I have been watching some videos about auction psychology, they are pretty interesting, seems in most cases the girls are smarter when it comes to auctions while the guys will get caught up in a bidding war, paying more than the value of the item just to win the auction when in reality they have lost money by over paying. As a collector I see this almost on a daily basis on ebay for both new and retro games, check out sold listings for a particular game, 10 have sold this month for say average total of £6 with shipping. At the moment there could be 1 on ebay and people will bid it upto £12 or £15. Or there could be 2 retro games on ebay in the same condition both with free shipping one a buy it now for £8 and the other an auction, and the auction will end somthing like £8.30 or £8.50 I see it happen alot with new releases aswell, Amazon could have it brand new for £35 even ebay buy it now's from £35 new and sealed + free shipping and so many times I will see an auction end like £38 £40 or £41 when there are buy it now's for £35. Check it out yourself with new releases, it's a crazy phenomenon.
Yeah this is interesting. Do you have any instructive documentary on the subject to share? As a hardcore ebay user I definitely witness this happening and somethimes I will just scratch my head wondering why some auctions end up so high. Occasionally I will even surprise myself bidding a bit more than I intended. I sell and buy a lot on ebay and will almost only sell Buy it Now for my own listings. I am not in a hurry and usually I get the price I want. I still use auctions sometimes when I know I can use the hype to my advantage. The secret to auction is create a strong interest, to trigger a bid war. But this does not work for every item. The best candidates for overpriced auctions are hot items that currently have a good demand and a well made listing that will make the buyers confident in your offer. If you create a hype, such as 0.99$ starting price and a listing that will convince people your offer is better than the other ones, you have it for good result. Just use 10 days auction and watch em fight it out. I get a lot of my best ebay deals by bidding on crappy listings with bad titles, poor pictures and no descriptions.
So long as people are getting paychecks and have ambiguous voids to fill in their lives... Consuming consoles, consuming synthesizes priceless happiness. By this logic, not consuming = suffering. Sadly, many have been trained well by their masters and blindly follow this.
I used to have the same mentality when I started bidding on retro games on Ebay, thinking every games listed were the last copy of their kind. I also used videogames.pricecharting.com for my max bid prices. Not thinking that was the average price paid, meaning some auction ended at lower prices. I now always put in the lowest bid possible using a snipe program. 10% of the time, I end up winning on those auctions. Some popular youtube channels help push up the prices when they have those "hidden gems" episodes. Also whenever a HD remake was announced for a retro game, the old version will spike up like crazy. I remember before Phantom Dust E3 announcement, I saw a Rev3 games episode speculated their might be a remake because of some trademark filings. I bought a used copy for $10. Right after the E3 announcement, it jump up to $30. Now with hype die down, it dropping back to around $15.
It is also essential to put emotion in people and attract them towards that item in your description when going to sell that item.
I just had a newbie Ebay seller cancel his auction after I won it. I won a "Like New" complete set of Steel Battalion with original box, controllers, and game.The total winning bid was US$172.80. The stupid newbie cancel it 2 minutes after I won it. I was just about to pay for it when I received the cancellation notice. Left him a negative feedback for reneging on the auction.
I'm no psychology major, but here's my deduction: most everyone on eBay is crazy. I've got black marks against my account because some sellers are dodgy idiots. Okay, a couple of them were on me, but that's a long and depressing story. Oh, but if you want batshit insane (at least on a more measurable scale), go check out Trade Me. I swear at least 95% of those people are actually completely retarded in the head. It consists primarily of people charging way too much for what they're selling, and (usually the same) people trying to lowball others to the point where it feels like a complete scam. Still, why anyone bids a week in advance will forever be beyond me. I like to wait until the last minute. If, at that point, it hasn't gone above a certain threshold, I'll bid. Otherwise, I'll go onto the next thing. My favourite way to get games from eBay is to buy Japanese imports. They're usually dirt-cheap, and if you get one with a mid-range condition, it's usually flawless anyway because Japanese sellers tend to be pretty modest about condition. Oh, and about Buy It Nows - the amount of time I've seen someone bid on something for the same price as the Buy Now price is insane (when they are the same price to begin with, that is). WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT IT'S THE SAME PRICE ARE YOU STUPID?
Consumerism isn't taught, it's as natural as the void at the center of life which motivates everything that humans elect to do. We can't all be ascetic monks.
I like it. Consumerism is more the lens to desire (the eyes). Desire is natural, consumerism is more of an abstract.. and at this point, it has become a Google Glass unto itself. Not too long ago, I saw a bin filled with 300 iPhone cases for 300 different people. The slogan on the case itself? "You are Unique. You are Different. You don't run with the Crowd." Someone in a marketing room somewhere has to be laughing all the way to the bank on that one.
I didn't say consumerism in the sense you're thinking. People were buying and living through things for thousands of years before edward bernays invented mass marketing and emphasized the worst aspects of a natural behavior.
^ This connects with what I have been thinking/saying for a long time. Materialism is natural for the human. I will be the first one admitting to being materialistic. Material is necessary for humans to live. If every objects we use would suddenly disappear and we would suddenly all be naked in the wilderness, most would die in short order. I am talking of mass extinction here. And those who would not die would live because they had found/built the basic tools necessary to ensure survival So material littarally means life for humans, whether we want to admit it or not. As with anything that is necessary to survive, it is easily subjected to deviation. Think of eating disorders or sexual disorders. The same thing can applies to the human's relation with material. Some will have a balanced and healthy relation with material. Some will become excessive and irrational. And everything in between.
Sometimes the time the auction ends can have an effect on how high they go. I recently picked up a 32x system for only 15 cents because no one else noticed or tried to outbid me due to weird ending time. Listed as non-working but I'm betting it's the infamous loose cable issue. Free shipping seems to have an effect. I accidentally listed 2 identical auctions on 2 different accounts, my usual selling account with free shipping and my buying account with regular shipping rate. The regular shipping rate was something like $12 via USPS. That one ended at just under $50. The free shipping listing? Almost $80. That extra $30 is more than what the shipping would have been so it's likely many snipers ignored my non-free shipping listing and only targeted the one with free shipping. Buyers, be mindful of final amount even with shipping vs free, you may end up getting cheaper when fighting over listing that doesn't have free shipping. (yes I shipped both, wasn't planning on selling both at once but it still sold better than I though) Probably not a new seller but one who had to make a new account because the old one got too many negs and complaints due to cancelled auctions. I hope you went ahead and paid, and refused the cancellation. The seller will be on the hook for FVF whether he ships or not, and eBay WILL go after deadbeat sellers who won't pay up the IOU's. A genuine new and inexperienced seller won't be able to find the cancel request through eBay's convoluted help system that never gets the desired result. If you have that seller's address somehow, feel free to send him a gift through poopsender site Wait until it's really hot like July to guarantee extra stinky gift.
