Drastic differences in pricing same items

[rose11605]

How can some items on ebay sell for drastically different prices? Ex. An exactly same beanie baby sells for $5 vs $5000?

[soh.maryl]

Why not? Perhaps I value my Beanie Baby more than you value your identical one.

And is that the listed price or did the 5K one actually sell?  

If it actually did sell, perhaps you ought to be buying that five buck one and listing it for several thousand.  

[nobody*s_perfect]

The $5000 one wasn't actually paid for.

[dariudaudery_0]

Differences can be - better condition (even if both are new), faster shipping/dispatch time, international sales (example would be only 1 seller ships to Australia and others don't), better pictures, better title (gets more clicks), established seller with good following (be it youtube or social media), signed or includes something else that other listings don't, promoted listings and so on.

[divwido]

I was going to say people are stupid about some items and have overinflated values.   Didn't Beanie Babies die already?

I do understand that some people list things they don't actually have an inflate the price and use that as a place holder until the item is in stock.  So it could also be that.

[redmodelt]

eBay isn't selling anything, individual sellers are. So the individual sellers set their prices. Most sell at market value, but some list at fantasy prices. 🙂

[inhawaii]

Different sellers = different prices.

[luckythewinner]

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@rose11605 wrote:

How can some items on ebay sell for drastically different prices? Ex. An exactly same beanie baby sells for $5 vs $5000?

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There are two probable scenarios: 

1) You are mistaken and they are not exactly alike; or

2) The $5000 one did not really sell for $5000

[maxine*j]

If you're just looking at Current Listings, remember that the asking price is not the selling price.  Sellers can ask any amount they want, but that doesn't mean they'll ever get it.

If you're looking at Sold Listings, remember that those Beanie Babies "sold" for that price in the sense that those were winning bids or BINs -- but the buyers likely will never pay for them, and the fact that the items are never paid for isn't shown.   The buyers were not crazy.  What they really wanted was what they got -- publicity. It's an old ploy to create interest and inflate values.

Read this from the seller himself about the Beanie Baby that "sold" for $45K and made headlines around the world:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Toys-Hobbies/PSA-on-quot-sold-quot-45K-Princess-Diana-Beanie-Baby-From...

It reads in part: "If you are in the beanie baby collecting and selling sphere you may have seen a Princess Diana bear that sold for $45,000 back in August. That was my listing... The person who bought that bear immediately canceled after purchase... [and] never contacted me about it. eBay considers it sold despite... [the fact] that it was canceled and relisted.."

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[theteamsetguy]

Rose11605,

Not unusual for collectibles. For example a mint 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan card in Mint condition one goes for about $10,000.00 but a gem mint one goes for $500,000.00 or more. To the naked eye most collectors will not be able to tell the difference in condition between a mint versus gem mint one.

[simba6]

It is a spot market and prices vary as the crow flies.  That is why past auction/flea-market prices don't mean much for future sales.  Then there are the sport bidders that play games but never pay for those purchases.

[eburtonlab]

An exactly same beanie baby sells for $5 vs $5000?

Check the seller's feedback page. If neither buyer nor seller leaves feedback for the $5000 transaction, that is a strong indication that the transaction was never paid for.

Many of the buyers and sellers involved in those high dollar amount outlier transactions are zero feedback accounts.

[jet_joa]

To be honest, I think the beanie baby thing is either money laundering or a drug or other illegal kind of thing on offer. Beanie babies appear to be a dead market, except when it's money laundering; there is no actual five thousand dollar beanie baby. I don't have details on how it works really but I am not myself a money launderer, lol. 

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@eburtonlab wrote:

An exactly same beanie baby sells for $5 vs $5000?

Check the seller's feedback page. If neither buyer nor seller leaves feedback for the $5000 transaction, that is a strong indication that the transaction was never paid for....

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Usually you can confirm this by looking at the Sold listing, and see the note at the top that the seller has relisted the item.

[maxine*j]

That's right, because usually (although not always, of course) the unpaid-for item is relisted. 

Unfortunately, a lot of people use WorthPoint and it shows only Sold Listings, although the sold items  may or may not have been paid for. 

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