smontanaro 

I guess maybe this belongs in the Wacky thread in C&V, but as the bike isn't vintage...

I watched a Pegoretti on Ebay being offered by a guy in Bucharest. Way out of my price range, and too modern for my tastes, but heck, it's a Peg, so I watched it. It went unsold (no bids) earlier today with a starting bid of £1500. Lo and behold, it was just relisted with a starting bid of £1900!

Someone, explain the logic of that to me, please...

himespau 

I see it all the time. People just aren't bright. Or maybe they want to be able to drop the price down at some point and trick someone into thinking they're getting a deal.

Looigi

Could be a simple explanation, like he when he relisted it he changed his mind about the minimum he would take...or just made a mistake.

10 Wheels

I am trying to sell a bike in Texas. One other like bike (same) is up for sale.

Mine for $760. His $1050.

If he sells for $1050 I may raise mine.

But of course one has to consider the difference in bike size.

bikemig 

My favorite are the local CL listers who keep listing the same bike over and over and over and over again and never drop the price. Some are decent, some are junk but the listers keep hoping. Maybe they're buying a bit of happiness by asking a crazy amount that no one will ever offer.

Murray Missile 

You must live near the Ia/Il Quad Cities!

aRoudy1

Or, they are listing it as a sop to a spousal decree to 'get rid of that bike!'

Murray Missile 

Ah yes! A buddy did that with his '69 Mach 1, his wife thought he should sell it so he put it on eBay with an insane reserve price. Car didn't sell, his wife quit bugging him about it.

ThermionicScott 

Could be that he goofed or had second thoughts about how much it was worth to him, like Looigi posited. Or, consider this: your sale price indicates how much you think a thing is worth, and to an extent, potential buyers internalize this. Sometimes, by indicating that something is more valuable, you can actually create more demand for it!

bigfred 

I've seen plenty of items not sell because they were list at "too low" a price. There is this wacky notion of percieved value in many consumers heads. List something low enough and some won't follow up on it because, "obviously it's not worth much. There must be issues with it. etc." Raise the price on the exact same item and it becomes more valuable.

I shrug my shoulders. But, I've seen it work over and over again. I've tried giving things away that no one expressed an interest in. Later increased their price to the edge of believability and had them become the center of a bidding war.

StephenH

I think the problem is that the listings are free. People figure, "Hey, all it takes is one rich moron and I'll make a killing! It COULD happen! It HAS happened! Maybe it'll happen to ME!" So they stick the Denali on there over and over. If it cost 'em fifty cents every time they ran the ad, most of that would just go away.

Murray Missile 

Exactly, it's a matter of perceived value. A former neighbor who flipped cars told me the same thing, price them too low and people think there's something wrong with them, price them high and let them beat you up a little and they'll sell. Another neighbor was trying to give away a set of wheels for free. We live on a busy highway and they sat out there for several days. The car flipper told him to put a for sale sign on them and they'd be gone by the next morning. He put "For Sale $40" on them and when he got up the next morning they were gone. For free they weren't worth stopping to pick up but put a value on them and they were suddenly worth "stealing".

himespau 

I get that too, but I've seen a couple of things where the guy would list something for one week at X, the next week at 2X, then another week at X, another at 2X, then he finally sold it for X plus I think $1. X was a little more than I wanted to spend then I got intrigued and kept following the item as he relisted it over and over because it was entertaining for me.

10 Wheels

Thanks, I just raised my price.

howeeee

I have sold over 300 bikes on craigslist, I dont believe your contention for one second. I price my bikes reasonably to maybe a little low. I seldom have to run them more than once. When it comes to vintage bikes people know what they are worth. On the same list there are guys that post high and have to repost their bikes for months on end. These same guys jump on anything that is priced low and put them right bike on the next day for 2 to 4 times what they paid. You guys that think when you post high you are fooling someone, are just fooling yourselves.

Murray Missile 

Well E-X-C-U-S-E me! I don't sell bikes, the ones I fix up and don't keep usually get given away or donated so, I don't believe your contention that I'm fooling anyone. The last time I sold a bike was about 12 years ago and I lost my butt. I just know what I have seen and experienced time and time again with other items, also, I was not the only one to say this nor even the first. I also think you're taking this out of context, I'm not talking about overpricing some piece of crap or trying to cheat someone. People have the perception that if something is too cheap or even free it's junk OR stolen. Price your items reasonably but leave yourself some room, you can always come down is what I was trying to say. If you got something other than that out of what I said then you need to work on your reading comprehension skills or I need to work on my composition skills.

smontanaro 

I find nothing wrong with letting a bike or bike parts "bake" on Ebay or CL for multiple cycles, especially if it's not costing me anything to relist. Sometimes it takes time for the right buyer to notice your item(s). If you price it to move in one cycle, that's fine, but you might be leaving money on the table (if that matters to you). Many of the things we sell in these venues aren't commodities, and don't appeal to a broad swath of the population.

Dan Burkhart 

This is exactly what killed Suntour as a bike component manufacturer. Shimano raised the bar on perceived value on their high end components by charging what the market would bear. Suntour put out quality components on a cost plus basis, and people flocked to Shimano.

fietsbob

Shimano, putting their stuff on the bikes at High Profile races helped too .

I-Like-To-Bike

Sure. Try to sell the world's best smelling perfume at $1.29/quart. Or on Valentine's Day give your better half a box of the world's best tasting chocolate with a known price tag of 29¢/lb.

himespau 

Was having this discussion with my mother in law about probiotics over the holidays. Since they're not regulated in any way shape or form and aren't allowed to make certain health claims without being regulated, the only way for consumers to tell them apart is by price thinking that more expensive ones must be better. Unless you're a microbiologist by training (I happen to be one). But even then, companies genetically modify and patent their bugs and give them strange names (don't follow normal naming schemes), so even I don't know what's in most of them and what they're all doing (if anything, my colleagues and I have long debates on that).

bigfred 

On the perception of value, I present exhibit A:

the fly

I can believe that. Almost every time I've tried to put a lowball price on something to get it to move some jackwagon wants to badmouth the price and try to get a deal.

I've also left a broken pressure washer in my yard for all to see only to have it sit for days. Finally drug it into the garage figuring I'd tinker with it one day and maybe at least salvage the engine.

Murray Missile 

I was cleaning out my garage at my old house years ago and set a set of factory aluminum Camaro wheels out at the end of my driveway with FREE on them along with a bunch of other stuff. A guy stops and is looking them over so I went out to see if he wanted help loading them. He looked up at me with a disgusted look and says, "These tires aren't very good." I told him, "They're FREE! I'm giving the wheels away, the tires go with them." He grunts, climbs in his car and leaves. 5 minutes later another guy stops and asks, "You're really giving these wheels away?" Me, "Yep." He asks, "How about this old carpet?" Me, "Yep." He grins and says "You want all this stuff hauled off?" Me, "Sure." He loaded EVERYTHING, trash and all and thanked me 3 or 4 times for the wheels and carpet while doing it. Half hour later the first guy comes back and grunts, "Where's those wheels?!" Me, "Somebody else didn't care about the tires and took them." He snorts "I wanted those!" Me, "You should have taken them when you were here the first time then."

Dan Burkhart 

Well, most of those people were hustling to the train or hustling somewhere, so it's not surprising so few stopped to listen, and even fewer (only one it seems) recognized who he was.
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