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

[justafan]

 

 

I've noticed this behavior too recently.  Isn't this behavior considered fraudulent business practices and thus potentially illegal?  When the sold price advertised is not reflecting the actual amount paid which is very misleading to future customers, it is doing more harm than if they were not listing a sold price at all.  If ebay counters that its sold prices are private and only to be known between seller and buyer, then I would argue that they should not advertise a sold price or completed sale price at all.  By advertising the original listing sold price but restricting access to the actual sold price they are a party to price and market manipulation.

Class action suit?

 

 

 

Edited August 22, 2017 by justafan
removed gif with profane language

[comicquant]

this was hidden because I had other names in it

 

Edited August 22, 2017 by comicquant

[VintageComics]

On 8/21/2017 at 2:24 PM, 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.

People always say this but pricing doesn't happen in a vacuum.

You wouldn't walk into a car dealership and pay $100K for a $50K just because you feel like it.

People pay based on past market performance.

[VintageComics]

2 hours ago, thirdgreenham said:

eBay is a HUGE source of data, due to the volume alone, so I wouldn't dare think of excluding it.

If GPA is in danger of losing customers due to this new practice of eBay's, I would think it's in @gpanalysis (George's) best interest to reach out to eBay regarding this problem.

I was scanning the thread to see if someone finally tagged George.

[VintageComics]

I'd be interested to know if Go Collect has encountered this problem.

[comicquant]

eBay has exclusive rights over their data and which data is considered private.  At the very least they most likely disclose this somewhere in their pile of legalese.  The other potential problem is illegal data usage by third parties.  eBay has extremely stringent rules on how their data can be consumed and used by third parties such as GPA.  In many cases the data can't even be persisted as it may change on eBay's side and eBay does not want to be in the business of data change management (notifying data consumers of changes).  So as far as eBay is concerned I'm sure they circled the wagons years ago to prevent any legal ramifications.  GPA on the other hand may need to revisit how they're ingesting the data.  However, GPA is in a unique position by not really having much competition so my guess is its a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" type of situation for them.  There are some out there but they're usually lacking some serious functionality.  

[Tony S]

I got a reply back from GPA.  The summary is that they pull eBay prices from eBay API's.  They know there is a "handful of slightly off prices" because of the way some eBay offers are handled . They say "these are a tiny fraction of BIN prices".   And that they continue to monitor all prices. 

I'm going to write back.  I can see where it is completely true that a "handful of slightly off prices" might not make much difference on the average for say a New Mutants 98 in 9.6.  But on much less commonly traded books - say a Batman 47 - where there are only 6-10 sales a year recorded  a few that are way off could have an oversize effect. 

Addressing a few comments here - I don't use GPA as "gospel". But if I have to start searching half a dozen websites manually to double check on what GPA is listing,  why am I paying $120 a year for? Right now I (most of the time) use GPA and ComicLink (CL not reporting to GPA) for slabs and Overstreet and eBay for raws. I can't spend an hour researching prices on every single comic I buy and sell.  I pay for pricing tools to speed that process up. 

Edited August 22, 2017 by Tony S

[Dreamtoreal1]

The value of something is what someone is willing to pay for it. Always as a buyer look at Ebay sold prices/Overstreet and maybe GPA. Then make an estimate of what you are comfortable paying. Sellers/dealers will have a %10/%30+ cushion for asking prices on their key comics and then settle for much less. also GPA does not count Craigslist deals. cash deals, trades, cgc board sales ,convention sales etc. so Again do your homework as a buyer.

Personally when a seller starts the sentence with "Last GPA was $800/$900 etc" . I run away from it because that's just ONE comic not accurate to determine the pulse on the market as a whole.  in my opinion

[Tony S]

12 minutes ago, Dreamtoreal1 said:

The value of something is what someone is willing to pay for it. Always as a buyer look at Ebay sold prices/Overstreet and maybe GPA. Then make an estimate of what you are comfortable paying. Sellers/dealers will have a %10/%30+ cushion for asking prices on their key comics and then settle for much less. also GPA does not count Craigslist deals. cash deals, trades, cgc board sales ,convention sales etc. so Again do your homework as a buyer.

