[Consim-l] Re: #400 for me

[Dave Kohr]

On 1/5/07, Mircea Pauca <mircea.pauca at gmail.com> wrote:
>    Dave Kohr said:
> > I've been amazed at the prices I've gotten on Ebay on many
> > titles--definitely higher than expected.
>
>    Is there a way to know past winning prices on Ebay ?
> For instance, I could have been interested in your DAK1 and
> Rommel in the Desert - what price did they win ?

Yes, but about 90 days after the auction ends, Ebay pulls down the
listing so you can't access it anymore.

The easiest way to find selling prices for a particular game is to
search for its title, and check the little box that says "Completed
listings". However, this kind of search does not find every matching
completed auction from the last 90 days, I think it only goes back
about a month. So for example, my "Rommel in the Desert" and DAK
auction listings are still up there right now, at

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110043419080&ssPageName=ADME:L:DSS:US:11

and

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110043419141&ssPageName=ADME:L:DSS:US:11

but you can't search for them....  RitD sold for $21.50, DAK for $76.

Probably your best bet for getting a lot of pricing data is to have an
automated search send you email when new matching items appear. Then
add the matching items to your "watch list", and you can access them
until their 90 days is up.

Ebay has APIs now to allow other sites (like the Geek) to access their
auction listings, so I have to think there are or soon will be sites
that let you look at auction price data that spans long periods of
time.

>    Does Paypal charge much to the payment receiver ?

I think the payer pays for currency conversion, then the recipient
pays a fixed fee plus a percentage; the precise amount varies with the
type of account the recipient has. I think it's generally in the range
of 4-5%, which is somewhat more than credit card companies charge in
the US. Most Ebay sellers seem willing to pay for the convenience,
though.

Dave