eBay Question

A particular seller on eBay puts up for auction dozens of discs priced at $5.99, $6.99, or more. Almost all of the auctions close with the discs unsold. This has puzzled me for some time. Is there a method to his madness?

Mike Prager North Carolina, USA (Remove symbols from email address to reply.)

Perhaps you are thinking of Ebay STORES, which has a flat fee. That's seperate. But normal Ebay items, being ALL auction items, have an insertion fee.

More like madness to his method.

4ax.com:

No. His village elected him to be their idiot, and damn it all, he's going to serve out his entire term no matter what happens.

You rang? I believe you're referring to the ebay seller 'classical enthusiast', who tends to list several hundred auctions at a shot (literally, ending within the span of 10 minutes in a veritable blizzard of un-bid items).

The vast majority of the discs this seller lists seem to be currently in stock at the Berkshire Record Outlet, for $1.99 or $2.99. If a given CD takes five listings (at a minimum bid of $6.99) before there are any takers, well, five 30 cent listing fees still gives a profit margin of around 100%. My guess is that either the seller *is* the BRO under another name, or someone who haas arranged a deal with the BRO to sell their discs on eBay.

Disclaimer: I'm an ebay seller myself, though I go in much more for rare one-of-a-kind discs (I just managed to track down a Moscow Autumn Festival CD of Eshpai's 6th which I never knew existed!)

And, for a while, a large number of jazz and pop CDs were liberally mixed in with the classical ones. I found this very annoying, because it meant more time spent reading the headers. If it had been three or four, that wouldn't have been so annoying

'Generally, if you contact the seller after an item passes and make him a fair offer below his minimum bid, he will take it.'

Very interesting, Steve. I had not thought of it. Thanks for a helpful