GPA Analysis and Past eBay Sales No Longer Accurate, Warning! 4 4

[lou_fine]

8 minutes ago, Tony S said:

Well, as someone that pays $119 a year for a subscription to GPA, I find this information both new and unsettling. I thought that on BIN's and offers, GPA ultimately recorded the actual sale price as reported to them by eBay.  I don't want pricing data that is skewed on the high side by recording BIN prices never actually achieved.  

I maintain that paying customers of GPA are better served by a smaller data set of sales that consists of high quality data than a larger data set that is of lower quality data.  GPA should exclude sales where they cannot be confident that was in fact the price paid.  As a paying subscriber, I''ll be emailing them my concerns. 

+1

If I was a paying customer I would definitely be concerned as i find that any numbers coming from eBay is more than likely already skewed to the high side.

Especially when an overwhelming proportion of their comic book auctions are now done only in the BIN format as sellers seemingly have absolutely no confidence their books will be able to sell for a reasonable price in a true open auction format.  With BIN formatted auctions, you end up with only a very limited number of completed sales over a period of time, and yet possibly hundreds of uncompleted sales at the same price level. 

 

[bababooey]

26 minutes ago, Tony S said:

Well, as someone that pays $119 a year for a subscription to GPA, I find this information both new and unsettling. I thought that on BIN's and offers, GPA ultimately recorded the actual sale price as reported to them by eBay.  I don't want pricing data that is skewed on the high side by recording BIN prices never actually achieved.  

I maintain that paying customers of GPA are better served by a smaller data set of sales that consists of high quality data than a larger data set that is of lower quality data.  GPA should exclude sales where they cannot be confident that was in fact the price paid.  As a paying subscriber, I''ll be emailing them my concerns. 

I thought, based on what I've read here, that GPA collected sales data more than once when it comes to transactions, there's an initial feed based on purchases but I thought that the later or final data feed related to reconciliation when e-bay's fees were charged to sellers.  GPA would need that to delete sales records when someone bids and doesn't pay  so a process for deleting those records and updating others based on the finalized data stream (when FVF are adjusted or not paid) seems like a no brainer for them to have built into their process.

 I'm no expert on the subject of GPA or e-bay but I thought I had read something about that here.  

Edited August 21, 2017 by bababooey

[Squad008]

5 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

+1

If I was a paying customer I would definitely be concerned as i find that any numbers coming from eBay is more than likely already skewed to the high side.

Especially when an overwhelming proportion of their comic book auctions are now done only in the BIN format as sellers seemingly have absolutely no confidence their books will be able to sell for a reasonable price in a true open auction format.  With BIN formatted auctions, you end up with only a very limited number of completed sales over a period of time, and yet possibly hundreds of uncompleted sales at the same price level. 

 

I pay for GPA as well.  I am aware of some limitations that they cannot help, such as a seller listed an item as unblemished holder and clearly you can see the CGC case cracked and it sells for well below market.  Can't be perfect and I expected that.  This is a whole different issue entirely.

Rationally thinking, if these sales have been listed by eBay at the full listing price for 2 years then GPA has an issue.  Obviously some of the BIN are selling for full asking price, so its a your damned if you do, your damned if you don't.  You can't ignore that much sales data if it was a long term issue.

If this is a fairly recent change to eBay, say past 1-2 months, then the BIN auctions shouldn't be included in the 90 day averages, etc..

Simple solution though: create a filter on pay sites like GPA where you can see the historic prices with the unreliable and probably majorly tampered BIN prices and then click the filter to show historic data without the skewed eBay BIN prices.  It's not perfect but at least for comics with long sales histories of BIN or Best Offer, Auction listings and sales on other sites outside of eBay, you probably will see if the BIN skewed listings have significantly affected the historic prices upwards.  Just my opinion since sites like GPA probably use data mining and only have data that eBay posts publicly.

[Squad008]

6 minutes ago, bababooey said:

I thought, based on what I've read here, that GPA collected sales data more than once when it comes to transactions, there's an initial feed based on purchases but I thought that the later or final data feed related to reconciliation when e-bay's fees were charged to sellers.  GPA would need that to delete sales records when someone bids and doesn't pay  so a process for deleting those records and updating others based on the finalized data stream (when FVF are adjusted or not paid) seems like a no brainer for them to have built into their process.

