Question for EBay sellers! Does this ever work???

[36GoudeyMan]

I don't post that much, but when I do, its usually about this topic. Card sellers are typically not true businessmen. They do not follow the rules of the road for retailers of goods or services. They do not need to turn inventory; they are not driven by market forces; this is not their sole source of income (usually).

We all have stories of seeing the same cards on eBay at BINs or opening bids that never ever EVER move. Suggest to ne of them that a another PSA 5 of X card sold for $250, and that their BIN price of $450 seemed high, and you get blowback of how much better their PSA 5 is than the one that sold, etc., etc. I can point to a series of sale of a key 1941 card, yet there it is in a BIN at hundreds of dollars (40%) higher than the last VCP reported sale. I offered essentially 10% more than the lat couple of sales, and was rebuffed.

Sellers who hold out for ridiculous prices are log-jamming the free flow of inventory in the marketplace, and skewing analyses of market prices.

Individual or small sellers are not immune. I needed a key common from a 1941 set, which Memory Lane had in PSA 7, at a ridiculous price. I made offers and figured out that their discount on BINs was bout 15%. Even at 15%, it was 20% higher than VCP reported sales range, top end. I wind up with the same card, in a PSA 8 holder, at an auction(not eBay), and even with the premium and handling an shipping, it was 12 of what Memory Lane's "discount" would have cost me.

I get the idea of holding out for your price when you don't need to sell the card for a real business purpose, like paying off a business line of credit, or turning your inventory to keep your customers interested, but immovable pricing that persists fro years is just ridiculous.