Phone prices that keep changing

[guitar1580]

On two separate phone auctions that I had been watching, I've noticed that the price changes by a fairly large amount every few days.  Like one day $62, then $75, then $89, then back down to the lower one. 

In 18 or so years of buying, I have not seen this price "tactic" on any item, and now I see it twice on phones.  I've never sold on ebay, and I'm just wondering if this is something ebay is encouraging, or if sellers are doing it on their own.  It actually kinda steers me away when I see it going on.

[andre_janew]

Sometimes the price has something to do with the quality of the photos.  Items with blurry photos don't sell as well as those with clear photos.  Sometimes it has to do with how many sales the seller has done.  There might be 10 pages of WE 500 phones.  Those that sell regularly get on page 1, while those who don't sell a lot or are just starting out may get page 10.  Then there's the supply and demand factor.  Low supply and high demand result in higher prices.  High supply and low demand result in lower prices.  All those factors result in prices that keep changing.

[Key2871]

Yea I was going to ask is this one seller your talking about?
Or several. Because I remember when selling, if I made a mistake I could change the price as long as there was no bids. But if anyone kept changing the price, eBay wouldn't let you do it after like three times on an item.
But that was 20 years ago, so things may have changed.

If it is different auctions, some think their item is really rare because they haven't seen one on a store shelf in a year or two. So those can go crazy.

[guitar1580]

I've seen it on two different auctions, by two different sellers.

I don't mean prices in general,  I mean the exact same phone with the price going both up and back down every couple of days.

I don't know what the rules are, but to me it's the seller's business if he/she wants to keep changing it, but I don't see a real upside to it, other than if someone buys it spontaneously when they first see it at the higher price.

[HarrySmith]

I don't really see the reason for doing that either. As a seller I do get emails from eBay after a few watchers telling me people are looking and I  should lower my price. Depending on what the item is I usually will lower it 10% or so.

[guitar1580]

Yes, sometimes I get offers from sellers for a 48 hour discount, of different percentages, up to 33% off.  The offer states that it may have been offered to multiple sellers.  It seems like a pretty good feature, and lots of times by the time I get the email offer, it is already sold.  The listed auction price doesn't change, but the offer is open to the lookers who got it.

[FABphones]

.....sometimes I get offers from sellers for a 48 hour discount, of different percentages, up to 33% off.  The offer states that it may have been offered to multiple sellers.  It seems like a pretty good feature, and lots of times by the time I get the email offer, it is already sold.  The listed auction price doesn't change, but the offer is open to the lookers who got it.

I recieve those offers, but how do you activate/accept them? Clicking on the offer notification goes to the listing with normal price. And buy it now also shows the normal price ( got one sitting in my notifcations right now for a guitar  ).

[guitar1580]

Somewhere there's a box that says "review offer".  If it doesn't show up on the listing in your watch list, go to your ebay messages and look for the message announcing the offer.  When you open that message, there's a box to click to "review offer", and at that point you can accept and make the purchase.

[Dan/Panther]

On two separate phone auctions that I had been watching, I've noticed that the price changes by a fairly large amount every few days.  Like one day $62, then $75, then $89, then back down to the lower one. 

In 18 or so years of buying, I have not seen this price "tactic" on any item, and now I see it twice on phones.  I've never sold on ebay, and I'm just wondering if this is something ebay is encouraging, or if sellers are doing it on their own.  It actually kinda steers me away when I see it going on.

Are you referring to listed price or the actual bidding  ?
I don't recall a running listing price go down unless someone drops their bid ?

D/P

[guitar1580]

What I'm referring to are "buy it now" auctions.  Price changes every day or two between $60, $75 and $90,  up, down, up, down.

[Dan/Panther]

What I'm referring to are "buy it now" auctions.  Price changes every day or two between $60, $75 and $90,  up, down, up, down.

I would imagine they check other auctions as they proceed and adjust to fit the profile  ?
D/P

[guitar1580]

This one I've been watching changes every two days or so, and seems to have changed 10 times or more.  Another one over the holidays was similar.  The "market" doesn't fluctuate that much, that fast.

I'd guess that these sellers are raising the prices on some items and lowering the prices on others, hoping someone may buy it on the spot while it happens to be at the higher level.  Seems like a strategy, although I'm not sure how good of one.