 I'm no expert on the subject of GPA or e-bay but I thought I had read something about that here.  

I'm not sure but I will keep an eye on whether the GPA sales change for the two books I recently sold through send an offer.  I got my eBay invoice for the sales already, says my auto payment will be charged between Aug. 23-25 so if it doesn't change after that then it probably won't.

I always thought that their computer program followed the item number and if it gets relisted they then automatically took the data out for that particular sale and note it was relisted below the sales data.  I don't know

[Pitboss]

I've had several "Send Offer" deals that showed on GPA just fine. I'm sure it comes down to how much Ebay allows GPA to see.

[MustEatBrains]

2 hours ago, Tony S said:

Well, as someone that pays $119 a year for a subscription to GPA, I find this information both new and unsettling. I thought that on BIN's and offers, GPA ultimately recorded the actual sale price as reported to them by eBay.  I don't want pricing data that is skewed on the high side by recording BIN prices never actually achieved.  

I maintain that paying customers of GPA are better served by a smaller data set of sales that consists of high quality data than a larger data set that is of lower quality data.  GPA should exclude sales where they cannot be confident that was in fact the price paid.  As a paying subscriber, I''ll be emailing them my concerns. 

Please share any info you learn on this from them.  I vaugely recall the owner of that site being a member here on the boards but might be mistaken.

[Squad008]

 

11 minutes ago, Pitboss said:

I've had several "Send Offer" deals that showed on GPA just fine. I'm sure it comes down to how much Ebay allows GPA to see.

Do you know how eBay listed those deals in their sold items data? Wondering if showing the item sold for full asking is new. 

[oakman29]

Personally I don't really care about any sales information. If I want it, and it's a price I'm willing to pay, it's a sold.

[WoWitHurts]

2 hours ago, Tony S said:

Well, as someone that pays $119 a year for a subscription to GPA, I find this information both new and unsettling. I thought that on BIN's and offers, GPA ultimately recorded the actual sale price as reported to them by eBay.  I don't want pricing data that is skewed on the high side by recording BIN prices never actually achieved.  

I maintain that paying customers of GPA are better served by a smaller data set of sales that consists of high quality data than a larger data set that is of lower quality data.  GPA should exclude sales where they cannot be confident that was in fact the price paid.  As a paying subscriber, I''ll be emailing them my concerns. 

A raw book listed on eBay that says CGC 9.6 in the headline like "Amazing Spider-Man 152 possible CGC 9.8" may vary well be picked up by GPA as to how they gather information.  Likewise a book listed with out reference in the headline but spelled out in the body of the listing may very well NOT be caught by GPA.

If you know that going into it then you use it as a tool to help you but not a definitive source. 

[WoWitHurts]

22 minutes ago, oakman29 said:

Personally I don't really care about any sales information. If I want it, and it's a price I'm willing to pay, it's a sold.

Whether I want/like something I still want to get the best price for it. I compare price shop a lot because unlike cereal (Alaska and Hawaii excluded), comic prices vary greatly from person to person.  One book I wanted varied in price by $150.  I could technically afford the extra $150 but was glad to keep it in my pocket for the next purchase etc.

[Woooooo!]

2 hours ago, WoWitHurts said:

A raw book listed on eBay that says CGC 9.6 in the headline like "Amazing Spider-Man 152 possible CGC 9.8" may vary well be picked up by GPA as to how they gather information. 

This does not happen.

[Gatsby77]

Yeah - I think this is ultimately small potatoes.

Because if you're using GPA as gospel for accurate pricing, you're doing it wrong.

There's already a huge built-in skew with books under $100 because shipping costs can vary between $0 and $20. So one book "selling" for $60 (with $20 shipping) is the same as that same book selling for $80 (with free shipping) -- often within a few days of each other.

Edited August 21, 2017 by Gatsby77

[Tony S]

2 hours ago, MustEatBrains said:

Please share any info you learn on this from them.  I vaugely recall the owner of that site being a member here on the boards but might be mistaken.

George is a member here (pretty sure it's George) but I don't remember his board name.  The few times I've messaged him it has just been through the GPA website. 

