Stale eBay listings
MasonG
Posts: 6,272 ✭✭✭✭✭
I see comments about them here, now and then. Here's mine...
I listed a group of four similar items 4-5 years ago, which remained unsold up until March of this year. I had reduced the prices three or four times, but still, no buyers. It's a mystery to me- comparable items had been selling for more. So I ended them, waited until they no longer showed up under closed listings and relisted them, with prices increased about 25-30%.
All of them sold in under two months.
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Comments
Every time when the item is not available any more people started asking about it. Very strange.
I don't know how a coin gets stale. Every week I sell at least one item that is months or years old. It's just inventory. And every week I list 25 to 50 new items. This are new inventory. But what you want, ignore what you don't.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Yep. I have never permanently removed an item from eBay because it wouldn't sell, eventually everything I've ever listed has sold.
Perhaps having fresh inventory gets new views of the old stuff resulting in more sales of the old stuff.
sometimes after several months if someting doesn't sell, you just have to end it and relist it, new listings get much more looks.
Once in a while I used to put a fair but higher start or min bid price, only to have it not sale, then relist at 99c, and when the auction ended, it goes over what I had it listed for. So I just run everything now starting at .99c
I guess it depends on what you're selling. I took a bunch of $10-20 items, ran them as auctions at 99 cents, and most didn't sell. I relisted them at fixed prices ($10-20) and they all sold.
Actually, most people peruse expiring listings. BINs are far more likely to sell on the 29th day than the 1st day.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
I guess I should go back to looking at ebay.... maybe some stale listings are bargains.... Well, could happen...
Cheers, RickO
I have an addiction for .99 starting bids. These always get my attention.
When I find one on a coin that I like, I will put it into my watch list.
I then determine my max bid.
If the coin stays below my max bid, I will bid on the coin. If the bid goes over what I would have bid on it. I just remove it from my list.
Many coins I will just pass by if the starting bid is to high (IMO).
My search wording has to be pretty accurate for me to find "stale listings".
Wayne
Kennedys are my quest...
along with many digital sites, their algorithms have baffled me for many years. if you don't have a big following, it is best to have more than one account and to try BIN listings as well as some form of auctions. if the items are sub $20, then it makes a little more sense for them to sit that long as there are an enormous amount of items in that price range and lower.
there are a lot of risk takers in numismatics so i'm not sure mediocre images would slow buyers down for that long.
also there seems to be a HUGE discrepancy between mobile and non. i only see a small percentage of the same listings when doing prices realized across multiple categories between them.
glad they finally sold for you.
i've noticed some big sellers end and relist their items regularly to circumnavigate staleness, algorithms and to make items appear in newly listed.
I sell my book on Buffalo nickel abraded dies on ebay and have sold dozens. But I've had one listed for a couple of months with no activity so I ended the listing and started a new one. It sold within a couple of hours.
Of someone is watching something for a long time, the minute it’s gone, they may want it more!
Fresh listing? Get it quick before someone else gets it!!!!!! No takers after 4 months? We don't want it either, then. Stale piece of crap.
I once had a forum member PM me about my BST listings, and his basic premise was that he only wanted to scoop my coins quickly before anyone else saw them, so he could flip them as fresh material. If he couldn't get them in the first hour, then he was out. I can't remember who it was, but I think he was on to something.
How may times I have seen an eBay listing sit for a few hours with a fair Buy It Now, and then someone had to bid $1. Almost without fail, the original bidder drops out for some tiny price, and it closes for more than the original BIN. Why? Just because somebody else wanted it.
Or the first day, if priced aggresively.
4-5 years is a very stale listing. I think that ebay sometimes hides results from possible buyers because they want you to promote it, so they can get more fees from the seller. 3 months is max for me. If something does not sell in 3 months, most likely it is a no-interest item or is overpriced or hidden by ebay from search results. Sometimes even a seemingly suttle change in the title or description, will get someone to purchase or bid an item. For some coins you just need the right person to come along and you may have to wait a long time to find that person.
These comments are contradictory. Pick one.
Lol.
Just sold a set of 1st day covers that's been up for 4 years. Thanks to ebay standard shipping, I made $2 more than I would have 4 years ago.
Y'know, I've never been in a coin shop where ALL of the same items were less than a year old.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Not contradictory at all. You may have to wait until the listing becomes very stale till you find a buyer, If you want to take the chance and keep your money tied up until that right person comes along.
Yes, it is. The listing isn't stale to the person who comes across it for the first time and decides to buy.
Then the listing by those terms is never stale. There are new ebayers everyday.
You’re both right. The listing is stale from the seller’s point of view and at the same time, fresh, to anyone who sees it for the first time.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
It depends. I'm going to go out on a limb and say, for a coin that's been listed for 4 years, there's a difference between a common date/grade Morgan dollar and a mid-late 20th century minor from an obscure African country.
I think it's a psychological thing for a buyer. When a listing is relatively new, buyers believe (wrongly or not) that they may be getting a deal no one has noticed yet or that they should buy before someone else does. When a listing has sat on ebay for months or even years (which is apparent when searching), a buyer is more inclined to hold off on purchasing the item since there's obviously no rush to do so by anyone else.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
That's why you need to raise the price, so they grab it before it gets too expensive.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
That worked for the coins noted in my first post.
It's another case of people wanting the world structured for their own selfish interests. "Stale listings" bother them. It's not stale to the majority of people who are probably seeing it for the first time. I'll sell it to them.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
I've noticed a not too unusual complaint at times in this forum about overpriced coins that keep showing up in searches. First world problems, I'd think.
I agree
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Sure, though you can tell by the list date during the search which listings have been up forever vs which are new. The person new to ebay may not figure that out, but anyone who searches ebay on regular basis does.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
Yes, but only after you took the original listings down, waited till they fell off the search history, and then newly listed them at a higher price which kind of proves your initial supposition that fresher listings get more love than stale ones, at least in your case. Do you think that would have happened if you simply increased the price on the previous listings you already had up?
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
I don't know. The coins are ones that are recognizable as individuals even without access to images in closed listings (Spanish colonial cobs), so I didn't see the point of making it easy to find out what they had been listed for before.
The idea seemed to be an effective one in this case, at least, by coincidence or otherwise.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
I'll take either.
And those people won't care if it's new to them.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
I don’t worry about it. Some move quicker than others tough to predict. One can see where other bay sellers are on an item and decide to drop if not in red. It’s like fishing sometimes they biting sometimes not. I operate with a budget inventory number / investment and not out to buy if stuff not selling.
At times I may drop prices on some or make bin / mo.