Personally when a seller starts the sentence with "Last GPA was $800/$900 etc" . I run away from it because that's just ONE comic not accurate to determine the pulse on the market as a whole.  in my opinion

What you say that I have bolded also applies to services.... Like GPA 

At $120 a year, they are the most expensive pricing tool I purchase.  The OPG isn't near the "Bible" it used to be. But at $30 a year, I find it worth the cost. 

I pay $120 a year for GPA based upon the belief that it is a REAL TIME reporting of ACTUAL sales of CGC slabs from the largest auction / exchange houses. We have had the discussion about GPA not catching Craiglist, convention sales etc, etc on these boards before.  I don't WANT those sales to be captured. The data is too unreliable. Too many reporters would simply lie about the actual sale prices.  Lie the same way we see a potential skew of data here. Prices too high. 

The sky isn't falling here. But I take a lot of interest in this because I buy and sell a lot of comics.  Stuff I pay money for needs to have value to me.  Goods and services.  If I can't trust the numbers in GPA it's not worth $120 a year to me.  That's it. 

 

[WoWitHurts]

2 hours ago, VintageComics said:

This is very different than GPA being Gospel.

It's now recording erroneous prices which skew data even worse than anything previous.

And I've noticed that several sellers are specifically looking for GPA highs on their goods, making it even more difficult to buy books at reasonable prices.

This is not good.

oh I agree.  Totally.  I quite my subscription earlier this year when I realized how many books it misses among the titles I collect.

[Squad008]

2 hours ago, Tony S said:

I got a reply back from GPA.  The summary is that they pull eBay prices from eBay API's.  They know there is a "handful of slightly off prices" because of the way some eBay offers are handled . They say "these are a tiny fraction of BIN prices".   And that they continue to monitor all prices. 

I'm going to write back.  I can see where it is completely true that a "handful of slightly off prices" might not make much difference on the average for say a New Mutants 98 in 9.6.  But on much less commonly traded books - say a Batman 47 - where there are only 6-10 sales a year recorded  a few that are way off could have an oversize effect. 

Addressing a few comments here - I don't use GPA as "gospel". But if I have to start searching half a dozen websites manually to double check on what GPA is listing,  why am I paying $120 a year for? Right now I (most of the time) use GPA and ComicLink (CL not reporting to GPA) for slabs and Overstreet and eBay for raws. I can't spend an hour researching prices on every single comic I buy and sell.  I pay for pricing tools to speed that process up. 

I don't get their statement that they know there is a "handful of slightly off prices."  If you cannot tell the accuracy of BIN sales data from eBay , then how can you even respond with any sentence using the words "handful" or "slightly."  

The BIN sales that I did that led to this post were about 20% less then full asking.  I bet that there are plenty of these transactions that are discounted way more than 20%.  Comics with high volumes of CGC sales have the bulk of their sales go through eBay.  This means thee are a lot of BIN sales.  You cannot possibly mix this BIN data in with legitimate sales data and claim to have accurate last sale, 90 day average, 12 month average, etc..  This is the equivalent of GPA knowingly allowing eBay to give its data an STD and then passing it on. GPA is a specialty website whose paying customers buy and/or sell enough comics that its worth paying the subscription fee.  

Lets be realistic, eBay sales data and 3rd party sites like GPA influence the comic market.  I know that everyone says to use sites like GPA as a reference, and people know the flaws, but I would also bet that the majority, and I mean a large majority, believe that the historic sales prices recorded by these 3rd party sites were the actual sales price.  

Why does eBay even provide sold listing data in the first place?  Because buyers demand it and sellers demand it for pricing purposes.  Their artificially manipulating sales data higher and I'm sure that people are going to get burned.

