G is having an ebay fire sale

Good Luck.

It's all good. Just learning to roll with it the best I can.

Bids have a tendency to attract bids. I've done this before and it has worked out well. It seems when I start at a few dollars, it takes until nearly the end of the auction for anyone to start pulling the trigger. So when people are looking at stuff, they just skim right by it. Seems when I start at a penny, people start getting in on it right away hoping they can get in low and people will let it slip through the cracks and not be there for it at the end. You get some early bids going at a low price and then you have bids listed on your sale. When you see a bunch of auctions one after another, those bids have a way of attracting your attention and making you look. Its hard to believe, but as I write this, I have 19 auctions going and only $51 in total bids so far. But those bids total 91 bids. Its hard to believe, but I have one auction with 19 bids and it's only up to $5.00 as I write this. I have another auction with 11 bids and it's only up to $1.01. Now, neither one of those are anything to write home about. But lets say I had started it at a dollar. It might look something like this....

Auction 1 ........ 2 bids ........$1.01

Auction 2 ........4 bids ........$5.00

Well, that would be better than nothing. But it tends to attract more attention when you look at auctions and see this....

Auction 1 ........11 bids ........$1.01

Auction 2 ........19 bids ........$5.00

In reality, I'm making the same amount of money at this point. But the 1st set of auctions look kind of ho-hum.....another auction. Whereas the 2nd set of auctions with all those bids seem to cry "What are all these people looking at?" Those higher bid numbers seem to attract more people to it. Conversely. The 1st set of bids might be how I look with a day or so left to go. The second set of bids are where I am now with 5 and 6 days left to go. More bids equals more attractions which hopefully equals even more bids down the road. Its just a hive mentality really. People tend to look at what other people are looking at.

Also on my ebay, it is telling me I have a total of 85 people watching my auctions. Meaning, they have set a reminder for themselves to keep looking at it. Especially at the end. I'm hoping most of those people will be there at the end and will consider putting in a bid towards the end of the show. Whereas, if I had started it at a higher price, I doubt I would have 1/4th - 1/2 the people watching it at this point. Less people there at the beginning = Less people there at the end.

It's funny but when I used to do conventions many years ago. When you had your booth set up, one thing you didn't want was no one looking at your comics while other people were looking at comics at booths around you. It gave a feeling that you didn't have anything worth looking at. If I had friends with me when I did a show, anytime we got slow, we used to get up and go in front of the booth and look through the comics like we were posing as customers. The average customer doesn't know if you're the dealer or the customer. They just see people. That way it wouldn't look like no one was looking. Its amazing that when one or two people are looking at your books, a couple more people tend to come and look too. Whereas, if we just sat on our hands and sat behind the booth and no one was looking at your books and you did nothing, no one seemed to come up for long periods of time. You only had so long to make money. So, it's all just an illusion. You have to hopefully try and create interest even when there is none.

Since I am desperate for money, I figure starting all my auctions at a penny, I'm hoping people will try and gamble and compete for a bargain at the end. It is better than starting high and having hardly no one at the show at the end. My experiences seems to go better when I start at a penny then when I start at higher prices. Even 99 cents or 1 dollar. I typically do better just starting at a penny.

I've seen whetteon's group over at Lyria kind of have the same argument. But it seems to come down to some people don't feel a book is worth having unless it is ultra high grade like 9.6 or above. I can see where a few of my books the grade is hurting me. For instance the Magnus #0 at 9.2. A book that new, people will want 9.4 and above. Still, when you look at the book, I can hardly see a flaw. Of course, I can't open the case and inspect what is wrong with it. But as it is, it's beautiful. I've personally never had a problem owning a 9.2 book or so so forth.

I don't think its going to hurt me on some of my books like the Amazing Spiderman #136 or 135. Graded 8.5 and 6.5 respectively. Sure, it would be nice to have higher grade of the 6.5. It's still a solid copy and you know what you're getting up front. I think it will hopefully get a respectable number $30-$40. I'm hoping for even more on the 8.5 #136. Of course, I could be wrong. But that book is going on 40 years old. That 8.5 looks outstanding! It's a sweet copy. Sure wish I had a higher grade on it. But I'm hoping it brings in something as it is.

I want to say the Iron Fist was given to me by Josh (Azbatx). I think we were trading and he had it. He wasn't into owning it and said I could have it if I wanted. Hell, I'm not going to turn down a free CGC book no matter what it is. Once again, its roughly 35 years old. You can be a comic snob and decide you only want the uber ultra high grade. Shit, that might put you back hundreds of dollars. Whereas an 8.0 is a VERY solid copy with no major flaws. Just slight signs of aging and minimal wear. All very slight. 8.0 is actually a nice copy. The difference is an 8.0 ain't going to put you back much at all whereas a 9.4 and above would about break you. I'd rather have solid reasonably priced copies with the thought that if I ever upgraded down the road, I would sell the lower graded one to help offset the cost of the higher priced one.

To be honest, if I wasn't so bad off right now, this would be a great time to be buying. I'm actually selling at a terrible time. I'm seeing low prices on a lot of stuff. I'm a bit worried. That's another reason I started at a penny. I think if you give people the thought that they have a chance of getting a bargain, they might let emotion get them during final minute bids and bid themselves up more than they bargained for at the end during the excitement of last second bidding. I know I've been guilty of it before.

It's a real wait and see mode. I have in mind how much money I'd like to try and raise. I have a lowest price I would be satisfied with (worst case scenario) to prepare myself in case things go poorly. But at this early stage, I'm encourage by the numbers I'm seeing watching, viewing and bidding on it so far.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I missed this post because I was giving my reply around the same time. Everything you described is marketing. You grasp the concept that psychology has everything to do with whether you are able to sell something. You can sell cow shit if you call it fertilizer.

And yes, if you have nobody looking at your comics, it sends out the impression to others that there must not be anything interesting at your table. I used to put one of my X-Men #1's up with a jacked up price. Just having a silver age key up on the display board would attract customers. They'd sometimes buy some cheap piece of crap comic because they felt guilty for talking to me about the X-men #1 and not buying anything. They'd start to walk away and then say "Oh, I guess I can get this for my kid. It's only a dollar."

The most annoying experience I had was a customer buying a new $3.99 comic book for cover price. The lady goes around the corner and Earl Shaw had one for $1. The comic had only been out a week. I consider Earl to be a good guy, but that annoyed. me. I didn't argue. I just gave her the money back. At the same show, I had a speculator book priced for $10. They cost me a buck or less each. The guy who ran the show accused me of trying to sell too cheap and make the other dealers look bad. In retrospect, I know the show owner was pissed that another dealer let me use the tables he'd bought. The show owner was probably setting me up the whole time as an excuse to not let me come back. I was also well stocked in the hot books that the show owner would've liked to have had on his display board. On a plus side, I traded and early Mad comic book for a full set of the Psychoanalysis series (EC). I'd been wanting those for a long time and having the Mad (#9 I think) didn't excite me.

df1