I'll give some buy-side perspective here too. I'm not a big eBay buyer, but I have to look at current listings every day (mostly in the "vintage computing" market) to see what's selling and at what prices. I also use Terapeak a lot because I do appraisals of collectible computers. For the first part of that process, I basically have to look at every listing over the past year for a particular item, and for each one that sold, I assign a score of 1 thru 5 based on things like the condition and quality of the item. So these are not commodity goods; in fact, they're pretty much the opposite. Two sellers might be offering the "same" 1984 computer, but there will be subtle -- and sometimes not-so-subtle -- differences in the product AND the presentation that lead to price differentiation. I also get to see all the listings that don't sell. There are a lot of them, and since I'm looking at a full year of data, I can see that some sellers just keep listing the same thing over and over, often at the same price, and it never gets sold.
Based on what I've observed not only in this niche market but also on eBay in general, I think the two most important factors that are under the seller's control in making a sale are presentation and realistic pricing. When someone is trying to sell something, putting some effort into making it look appealing really does pay off. I've seen two virtually identical computers sell with a 100% price difference because one seller cleaned his, took lots of good pictures, and at least tried to give an accurate description, whereas the other guy left his covered in dust with the sticker from the Goodwill store still on it, took a couple of blurry photos, and basically said "Rare!! Vintage!! As is" in his description. As a general rule, the more information the seller gives, the more likely he is not only to make a sale but also to get a better price. Even if that information includes the fact that the item he's offering has some minor flaw, disclosing it helps get him a sale, because buyers like honest sellers -- and of course it helps protect him from getting lousy feedback later on, because the buyer doesn't get any unpleasant surprises when he pulls his new prize out of the bubble wrap. Some professionalism on the part of the seller is a great asset too, because it's reassuring to the buyer. People are being asked to give their money to someone they don't know and can't see in exchange for some object they can't touch or see. So if they at least get the impression that the invisible person selling this stuff is not just some lazy bum trying to rip them off, it will be easier for them to place a bid.
As for pricing, I honestly think the majority of prices on eBay are unrealistic -- and that includes the ridiculous inflated shipping rates. Do most buyers really not notice when someone lists shipping fees higher than the value of the item they're selling? I don't know. But when I occasionally do look at eBay with the thought of making a purchase for myself, I usually get so fed up with the grotesque shipping costs that I end up selecting that little checkbox so that my search results only show listings with "free" shipping (which really just means the shipping cost is included in the bid or BIN price). However, I rarely actually buy anything on eBay, because no matter what I'm after, I can almost always easily find it at a much better price somewhere else. Considering that all I have to do is go over to Amazon.com to beat the eBay price for anything from a used book to new electronics, I really wonder how so many of these sellers manage to stay in business. When I'm analyzing the Terapeak data I collect, I ask myself the same question, because for any particular item I look at, whether it's a generic hard drive or an unusual computer, usually only about 30% of the items listed each quarter (some of them multiple times) actually get sold. A big percentage of eBay sellers apparently don't understand how markets work, so they sit there month after month with their $295 BIN price on something the market values at $50. In the end, they're not doing themselves any favors, but they are helping other sellers by keeping some of the supply out of the market.
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