Everything for Nothing Mentality

[pictologist]

It never ceases to amaze me the extent of the '99c' mentality of buyers on ebay. It seems that even if one has quality items, genuine appraised items, bulk lot of items starting off at a very reasonable price, buyers are of the fixed mentality that they are entitled to a 99c start off auction. I have observed this mentality over a number of years and it seems to have grown. It's also interesting to note that so called potential buyers will 'watch' your item/s , obviously to let the seller know that they are interested in what they have for sale, but at the same time do not actually place a bid. The message that they are actually conveying is; we are interested in what you have, but are not interested/prepared or expect to pay your price. Fair enough, that is their prerogative. What they are hoping is that the seller will then relist their items for less, much less hopefully, in fact get it down to 99c and then they will place a bid.

It's not worth the time, energy or cost to relist to satisfy the 99c mentality masses. I would prefer to donate my goods to either a charity organisation or place in the general household trash for landfill, but I will never list items that are worth it for 99c.

Happy bidding all on your 99c items.

[wardy079]

How do you search for 99 cent items these days?

Haven't looked in years.... But this has spiked my interest 

[thecatspjs]

Select the category you are interested in and search button, then select tab auctions only, and then select from the sort by menu: price lowest first 

[the_great_she_elephant]

Guess what, I had a bidding war with a $10k start and it sold for $12,200. 

Go Figure!

Maybe a couple of watchers who were hoping the starting price would go down panicked when they saw it had gone up.:^O

[greywolf271]

Don't know what you're whinging about. If you don't want to use a "99c" start, don't do it. If someone whinges to you, DELETE.  If someone starts bullying you, bully them back, threaten them. Threaten them with a lawsuite. Grow a thick skin. In other words, Grow Up.

[imaginary_product]

I think you are being extremely unrealistic about how much your items are worth.

[nonny_muss]

I think OP is entitled to their opinion.  Without being called a whinger or being told to grow up.  Sheesh.

[zenremix777]

If a seller WANTS to list at 99c & only get one bid,I'm happy to bid.No one is forcing a gun at the sellers head.

Not sure where you're coming from re your rant or where you're leading to-perhaps you could clarify ie have you been stung as a seller falling for the 99c start price or do you feel guilty as a buyer winning an item for 99c ?

I think OP is saying that, as a seller, they get some people asking them to lower their start price to 0.99c and it's peeved them off a little. It seems they also have alot of watchers that don't necessarily translate into bidders and that may peeve them off too.

I can definitely relate to the watcher thing. It's for that reason (of not confusing watchers with bidders) that I use Selling Manager with the Watchers tab unchecked. I just see the Views tab and that satisfies me. If an item sells, I may go to My eBay All Selling and check the watchers but it's no big deal. I'm more concerned with the bidders and views. I've also done the op shop thing too. Some things are just easier to give away for free than sell, especially if they're just taking up space. Feels good to unload a bunch of stuff at once and also give to the less fortunate.

[monstersinthedungeon]

If you have genuine, quality antiques, I don't know that ebay is the place to sell them if you want top dollar.

I have been selling and buying on ebay under different IDs for over 10 years, and in my opinion over the past few years ebay has become a knock-down bargain basement as far as pricing goes.

Recently I had an item that didn't even come close to reserve on ebay despite being listed twice, I listed it on Gumtree and it sold within the day for full asking price - I wish I had had more, I could have sold it four times over via Gumtree.

However, I do have to agree that your price expectations on some of your items (e.g., the boots) are unrealistic via any venue.