How important is timing when you sell/purchase??
VMFA115
Posts: 176
I have been wondering about how important is timing when you purchase or sell an item? I don't mean sniping, I mean, the best time to purchase or the best time to sell. Simplistically I have noticed that most sellers list their cards on eBay to close early evening on Sunday, PST. Going one step further, are there actual seasons when you can get higher prices or better availability of cards to purchase? Is baseball season the best time to buy/sell baseball cards or just sell and out of season to buy? I guess you can use the same idea for other sports. Is right before or right after the National Convention going to have much of an effect? Are there certain weeks/periods to avoid either selling and/or buying? Conversly, are their certain weeks/periods to make sure to try and sell or buy?
I though I would pose this to the collective wisdom of the board. Personally I don’t know and it would be interesting what those who sell many items and those who purchase many items feel.
Dave C.
I though I would pose this to the collective wisdom of the board. Personally I don’t know and it would be interesting what those who sell many items and those who purchase many items feel.
Dave C.
0
Comments
As far as listing you want the auction to end when the majority of people can bid. That would usually mean a Sunday night between 6pm to midnight. The same way when bidding early mornings you may get a better deal when buying since less people are online. With snipping services that won't happen as often as before though.
Again for anything highly sought after timing isnt nearly as big a thing as the normal everyday collections.
That is my opinion.
Personally, as a mid-volume seller on ebay, Sunday night 9-10 EST endings are most profitable for me. Long weekend holiday endings are the worst. Weeknights are so-so, depending on the merchandise, and Friday and Saturday nights are bad.
Best deals to find as a buyer are during mid day (although you still have competition with snipers) anytime before 7-8:00 EST, while the west coast is still at work, or early in the morning before they wake up. I've bought plenty of cards during the day solely based on expectation that they will sell for more if ending on a Sunday night, and am probably 99% successful.
Seasons don't seem to matter much for me (selling mostly vintage) but I'd imagine it matters a lot more for modern stuff when certain players are having big years, interest grows, values increase etc. A lot of modern stuff relies on capitalizing a player's season before he tanks it the following year. Obviously, this doesn't apply to the superstars, but anyone buying Derek Lowe, Adrian Beltre, Sammy Sosa, Palmeiro etc etc cards in recent years can attest.
For buying PSA cards, I find end of months often provide better pickings and more for sale - possibly as people are getting monthly special submissions back and up on ebay. Conversely, as a seller, early/mid month often seems better to list my PSA cards, as supply seems more limited and we seem to get more interest.
The Sunday night thing is interesting because everybody really wins, if that's possible. A lot of merchandise ending and a lot of potential buyers looking. I believe this produces the most "accurate" prices - generally buyers aren't going to overpay because there are 5 other identical cards ending the same night, and conversely the buyer is not going to get any great deals because there are 10 other people looking and bidding on the same auction.
Used to working on HOF SS Baseballs--Now just '67 Sox Stickers and anything Boston related.
As stated, as a buyer, I use sniper software which eliminates the need to track the time and hope that I don't miss out on a chance. Yet, you don't bid so that others can 'shill' bid the amount up. I use www.bidnapper.com and it's been great for me! Less than $50 and you have unlimited sniping all year round.
* C. PASCUAL BASIC #3
* T. PEREZ BASIC #4 100%
* L. TIANT BASIC #1
* DRYSDALE BASIC #4 100%
* MAGIC MASTER #4/BASIC #3
* PALMEIRO MASTER/BASIC #1
* '65 DISNEYLAND #2
* '78 ELVIS PRESLEY #6
* '78 THREE'S COMPANY #1
WaltDisneyBoards
Dave C.
I host my own pictures and if you do a lot of listing, it's worth it to pay for the domain and server and be able to add as many pictures as you want for free. Pretty easy to figure your break even point there. Anything other than single, graded cards usually do better with at least 2 pictures. Never discount the value of as many pictures as possible - it creates a more honest sale. Buyers will know if you don't scan something for a reason. Never try to hide behind a few pictures.
Anything under $50, I generally don't use any of the other add-ons. Especially if your selling a specific card, particularly a graded card, and the title contains exactly what someone looking for that particular card would search for, it's a waste of money. i.e. I'm selling a "1971 Topps PSA 7 Nolan Ryan" to the guy who's searching for something in that title. And he'll see maybe a page or two of them depending on how broad the search, know they are all the same, and bid on price. I'm not trying to catch the random browser's eye on items like that.
For individual cards or lots or sets where I'm up over $50 and the description has keywords that would come up in broader searches (1955 Topps Lot of 10 PSA 7 NM), and those are the buyers I'm targeting, I may add bold and/or gallery picture. I want to catch all the 55 searchers and the PSA searchers and the Lot searchers and the NM searchers. And each of those is a pretty big search, so standing out w/bold and gallery picture seems to help.
Anything up over a few hundred, I've used the border and/or highlight for the same reasons. They really stand out nicely.
I've never paid for feature plus or whatever it's called, to get the listing locked at the top of a page before any others. I think it's really a waste. If you've got a big price item, the people who will buy it are usually looking for it in the first place - you're most likely not going to catch someone's eye who will say "well I was really looking for some 1978 commons, but that $5000 Clemente PSA 8 at the top of my screen, gimme that!".
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I've never paid for feature plus or whatever it's called, to get the listing locked at the top of a page before any others. I think it's really a waste. If you've got a big price item, the people who will buy it are usually looking for it in the first place - you're most likely not going to catch someone's eye who will say "well I was really looking for some 1978 commons, but that $5000 Clemente PSA 8 at the top of my screen, gimme that!". >>
Featured plus can be VERY useful. They usually have a half price sale in the summer and I try to blow out a "collection" using the featured plus. I've done this the last three summers and by throwing in some PSA graded cards I have done far better in both time and money than I would have breaking every thing up into $1-$4 sales.
The other time I was happy with using it was when I was selling off my big ticket Puckett collection items. I featured a Puckett/Jones autograph and then revise the auction to contain links to my other dozen or so Pucketts and did extremely well with the prices. I don't know for sure the "featured" made a big difference there, but it sure felt like it did.
I do agree that "featured" on a $5000 Clemente is just putting $20 into Ebay's pockets.
a set...but I think instead you get people thinking they can get any set for $40 just because
the card shop in the mall sells late 80s sets for that price.
1967and 1973 Topps baseball wantlists (any condition) welcome. Once had the #14 ATF 1967 set. Yet another collector like skylaneflyer, gimel1 who made it to the completion of 1967 only to need the money more than the company of 609 close friends.
Looking for oddball Norm Cash and Cleon Jones stuff, and 1956 team cards