rule for many cards; however, many of the pre-war cards are scarce enough that throwing out two values may leave you with little to no recent sales data.

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Posted By: Marc S.

but if the card is that "rare", who is to say what a fair price is for use in a store inventory. For example, if there were a slew of E104-IIIs sitting in someone's Ebay store -- what price level would be fair? What would be 2x too much, thus relegating it to never transact? I think when you start dealing with extreme rarity -- market data points are often either dated or irrelevant. When something is singular or nearly so in example, the fact that it is even being offered for sale is unusual.

M

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Posted By: davidcycleback

That is correct, Matt. But that's the fault of the insufficient data, not the rule

By definition a 'rule of thumb' is a probability, 'works more often than not' thing. Exceptions to the rule are expected which is why it's called a rule of thumb.

"Every rule has an exception, and if you find an exception to this rule you've proven it right."

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Posted By: Joe D.

life is too short.
buy everything you like and don't look back.


I have only regretted my sales.
If you regret your purchases... then you are buying the wrong stuff.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Well put Joe. I like that.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

I understand, Bruce. But I kinda agree with Joe D.

I've done "BIN" a few times. It seems that it is always for something I'm passionate about; not something that is based on it being a good buy for the money. My Dad used to tell me that whenever I bought something at auction I knew that I was willing to pay more for whatever it was that day than everyone else at the auction. I understand what he was thinking, and what he wanted me to realize.

My point, I think some of the collecting that occurs is for pure or near-pure collecting, not because it is being bought for less than a catalog or website says it should be worth.

Not only in BINs but also in regular eBay auctions, I've paid way more for something than I thought it was worth out there in the open market. I think that many collectors do that. Our collecting passion drives us to that. Truthfully, most of the stuff is realistically worthless, it would make fair kindling. Maybe what the catalogs gauge is the relative collective passion out there among folks interested in the item.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

A lot of dealers post new inventory with BINs and sometimes there is decent stuff at reasonable prices.

I do caution people about taking price guides, even my own, as rote, and passing on cards because they are over book, or web site if you like. If you collect cards that are readily located, you can wait for a price you like secure in the knowledge that the market will likely deliver eventually. If you collect rarities, however, you have to make a decision with the knowledge that you might not see the card again if you don't pull the trigger on the BIN, even if it is more than you'd like to spend. On cards like those a wise man (well, Leon; hi Leon) once told me not to sweat spending a little extra since the card may not be coming around again, and I think that is good advice generally in these situations.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc