Price suggestions for `Dumpling` book

[Cactus Kid]

Hi all. I have received some messages indicating that some of the prices of the books I have put on Ebay are far too cheap!

I am hoping to list `Dumpling and his wife` by Steven Hammer soon, which seems to be very sought after.

On line the cheapest I could find was £300+

Suggestions please for a sensible starting price

[Chris L]

Hi all. I have received some messages indicating that some of the prices of the books I have put on Ebay are far too cheap!

I am hoping to list `Dumpling and his wife` by Steven Hammer soon, which seems to be very sought after.

On line the cheapest I could find was £300+

Suggestions please for a sensible starting price

When I am listing stuff on eBay I look at three things. Is it worth something, how fast do I want to get rid of it and how much room is it taking up.

Anything that is super rare I would (myself) be tempted to slightly over-price it as a Buy it Now and then let people offer less. I can always put the price down afterwards, but I can't put it up if its too cheap and/or sells within 20 minutes.

https://www.Bookfinder.com is the best "price finder" as it also lists eBay listings.

If I was selling it I'd probably start at £300 and work downwards until someone buys it. BIN's are all "good till cancelled" so they can be listed and forgotten about, just occasionally checking and price adjusted if needed.

Hope that helps.

[ralphrmartin]

Don't believe all book prices you read on the net. It doesn't mean they have ever sold at such a price. Quite a lot of prices are decided by algorithms, which tend to do things like "find prices on the net and add 10% to the 2nd cheapest price". There was an infamous case on Amazon years back where some random textbook ended up being priced at over $1 billion due to 2 algorithms trying to outsmart each other in such a manner, each bumping up its own price on a frequent basis.

There's a coffee table book on algae I woouldn't mind a copy of, for say £25, and while there seem to be quite a few available at booksellers, they are all priced at several hundred quid. As far as I can see, they never get sold - its just copycatism.

Why not put your book on eBay for a low starting price, and mention the sale in a few forums like this one. If an item is really desirable, it will get bid up to what its worth anyhow - and if someone really wants it, they probably have a saved search for it anyway.

(I'm not saying this to try to bring the price down, just saying what I would do if I had something desirable to sell ) .

[Keith L]

I've not listed expensive books on Ebay for a great many years and only put low value oddments there these days so have no experience of best tactics to get high prices for listings.

Many people have approached me offering books saying "I see how much these books go for on the net" to which I have to reply that those listed are the ones which haven't sold and give no indication of the prices books have actually gone for.

In almost all cases the high priced books don't exist, but are listed by some very cleaver high tech people who scan the net for scarcer books and list them at appropriate high prices depending on their scarcity on the basis that they will be able to find a copy somewhere in the world at a lower price. The feedback for such sellers often gives them away with comments like "Book got lost in post", "condition not as listed" or just plain purchase cancelled.

It seems to me that auctioning plants on Ebay works much better than books - most cactus people have always preferred to spend their money on plants than books.

Most people buying on Ebay are looking for bargains. They are also often suspicious of new sellers offering unusual items - so it might be best to try to sell some of the less valuable books first to get a bit of a track record.

With the pandemic, Brexit and now the credit crunch it has become a lot more difficult to know what the market is for books.

Keith

[MatDz]

Seems like a mint condition one sold quite recently for £250: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325375545136 (https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw= ... &LH_Sold=1)

[Tony R]

When EAE Creative Colour Ltd of Norwich both printed and published this super book in 2002, they mainly sold it directly to the public (ie to succulentophiles like us) for around £45 inc. P&P.
Some years later, when they still had many copies left unsold, they 'remaindered' it and sold it off cheap to the cheapo book shops that used to exist back then and to others.
I remember the late George Hollis acquired many of these, and sold them off locally to enthusiasts for £10 each, flooding the market in SE England.
Whether this book is now a rarity because it is sitting on everyone's shelves or is quite common, who only knows.
I would start it relatively low and hope to attract several interested parties to bid it up.

[Cidermanrolls]

If the prices were far too cheap, wouldn’t you expect to see bids on more than 2 out of the 10 currently listed?
I suspect you’ve pitched them about right.

[Cactus Kid]

Thanks for all of your comments.

As suggested, I think I will leave it a bit longer before listing it. As a new seller I may have to build up a little trust before people are willing to bid for higher value items.

Bids slowly trickling in now, and will be listing more tonight for next week.

[ralphrmartin]

Just one comment about www.bookfinder.com. I used to use it a lot, and I still do, but somehow, it doesn't seem to find such a wide range of results as it used to. I'm not sure whether that is just my imagination, but like a lot of price comparison sites these days, it is owned by a large shopping site: "BookFinder.com is an independent subsidiary of AbeBooks."

[Phil_SK]

...and AbeBooks is owned by Amazon.