[Woooooo!]

2 minutes ago, Tony S said:

George is a member here (pretty sure it's George) but I don't remember his board name.  The few times I've messaged him it has just been through the GPA website. 

https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/profile/904-gpanalysis/

[Woooooo!]

This thread might relate to this topic, George spoke about auctions that look like they ended higher than GPA reported them as.

 

 

[Dr. Love]

1 hour ago, Woooooo! said:

This does not happen.

Correct.  An entry in the Certification Number field is what pulls in the data.

[darkstar]

2 hours ago, Woooooo! said:

This thread might relate to this topic, George spoke about auctions that look like they ended higher than GPA reported them as.

 

 

It doesn't as those sales are the result of best offers accepted on the listing itself. You cannot see the true price for best offers that are made and accepted through ebay messaging. Ebay obscures this so it looks like the item sold for full ask. That leads to a false data point that encourages other sellers to sell the same item at that price and encourages buyers to pay that price. That leads to an increase in fees collected by eBay.

Edited August 21, 2017 by darkstar

[Squad008]

11 minutes ago, darkstar said:

It doesn't as those sales are the result of best offers accepted on the listing itself. You cannot see the true price for best offers that are made and accepted through ebay messaging. Ebay obscures this so it looks like the item sold for full ask. That leads to a false data point that encourages other sellers to sell the same item at that price and encourages buyers to pay that price. That leads to an increase in fees collected by eBay.

That is exactly my thought, win-win for eBay.  GPA definately picks up on the actual selling price for listings that have the "or best offer" feature.  The issue is the deals cut through ebay messaging and the sellers ability to use the "send offer" button.  These are recording on ebay and GPA, and in fairness probably all other 3rd party services that track prices.  The real question that I had was, is this new meaning last month or so, or has this been going on for a while?  Seems the ability for sellers to use the "send offer" button was around for a while but no one can confirm if the ebay sold data a while back would reflect the full asking price on these transactions.  That is the issue, however ebay lists the sales, that is what the 3rd party sites will pick up.

[comicwiz]

Here's my experience with eBay's past sales reporting capabilities.

For several years, you were able to pull up eBay's best offer price via printing/print preview feature on your computer. A crossed out price would show as the accepted offer price. This extra step seemed inefficient, however it was a decent work-around that required a few mouse clicks more to find what you needed.

That completely stopped working about a little over a year and a half ago, and I had to then go into the page source and find the accepted price. I had a comfort level looking at code, so it was a reasonable work around to find comparables data when the print preview feature stopped working. This is when I started to notice eBay was clearly making it harder for people to track past sales.

For about a year, there were tools such as the one mentioned by a board member - watchcount - that would make it easier for someone who was not comfortable weeding through source code, but I started to notice in the last 8 months to a year, results were hit and miss even with these third-party tools.

As an accredited appraiser, and having used eBay as a source for comparables data, I am most disappointed with eBay about what I am reading here. If what I have read is true and accurate to what is occuring, eBay is enabling (and possibly aiding) in price manipulation and price fixing schemes being exploited by opportunistic and unethical sellers.

For years eBay has stopped considering itself to be an auction site, and I can't fault anyone other than eBay for not providing accurate price data. The fact pattern in their evolution seems to indicate they were headed in this direction with all the hurdles to capture what items sold for through their BIN feature.  While I can't think of any positive reason for them to falsify price data (and let's face it, that's what this is if a transaction is reached at a negotiated and accepted offer price lower than the BIN, and they aren't reporting the accepted offer price) if it isn't some form of nefarious reason, than perhaps they are trying too hard (and failing miserably) at trying to make a site that is circling the drain seem like it's still a happening place to sell your stuff, and still get top dollar for it.

Edited August 21, 2017 by comicwiz

[Tony S]

Once again, Comicwiz lives up to his name.  

We can't really do anything about eBay's behavior,  but paying customers ought to have some influence with GPA.  I'm repeating myself, but GPA customers will be much better served by a small high quality data set of comic sales than a larger - maybe much larger - data set that is has much lower quality data.  If there is no way to be certain that data captured out of eBay BIN sales is accurate,  better to just exclude it.

Edited August 22, 2017 by Tony S