eBay, schmeBay
Random searches are part of the fun to eBay. You can find a Warren Spahn Corn Flakes baseball card. Or a corn flake in the shape of nothing.
You can find anything with Derek Jeter’s name on it: socks, body wash, watches.
However, it seems the market for hobby boxes isn’t as plentiful as it used to be. Sure, there are steals out there to be had. There are blogs that pop up often about waiting a few months and then snagging a box of something for a good price.
But I’ve noticed that less hobby boxes are making it to auction and sellers are just putting their items up as Buy It Nows.
That’s understandable, but when the same listing is up week after week and no buyers, the sellers have to be losing money. By putting the box up at auction, they aren’t losing too much money and I would have to think that eventually the seller is going to break even between fees and selling the box at a lower cost.
For example, I was looking up boxes of UD Premier. The BIN are as low as $163 and as high as $197 in stores. As of Tuesday night, there were no auctions. But when you look at complete listings, a few auctions show up with boxes that sold for $145 or so.
The BINs for $163, unsold.
Less boxes sell and more end up in warehouses collecting dust with pretty little Jeter cards waiting to make a home on the Hot Rod Farm.
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Not only that but they have best offers available, and the dealers won’t take less than a dollar or two off their BIN price.
If you read the fine print from most of the bigger sellers, you’ll see that they don’t accept BO’s unless you are buying multiple boxes.
That being said, the sometimes ridiculous range in prices for the same product from different sellers baffles me. Can’t they see what the competition is selling for?