Pricing items to sell on eBay can be a tricky task. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to setting a general price. Pricing is all about research. Pricing is all about trends.
Back in the day I can remember getting $1,000.00 or more for a single beanie babie. It wouldn’t be realistic for me to list that bag of beans for the same price today.
I’ve decided to share with you my pricing strategy. Hopefully you can gain a few ideas and pick up a few selling techniques.
This post is part one of a series of posts about pricing.
Each post will be based on items I will be listing on eBay. Follow along how I came up with the starting price of each item.
Part One
Pricing Bette Midler on eBay
I had a client send me a few items from Bette Midler’s concert series “Experience the Divine” tour.
Side note: For those that don’t know, I’m a consignment seller. People ship items from all over the world to me to sell for them on consignment. Learn more: “Consignment Info.” This post is about one of those items.
When I received this box of Bette Midler items, my first reaction was, her items don’t sell very well or are much of a high-end type of item.
I actually based this on my previous experience of selling a few of her concert t-shirts.
Previous Jacket sales from the Divine Tour:
- April 2011 – Sold $174.99
- Dec. 2018 – $99.99
Those are the only two successful sales I could find via WorthPoint. The highest priced jacket from a Bette Midler tour I could find was from the “Kiss my Brass Tour” sold for $896.00 at auction in Nov. 2011.
Interesting Fact:
Bette Midler’s clothing items were auctioned off in November of 2011. I found the data from these auction sales via WorthPoint.com.
The top selling dress sold for $20,480.00, on November 12, 2011. Midler wore this dress on the cover of her 1998 album Bathhouse Betty. I learned via the WorthPoint site that they were not sold on eBay. They were sold at Julien’s Auctions.
Listing Bette Midler on eBay
Okay after much research and thought, I decided to create my eBay listing with a buy-it-now price of $425.00 and include make an offer with an auto decline in place for no lower than $245.00.
NOTE: I will post an update after it sells or if I change/adjust the price.
How did I come up with this price?
You may have noticed my listing also contains a program and a crew pass. After more research on only those types of items I soon learned that the highest priced program books sold for:
- $49.99 in November 2013
- $39.00 in July 2015
Since those dates from 2013 the prices have gone done.
The most recent sale on program books was only $7.00 according to the data provided by WorthPoint.com.
Bette Midler tour passes were not as available but they still had low selling value. Such as this one I found on WorthPoint sold for $12.99 in 2011.
Determining an Asking Price
Based on all of this research, taking the data I learned from previous sales shared via WorthPoint, I came to the conclusion to create my listing on eBay they way that I did.
Auto Accept – Auto Decline
My strategy is pricing a bit high and hoping for a sale at the asking price. However, I also add the lowest price I would accept using eBay’s auto-responder tool shown below from my listing:
Thanks to the power of research I can determine a fair current market value and price my items accordingly.
Pricing Checklist
- Search eBay for current listings
- Review sold listings
- Dig deeper on WorthPoint
- Calculate all the data
- Conclude with an asking price
- Finalize with a best offer price
Educate while researching
With each search, you will learn something new. It could be about a different item, it could be about the current item. Either way, take in all that you can with each search. Learn about the keywords they used and how they described the item.
One of the top reasons I appreciate WorthPoint is because they bring in sold data from numerous auction houses in addition to eBay. This allows me to compare trends and establish a current market value for my item.
Follow Success
List your items like a pro. Strike up a competitive edge. Challenge yourself to a sale. Take the knowledge gained while researching and create a listing that will rise above and beyond the fellow sellers.
Good luck and happy selling!
