It really does! I currently have about 700 items on ebay. I went insane with taking images and listing stuff in December and January and thankfully my sales are rewarding me for my efforts. The only thing is that these are the slow moving items. They can take weeks to months to sell. But they usually will sell given enough time with about 20% that will end up being removed as dead inventory when I feel those items just won't sell. That's typically around 6 months or so.
Why I'm saying this is that a lot of people email me asking me to go lower. "your askin too much, will you take less"..."ill give yer $30". I don't really mind people asking to take less but they almost never do it on items that should be reduced. Most of the time they do it on stuff that ends up selling in less than a week for what I was asking for.
Case in point. "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TMNT Giant Movie Star Donatello 1992 Complete w/ Bo" This item I had for way too long but it's one of those rare items WITH accessory that you really cannot price correctly as they are not found on ebay too often. Last week a guy was "ill give yer $30 shipped". I was asking $41.99 plus shipping costs. He lives in Florida and it was 3 pounds, which is probably like $15 or so to ship it out.
OK, did he REALLY think I would discount something by almost 50%? At most I was willing to go down $5 as it was around for several months but I knew I could sell this several times over at $30 shipped. It was too cheap. So I put a 5% discount on the item (which amounted to a $2 discount) and told the guy that was the best I could do and I never heard back from him. Two or three days later it sold without any discount to someone in Tennessee.
Another case. "Lot of Vintage 1980's Voltron Action Figures Lion" This item I just listed a month ago. The guy was all like "blah blah, how low will you go." I gave him the same thing I tell everyone else. I don't have a low price in mind. Everything that I am selling I will lower a couple dollars and relist until it sells, I won't lower it down by a great percent.
This was maybe five days ago and of course today it sells without a discount for $45.99 plus shipping. This one I REALLY didn't want to go lower on as it took me years of gathering to make this lot. Some of the pieces I had for around 20 years or so. LOL
Gathering is what happened in another case. "Thundercats Lot VTG 80s Mutant Fistpounder & Thundertank 4 Action Figures SNARK" I recently (last fall) obtained some broken Thundercats vehicles and I put some of my collected figures with it. I kept adding and adding more when I found them in my many boxes of stuff. I also kept raising the price! A guy asked to buy just the vehicles and one of the action figures. We dickered around on the price but eventually worked a deal out. In the end I sold the action figures about a week after that for a little more than what I was asking for everything together.
Normally I wouldn't even bother splitting a lot up. I only do it if it benefits me. So I refuse a lot of people asking me to split lots up, as I just don't have the time or energy to bother with it, unless it is fairly profitable to do so.
Another Thundercats example. "Vintage 80s Kid Works Thundercats Mini Cat's Lair" A guy was asking "will you take less". Yeeeah, right...it had around 10 people watching it and it was only up on ebay about 4 days. It sells about 10 days later for what I was asking. I had no clue as to it's fair value, but I have learned over the years to never to panic and to never blow stuff out for whatever I can get. Blow outs are for old dead inventory.
This week someone was a little insulting about my "Huge Modern 2000s GI Joe Lot Figures and Accessories G. I. Joe". He said something to the effect "You're asking way to much, but I like some of the figures, blah blah". I didn't read the rest as I was insulted right off. I told him the same story that I only go down a little and keep relisting until it sells. Please keep an eye on it and good luck. I don't think this will sell right away as it's probably too high, but then again I don't care either. I have a method that works and it'll eventually hit the magic price without my worrying about it.
And cases like these goes on and on every month. It's why I do not use the best offer system as it's just too annoying. People and sellers do not see eye to eye on what's a fair price. My stuff is priced rather fairly based on what others got for theirs. Of course I would never pay these prices for this crap, but I'm not a collector. It's like I would never pay $10 for a Rembrandt painting for myself to enjoy as it's just not worth it to me.
Anyway a lot of times the items I sell are rare like Rembrandts and there is nothing to base a price on. So I start it off high and keep lowering it until it does sell. It's why I have some 700 items on ebay right now as a lot of them are in the process of going down waiting to hit the magical price. Statistically 80% of them will sell before this Fall.
The point is, and I've said before on this blog, I'm in a business to make money. I'm not running a charity. I put a lot of time, effort and money into making my profits. So I'm not about to sell something I should be getting $50 with shipping as an extra cost for at only $20 with free shipping. Doubly so if I only had that item up for less than a month.
But I guess people gotta try, but I just find it so tacky to ask for a lower price and have it be a huge amount like that. I almost never ask for a lower price on anything. If I don't like the price, then I leave it. I usually only ask for a better price if I'm buying a huge collection of stuff and that's mostly because I don't want to fart around for 10 to 30 minutes while they count and add everything up. But to each their own!