[oakman29]

5 hours ago, VintageComics said:

People always say this but pricing doesn't happen in a vacuum.

You wouldn't walk into a car dealership and pay $100K for a $50K just because you feel like it.

People pay based on past market performance.

Youre missing "price Im willing to pay" part. Im not stupido! I keep abreast of prices for books I am interested in,I just dont rely on GPA, or Ebay. I rely on my gut, and how nice the book is. 

[Semicentennial]

6 hours ago, Tony S said:

What you say that I have bolded also applies to services.... Like GPA 

At $120 a year, they are the most expensive pricing tool I purchase.  The OPG isn't near the "Bible" it used to be. But at $30 a year, I find it worth the cost. 

I pay $120 a year for GPA based upon the belief that it is a REAL TIME reporting of ACTUAL sales of CGC slabs from the largest auction / exchange houses. We have had the discussion about GPA not catching Craiglist, convention sales etc, etc on these boards before.  I don't WANT those sales to be captured. The data is too unreliable. Too many reporters would simply lie about the actual sale prices.  Lie the same way we see a potential skew of data here. Prices too high. 

The sky isn't falling here. But I take a lot of interest in this because I buy and sell a lot of comics.  Stuff I pay money for needs to have value to me.  Goods and services.  If I can't trust the numbers in GPA it's not worth $120 a year to me.  That's it. 

 

Based on the info in this thread I've canceled my subscription renewal.  You're right, if the numbers can't be trusted then I'm not putting in any money into that.

[comicwiz]

Can anyone who has paid less than the posted final price, or who knows of listings where a full asking price is posted when a lower offer was accepted, post some examples. Some screenshots showing how the offer was sent/accepted, and proving a differential amount from the actual listed price would be helfpul if you were involved in the transaction. I need more actual examples to work with as I want to see if there's something in eBay's API that would generate that information which is seemingly being hidden or reserved to just the seller/buyer, but sadly it's looking like eBay is only producing the full asking price. Thanks

Edited August 24, 2017 by comicwiz

[thirdgreenham]

On 2017-08-22 at 7:37 PM, oakman29 said:

Youre missing "price Im willing to pay" part. Im not stupido! I keep abreast of prices for books I am interested in,I just dont rely on GPA, or Ebay. I rely on my gut, and how nice the book is. 

What does your gut tell you?  

[oakman29]

25 minutes ago, thirdgreenham said:

What does your gut tell you?  

Depends on the book Andy. 

I don't mind paying a premium for extra pretty books,GPA be damned.

[batman_fan]

4 hours ago, oakman29 said:

Depends on the book Andy. 

I don't mind paying a premium for extra pretty books,GPA be damned.

Hey Oakman29. Put me in the same camp as you. What something has sold for in the past is a data point but no guarantee of what an item will go for in the future. 

[comicwiz]

With the help of fellow boardie's who shared some example listings, I was able to find a manner of checking listings which have sold for less than the reported full asking or BIN price. To check an auction, replace the item number in red text with the item number you'd like to check. If you see the double hyphen, or -- under the price field, eBay is not revealing the send offer price, and it might be a good idea to exlcude it as a past sales data point.

Note: Click here to open a new session, but you will need to locate the item number in the search string and replace it with the item number you want to check:

Edited August 25, 2017 by comicwiz

[comicalgems]

[VintageComics]

On 8/22/2017 at 8:37 PM, oakman29 said:

On 8/22/2017 at 2:44 PM, VintageComics said:

People always say this but pricing doesn't happen in a vacuum.

You wouldn't walk into a car dealership and pay $100K for a $50K just because you feel like it.

People pay based on past market performance.

Youre missing "price Im willing to pay" part. Im not stupido! I keep abreast of prices for books I am interested in,I just dont rely on GPA, or Ebay. I rely on my gut, and how nice the book is. 

And that was my point exactly.

'Willing to pay' is based on previous sales prices. It's not an arbitrary number.

So you don't use GPA is your price but everyone uses some sort of research to base their offer prices on.