I often wonder, why do people selling used items list them at higher prices...

[melissel]

than they're listed for on Amazon, new? I see this all the time at Half.com, eBay, various For Sale boards. I mean, I understand that small sellers just selling their used items might not have taken the time to compare them to Amazon prices, but the Half.com and eBay sellers who have stores and should understand marketing practices a little better? I don't get it :confused: Am I missing some retail merchandising trick here?

*sigh* I was just wondering. I'm putting together the pieces of our curricula for next year and have been searching lots of secondary market sites, and this is bugging me :glare:

[Tap, tap, tap]

Not everyone compares prices. They just find what they want and buy it.


Tap

[WendyK]

I have often wondered the same thing. I guess if they can get ppl to pay that price then they will keep doing it. I know some ppl will shop certain sites because they want to support them regardless if they have the best price, but I doubt ebay is one of them!

[Whisperlily]

I don't know!

I don't know why someone who bought one of my books on e-bay bid up to an amount 3x higher than I paid (including shipping) directly from the publisher. Or why other people bid right alongside him until the end of the auction. It was still available direct, at the price I paid, too!

[nestof3]

Well, perhaps they didn't compare their price to Amazon's.

Perhaps they want to make a better profit than Amazon -- Amazon sells so much that their price can be low.

The same could happen with my husband's lawn maintenance company. I'm sure if a customer compared his price with all other company's prices, they could find someone cheaper. But, they know him, trust him, and are pleased with his work.

There are, I'm sure, some companies my husband cannot compete with because they hire illegals at $6.00 an hour. Most of these contracts are big business accounts which don't affect my husband, but I'm sure some companies are affected by this.

[LizzyBee]

I don't know, but I've gotten in the habit of checking prices elsewhere before I respond to a for sale ad on the boards.

[amary]

I've noticed that too and the only thing I can come up with, besides they're not checking prices elsewhere, is that they want to use their paypal funds and you can't with Amazon and other such places. When I have sold a lot on ebay I prefer to use the paypal funds rather than transfer them into my bank account and then buy on Amazon with a credit card and than transfer from the bank to....you get the idea. I always buy the cheapest, but I have been tempted to buy a "like new" that was the same price as Amazon just so that I wouldn't have to go deal with a credit card.

[*anj*]

I have no idea. I've often wondered the same thing. I once actually wrote to the seller saying "Maybe you don't realize it, but Amazon is selling this book, brand new, for the same price." I never heard back from the person. W.E.

[Baseballmom]

I don't usually check Amazon, I will from now on. I usually just sell the item at 1/2 what I paid for it + $1-2 for shipping. I have been wondering about this, especially regarding Teaching Textbooks. I have been searching for it used. People want $165 for a program, that I can buy brand new from the publisher, for $179. I just don't get that! At that price, I would rather pay $14 more and have a guarantee from the publisher.

[RoughCollie]

Amazon has glitches in their program. I know this from personal experience. I wrote to a seller who had Spelling Workout listed for something like $176 and he told me that on his database, the price is nowhere near that.

Amazon's program changes prices sometimes, changes books to audiobooks, changes titles, and so forth. When it happens to us, my DH writes and calls, but the programs bugs are never fixed.

The seller doesn't know about this until a customer tells him unless they look up their listings individually on Amazon. We don't because we have 45,000 books listed there.

There are also a lot of people who sell books on Amazon and the like who have no clue what they are doing. They don't check current prices before setting theirs or know how to grade books properly.

I don't use eBay, but when I buy a used book I check the prices at tomfolio.com and abebooks.com first. A lot of times I find it cheaper there than at Amazon, but not always.

than they're listed for on Amazon, new?

[GVA]

I usually figure about half price plus a few bucks, but I do check on both Amazon and Rainbow to make sure that's reasonable. Sometimes I can actually sell for more on Amazon though, so I do that.

I count on selling books to buy books, so frankly having things not move is not an option for me.

[shell in SC]

A couple times I've ordered used books from Amazon and both times I got a message from the seller that 1. they either couldn't find the book after all or 2. The book is water damaged and is that ok or do I want my money back. Neither sale went through, so it probably would have been easier for me to go to ebay or here.

shell