Serious question about price evaluation
How do you determine the value of an item if you have absolutely nothing to compare it to? A unique item that is rare & highly collectible. I know sometimes it just comes down to the simply solution of, "It depends on what a person is willing to pay." We have no idea what that might be until we make it available online & someone throws out an offer. What if no one does? Let us say you list for $100 & a buyer snaps it up as quickly as possible. Is that the best you could do or are you so low, they could not pass it up? How do you decide you did well? Again, I know a simple solution is, "If you made a profit, it does not matter."
All of that does not help determine what the value is. I do not wish to sell an item for $100 if the actual value is $400. $200-250 would be fine. I am aware there is a 'wait & see' factor. Sometimes, we sellers are impatient & want the positive outcome ASAP. lol
I've been coming across items, that I had no idea I was sitting on. Only to discover they are valuable, but how valuable? It is a shame, most often, we have to wait for others to make a move before we can realize where we stand on prices.
One of my items I shared on FB page. It was not posted for sale. Just to see what other information I can receive. A lot of people have paid attention to it. No one asked if it was for sale. I can only assume that means there isn't a vast desire for it? I'm greedy & want to make some REAL money on rarities! 🤣
onefootflipper
·6 months agoEverything has something similar that has sold at some point.
Lets say I find a Disney board game with no sales history because it was low production and primarily sold in Europe. No sales history, no Terapeak history, nothing, nothing even on the internet about the English language version.
I can still see what the top end of the market is for Disney board games from that era and that will likely tell me where my price cap is. Your unknown item is unlikely to be worth multiples of what the most valuable similar item sold for.
simba6
·6 months agoThat is like picking a winning lotto number. This is a spot market. Prices vary as the crow flies. The exact same item can sell for a very different prices. Just start out high and see what happens. It often comes down to luck. Are the dice hot or not.
redmodelt
·6 months agoOld/new and rare does not make it valuable. Many items' people try to sell at a high price; no one wanted in the first place or have such a small market it would/will take forever to sell.
Or:
List it at the price you make money and would be happy with using the auction format instead of buy it now. Auctions are a good place to sell uncommon items.
bonanza125
·6 months agoIt's definitely a complicated situation especially if I or any other seller wants to sell the item right away. If Ebay has no comps then I try google. Now if there are zero comps at all I personally wait a month until a comp pops up. The only other options would be to auction the item off and just sell it for whatever the bid ends at or make up a price you feel comfortable with and then adjust your price monthly. If the item sells then you get what you were comfortable with and don't have to worry about it anymore.
msha3839
·6 months agoFortunately for me, many sellers take your approach to selling…about 10 years seller listed 300 years old Swedish military order at auction without minimum reserve..lucky for me no serious bidders at the same time…won for $120…at the time, with minor damage, it has a worth of $8K..today, about 30% more..🤷🥃
inhawaii
·6 months agoPrice it at what you would be happy to get for it.
I recently listed a limited edition Hawaii transit card.
I got it for free. I had no idea what it was worth. No prior sales.
I listed it for $150 because that's what I would be happy to get for it.
I sold about 2 weeks later.
msha3839
·6 months ago…and your buyer resold this card for $750…😜
inhawaii
·6 months agoWhateva!
Once I sell it I don't care what the buyer does with it.
Eat it.
Throw it away.
Give it away.
Sell if for $750.
lb23cavaliersmvp
·6 months agoEven if price history on the exact item isn't available you can get an idea of value based on similar items. The most important comparators are condition, design/designer and country of origin. For instance if you found a modern glass vase if you can determine that it was made in the US, Scandinavia, Italy vs. Japan or Poland it would make a tremendous difference. Similarly, companies and designers have unique styles which can serve as keys to determining the id and value. Bottom line for me would be, especially if you aren't sure, start higher and looks/offers will be the best guide. One time, early on in our selling history, we listed a teak toy which seemed to have a modern vibe but was unmarked. We listed it for an auction sale and immediately received a number of offers which we rejected and led us to cancel the sale. After a further search, using the criteria mentioned above, we re-listed it as a BIN for significantly more and it sold in ~ 2 weeks. We learned our lesson.
tsme35
·6 months agoBiggest nightmare I have selling one ebay, 1st trying to find a name of the item, hours of searching to find out it's only worth a couple bucks UGH. But if I know the name but not the value, I use to put up for auction but auctions are pretty much dead now.
I found out last year, another thing to help find out what an item is or maybe what it's worth is using google image. On my phone I go to google, click image in the corner and take a picture, not always but a lot of the time it comes up with the item.
msha3839
·6 months agoMost important, be patient…and forget about “ what someone willing to pay for it “ situation…I personally bought a few items on eBay for extremely low price and benefited greatly from seller’s luck of ability to do basic research about item…and my advantage in similar cases that many buyers pass on item that may hold value, due to false beliefs that if no other buyers interested in it, item is worth nothing…many buyers are lucking knowledge and too lazy to do basic homework..p.s. ..and if you have unique items that no one locally can’t identify, try to look for answers outside Canada..
bashort
·6 months agoOn items with no price history available I set the price high and use make a offer and see what the response is.
You can always lower the price later.
wisconsin88
·6 months agoI'm coming around to this way of thinking, set the BIN high and give it a good while, then drop the price once you see it truly appears too high.
I used to think the auction was the obvious answer to finding the true value of a rare thing that research doesn't find, but the problem is the right people have to search for/stumble on it during that short fixed time window that the auction is open. For certain high demand collectibles where lots of people search those keywords daily, auction might still be the best though.
adamcartwright
·6 months ago@bashort
I do the same thing, even on items with a price history where I feel the seller didn't value it high enough.
wastingtime101
·6 months agoStart with eBay's Product Research tool and set the time period to 3 years. Adjust search terms as needed to possibly look at similar products if you can't find the exact product.
Follow up with a general internet search for the product, and if not found, search for similar products.