Find the True Value of any Item on Ebay

For those of you who don’t know, I am doing a series of posts sharing my secret tips and tricks on how to get the most out of Ebay.  You can read all of the Ebay-related posts here.

For today’s post, I am going to show you how to find the true value of any item on Ebay.  I am trying to answer the question, “what is ___ worth?”  First off, value is subjective and how we value things differs from one person to another.  Your grandmother’s wedding ring might be worth a million dollar to you, but only $500 to someone else.  A signed baseball from your favorite player will be worth more to you than someone else.  Hopefully you get what I mean. So how do you determine what something is worth?

Value is determined when a buyer and seller can agree on a price for an item.  If one or both parties cannot agree on a price, then you haven’t found the correct value for the item.  Ebay makes this easy.  If you have an auction, buyers will bid up the price until the item is at their maximum value.  This process works flawlessly 99% of the time.  Sometimes your item will sell for more than you thought and other times, it will sell for less than you wanted.  The high balances out the low and the good balances out the bad.

On Ebay, I determine value 3 ways, ranked in order from best to worst ways to value an item:

1. Looking at recently sold items (preferably auctions within the last week), what were the average prices of the items that sold?
2. If I cannot find much sale history, I will look to see if there are any current auctions or buy it now listings.  What are the current prices of the auctions and what is the lowest buy it now price?
3. Worst case scenario, if I cannot find the exact item on Ebay (either currently for sale or recently sold), I will look at similar items to determine a high to low range of prices.  How similar are the items that sold to the item that I have?  What prices have sold recently?

 

How much is my iPad Mini worth?

For this example, I will show you how to find the true value of my iPad Mini.  Start by typing “ipad mini” into the search box.  In this case, 106,547 live items are available.  However, if I chose the “iPads, Tables & eBook Readers” category, there will only be 1,136 items.

I want to look at auctions only, so I select the auction radius button on the left side.

Now there are 501 iPad Minis up for auction.

I want to look at items that were sold in the United States, so I select the US Only radius button and check the box for Sold Listings.  Now I have 8,361 iPad Minis that sold recently.

I want to look at the highest priced items first, so I select “Price + Shipping: Highest First” from the drop down menu.

The first 3 items I see are 3 iPad Minis that sold for $5,100 down to $1,900.  I would love to sell my $500 iPad Mini for $5,100, but that is not going to happen.

As I scroll down, I notice that there are several different types of iPad Minis for sale.  Some are black, some are white, some are 16GB, some are 32GB, some are 64GB, and some are WiFi only.  Since I know all the details of my iPad Mini, I type them into the search box.  I have a 16GB Black iPad Mini on Verizon, so that narrows down my sold history to 134 items.

I am always skeptical of items that have only 1 bid, in my mind, that is almost the same as a buy it now listing.  I try to look at items that have more than 1 bid.  The next thing I look at is the date the item sold.  All 4 of the items below sold in May and June, so the results are somewhat out of date.

I want to look at the most recently sold items first, so I click the drop down menu and select “End Date: Recent First.”

From here, I see a few items ranging from $100 to $410 that sold during the last 7 days.  Since I know my iPad Mini is in used condition, I check the box for Used under Condition.  Now I have 83 iPad Minis that are in similar condition that have sold recently.

At this point, I see prices ranging from $335 to $420, so I know my iPad Mini will probably sell between $335 and $420.

If you have any items you want me to research, let me know in the comments.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.