Quote:
Originally Posted by drcy
When I used eBay way back when, I'd have my bookmarked sellers. I collected unusual and rare items (photos, autographs, memorabilia), and I bookmarked them because I knew they were experts (authenticity), would have interesting stuff and were reliable. Others used them similarly and I'm sure the sellers got healthy prices.
However, that's different than selling a readily available 1990 Leaf Frank Thomas for 2x the price.
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I think what you are describing illustrates Snowman's theory, but also why it beggars belief for it to be accurate in describing a few dealers astonishingly higher returns on same cards.
Most people who find their way to 'major' ebay sellers do so by happenstance.
They spend ever increasing time on ebay looking at one item which leads to another, and as they build their buy knowledge and indeed add items to their collection, they are exposed more and more to better material and scarcer more desirable and price rich pieces.
The very act of going through this 'learning' process on ebay sets very quickly eBay's greatest strength for any prospective buyer: the ability to find items you want first, but even more importantly with so many contributing sellers you will find quite a number of the same item, and can compare condition and price etc before choosing your buy.
It's this very nature of comparative shopping that makes it hard to believe one eBay Seller could so massively get higher prices than the thousands of competing sellers.
Its audience has already learned how to search on eBay, how that often takes time to find the thing you want, how you can assign a price in your mind you're willing to pay and where that will meet up with how often the item shows and how much you need it...it's all part of the game on eBay.
That card collectors, who know there are other copies at same grade showing up regularly on eBay through different sellers, at prices sometimes 30-40% less, would just blythely say sure, "I'm happy to pay overs, even though I know I might someday want/or have to sell it again, and may not get my money back or make less on it that I otherwise can".....to be what? Brand or seller loyal? Where there's no incentive to be?
I just don't believe it.
More eyes giving greater opportunity to MAXIMIZE prices sure, but this collector space is sooooooo filled with assured professional sellers dispensing so much of this stuff, you'd have to be a nuffy to only buy at a mark up.
Nuffies here and there affecting some prices, sure, I could believe it.
But it's the very steady nature of PWCC and Probstein prices achieved over others that doesn't gel with the nature of the card market.