VCP or SMR?

[Bicem]

He said "We record everything that is set on a time schedule..." so BIN items that do not have a scheduled end date but are sold are NOT recorded, like the example below. That's how I interpreted what Bobby said. (and yes, it was kinda cryptic)

http://cgi.ebay.com/1931-New-York-Gi...item5886233210

[terjung]

Originally Posted by Bicem

He said "We record everything that is set on a time schedule..." so BIN items that do not have a scheduled end date but are sold are NOT recorded, like the example below. That's how I interpreted what Bobby said. (and yes, it was kinda cryptic)

http://cgi.ebay.com/1931-New-York-Gi...item5886233210

So, all those types of sales are not included then? I'd imagine that would be quite a large quantity of sales that are not represented.

Bobby, I am a believer in your service, a subscriber, and an active user. Can you comment on whether these type of BIN sales are going to be included in your service and when? Thank you in advance for your response.

[Matt]

And to answer a question two of you sent via PM, VCP also includes all fixed price & auction style sales from GrandSlamBids.com as well.

[martyp]

I took Bobby to mean that if an auction, (1, 3, 5, 7 or 10 day) includes a BIN and someone does the BIN and thus closes the auction early, this information is included in VCP. EBay store listings are not included, (they can continue to relist so there is no end date). This is my take, but I also admit that I do not know what the chinese style format is.

VCP has also stopped reporting some of the auction houses information. If they do not take corrective action, it will be reduced to an eBay 7-10 auction reporting.

Actually a normal eBay auction is not a normal auction. There is not an opportunity for someone who is out bid at the close to raise their bid. With the sniping, it is more like a sealed bid auction. One of the points to consider is that not all eBay user know that sniping services even exist.

[philliesphan]

with the way Ebay has changed over the last twelve months, if non-auction style BINs are not recorded in VCP, then there is a significant number of sales that are occurring but not reflected in VCPs database.

This is all the more potentially troubling, given that fixed-price [non-auction] BINs typically reflect higher sales prices than many counterparts in the auction format.

[BobbyVCP]

You have to excuse my untimely responses currently I am in Seoul Korea so there is a bit of a time difference.

Chinese style is any auction that is set with a time format so our system knows when the ending time is to finalize the transactions. You see this for many fixed price auctions, Best offers and Buy it now as well as for the standard type auction. When there is no end time associated with the item we have no way of knowing whether that card sold or not using the API system set up by eBay. The only way to find out if a card has sold or not with no time limit is by having a person physically view the pages and that is not very doable.

[4815162342]

Even if eBay doesn't support it in their API, you might could write some code to parse the Completed items pages.

[BobbyVCP]

If we did that then we would be in violation of our agreement with eBay and can lose our licenses.

[Shouldabeena10]

Is VCP still only using the past 12 months of prices to calculate their average VCP value? I know they changed over to doing it that way a couple of years ago and I always thought that was kind of a mistake.

It seemed to unjustly lower the averages on many of the very lightly traded cards (cards that sell only once a year or so).

It also really lowered the average value of the common PSA 8 and 9 type cards from the 1970's and 80's when eBay sellers started listing them for .99¢ and charging $5 or $6 for shipping ... to recoup the normal $3 to $5 they were getting before on those same cards. Although now with the trend of free shipping, I'd imagine that may be leveling out again.

I guess I just wonder if VCP's method of only using the past 12 months prices to come up with their average, during what has arguably been a year or two of dropping prices for many card issues, has in any way lead to a more drastic decrease in prices? And will it artificially slow any rebound of the market (by about a year) whenever they do start moving up in price again?

Just a thought.

Mike

[3-2-count]

Actually Bobby is the only one that can answer the question at hand here. He's chimed in briefly a couple times, but in my opinion has not answered the question clearly. In fact a couple of his responses have me reading his post more than once because I'm left scratching my head. Bobby, pop in spend a few minutes, (at least) and give us a detailed "clear breakdown" of how fixed auctions with a BIN are in fact recorded on VCP. Many of your customers are clearly needing clarification here. Thank you......