Do Buyers On Ebay Check All Sellers Stamp Sites For Items?

I just cannot see the reason why a bidder on ebay is prepared to pay over $100 or more from one particular seller for a postal history item, when they can often get similar items cheaper from other sellers. Would you not just bid / buy on the cheaper item if same quality? Example I saw a Zeppelin cover on ebay last week in auction going over $120 plenty of bidding going on for it. & I had one on buy it now with the same stamp, similar cachet at $40 that did not sell. I saw another seller getting really high money for GB folded wrappers/ letters circa 1780 like $75+ each whereby other sellers had similar for sale around $10 - $15 with no bids. I seem to see it quiet often with various postal history items & stamps. Some just seem to go very high priced for certain sellers. I just don't know how some sellers manage to get such high prices in auction compared to other sellers who offer items just as good. Are buyers just sticking to sellers they like? And just not looking at other sellers? Or is ebay search engine not showing buyers all sellers items? I am just curious to hear some points of view on this as I can't be the only person seeing this on ebay. Of course some sellers could have shill bidders to. Thoughts?

If the buyer is willing to search and shop around, they can usually find what they are looking for at a better price. Whenever there is some philatelic item that I want to get on ebay but find the price either to high as a buy it now or in an auction, I use the search engine to find one that fits my budget. However, there are some dealers that a buyer would tend to stick more to than others because they have had a better buying experience from them. Usually, a popular auction with many bidders tends to attract more bidders than one without any bidders since most like to follow the crowd where there is activity.

It can depend on a lot of factors -

One seller might have a better written description with more keyword terms that attracts bidders.

The terms of sale might be better - cheaper shipping, etc.

Number of followers or one seller advertises more.

What a seller also has to offer can affect views and bids. The more you have to offer to more you attract.

Location of seller in relation to bidder.

I'm sure there are more. Sometimes it's also just dumb luck. Right place, right time etc.

I've wondered myself as I've watched buyers bid up an item I've listed for much less. I do believe its due to either being at the end of a search category or perhaps not appearing at all. I can tell you that I see days with little to no sales and then get 4-5 days where I have sales all day...almost as though I suddenly have all my listings showing up at the top of searches. I've also seen Sellers with less than 100% feedback and many negatives who have sales while my lower priced items don't move. I just scratch my head. I'm lucky I have over 90 buyers who follow my listings and make multiple purchases each month. As Battlestamps wrote: there may be many factors....and dumb luck

I have noticed this to a sudden drop like no ones looking for several days then they all come back in at once, as for popular auctions I have had them doing well then a sudden halt in the last 3 days. At the same time other sellers seem to be getting tons of bidders in for average stamps. I have just over 100 followers but they are maybe not seeing everything list.

I have also noticed people paying more on ebay when other dealers offer lower prices. Maybe they have more faith in the person on ebay from their past experiences. It might be that they get to see the stamp they are purchasing before they buy it. I don't know for sure.

I get stamps from dealers and places like Amazon and ebay. When it comes to spending my money I do the research. I guess I am like that because "I ain't got much money!"

You'd think with 180 days paypal protection for ebay items buyers would not mind trying to get items from various other sellers at a better price rather than always buying from the same sellers. I actually enjoy getting stamps from various sellers. It does pay to research, look around and stick to a budget when buying. For some items that I have seen go sky high in price if the buyer ever wants to resell the stamps they will loose a lot of money. We are talking about buyers paying way more than catalog prices.

Life was never the same after best match.

Or your listing being found on page 8,000,000,000,000.......

I can search with windows 7 and get totally different info with window 8.

Searching is getting so locked up!

Maybe far to many pages to search through so some items just don't get seen at all and some sellers get missed. Do USA buyers search for items in other countries like Oz or just prefer to buy from USA sellers?

Something else to think about is $100.00 to some people is pocket change and they don't care what the price is. A year ago I purchased a kitchen aid mixer to aid in my bread making. I found prices that ranged from $149.95 (scratch and dent) to $359.95. I chose Walmart at $179.95 which was close to where I live because I know if there is a problem Walmart will take care of it immediately. Over a period of years the $30.00 will make little difference and I wouldn't have to worry about packing it up and taking it to the post office and having to wait a period of time before the unit was replaced. My point is that people have different reasons all valid in their minds not ours.

Personally I always search for all comparables not only on ebay but also bidStart and for pricier items a Google search. The choice then comes down to price relative to condition with prior experience coming into the equation.

For any sellers reading this I'll share something that turns me off: lack of a complete description of the condition of item. If there is a flaw that is not apparent in the scan, say so. If you don't both of us are inconvenienced by the return and I won't be back to do any furhter business.

Terry

I 100% agree with this, I see folded letters on ebay all the time not stating if there is damage and not only that not showing said damage. In one case seller scanned every part but not the damaged fold splits on last page. Its a pain to have to return such items.

Stamps to, said stamp not shown picture of back of stamp only to receive stamps with fault on back.

After years of searching on ebay I tend to stay away from sellers who don't mention anything in item condition or state faults. Or show them

I tend to say GOOD for item with no fault or state the fault in the item condition, I wish all sellers would

I tend to keep an eye on certain sellers more than using search results, although I do both. The problem is that using ebay search is very time consuming, wading through endless listings I have no interest in. I collect the German area and they have a grand total of one category for that, with 140K or so listings. Sellers list by Scott and/or Michel, and the category contains literally dozens of different stamp issuing entities. Even searching by catalog number in that environment is likely to pull up dozens of different stamps that are totally unrelated to what I'm actually looking for. It's easier just to keep an eye on sellers who regularly sell the kind of stamps I want.

Germany might be one of the worse examples of a category that's too broad, but I'd venture to guess that this sort of thing happens a lot for other countries as well. Long story short, large sellers who have been around awhile have a definite advantage over smaller or newer sellers, simply because more buyers will see their auctions. Over time, the larger sellers will also have as "followers" larger numbers specialists and more serious collectors as well. Not only are more people seeing their auctions, the type of people who do see them are less likely to be scared off when the price rises higher.

Artful: This is so true. I search for Canada used #24 and get a full page returned in which perhaps 5% of the entries are for the stamp I'm looking for. I understand that ebay wants us to see items other than what we specifically ask for in hopes of generating a sale but, for cryin' ou loud, sort them so I see my exact hits first!

Terry

I don't know if anyone else has noticed how some people on ebay think their goods are Superior to others. Maybe if I give a hypothetical situation.

Take a modern, everyday mint stamp that you can buy all day long for 25 cents. Then take this stamp and have it "Graded" and then encapsulate it and put a "BUY NOW" price of $20 on it. It might have a grade of 90 or maybe even as high as 98 but you can get the same stamp from a respectable stamp company for 20 cents.

Am I going crazy? Do people actually buy into this? or Am I not overlooking something?

Most sellers try anyway they can to get the most $ they can for their stamps on buy it now prices, and usually there is someone who will pay their asking price. Maybe the buyer just doesn't look around or they just like the seller and pay his price. So yes people buy into it.

Then there is of course the sellers who inflate the price to a ridiculous level like One thousand dollars plus hoping someone will come in and take the stamp, someone may buy into that at that high price to.