I'm glad I found this old thread. I don't do a lot of buying on eBay, but I agree that for specific hard-to-find items, eBay is a great place to shop. However, for items that are readily available, eBay may not be a bargain.

Lately I've been looking at some pot on eBay (no, not that kind of "pot", the cooking kind). And here is a question for you: Sometimes you'll find four or five identical items listed with almost identical descriptions and they all start at about the same price. But one item would end up with 7-8 bids and a high price (and a high shipping charge as well) while the other ones (often times with a lower shipping charge) would have no bids at all. All the sellers seemed to be long-term eBay sellers, with 100% positive feedback. Sometimes the multiple items are being listed by the same seller using identical descriptions (and identical shipping charge) and one would be bidded high while the others are ignored. So how do buyers/bidders decide that they will all bid on one particular item while ignoring the other identical items (which they may win for a much lower price)? I just don't understand this particular human logic.

 

WhiteS2K: I think George Carlin explained it best: "Think how dumb the average American is. Then reflect on the fact that 50% are dumber than that."

 

As someone who has been on eBay almost since their inception and with almost 3000 feedback, 100% positive, I still marvel at this phenomenon! Sometimes it's timing -- the "gotta have it now and not wait one more day for the next auction to end" mentality. Sometimes it's that a seller was on the buyer's "preferred seller list" and they never looked at what other sellers had to offer. Sometimes it's simply that item X must be better because people are bidding on it and they aren't bidding on Y so they must know something I don't know. Sometimes it's purely a bidding war/frenzy and people get caught up in the process, never looking or remembering there was another identical item down the page from the one they are bidding on. And sometimes it is shills. There's no explanation for some things. I've sold items at above retail and I've lost money on things (I generally don't use reserve prices). The same item may sell for X this week and 50% of X next week and 200% of X three days from now. It's who is looking at the listings at any given time and what strikes their fancy. If you ever figure it out, let me know and we'll all get rich on eBay!