Any Half.com experts here who can explain this?

[disneysteve]

I think I asked this question a long time ago but maybe some newer folks can explain this. I sell a fair amount on Half.com and one thing that I can never understand is the sellers that routinely list their books for outrageous prices. They can't possibly be selling them so I wonder what the deal is. If all listed copies are priced between $10 and $25, there will be one person charging $85. I just sold a book for $9 and there is another copy listed for $115. These aren't rare books and there may be many sellers offering the same item all within a reasonable range of each other and then one seller asking 4 or 5 or 10 times more. I don't understand it. I assume I'm missing something or there is some type of scam involved.

[greenskeeper]

I see this on ebay. Maybe a way to get advertising or something along those lines?

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by greenskeeper

I see this on ebay. Maybe a way to get advertising or something along those lines?

I'm not sure what they'd be advertising. I sure wouldn't want to do business with the folks who do this. The odd thing is they generally have very high feedback ratings so they are selling something somewhere.

[kork13]

Just for kicks, and a lack of a reasonable explanation....

It is most likely a cover designed to conceal the true sources of monetary transactions of an individual or organization which requires certain products or services which are not otherwise available or particularly legal for sale in an online auction forum.

........I mean, hey--why not?

[photo]

Just a guess, but if someone is desperately seeking a particular book, maybe the vendor is preying on the fact that the buyer will buy the first thing he sees, which is hopefully, the vendor's grotesquely over-priced item.

[greenskeeper]

Originally Posted by disneysteve

I'm not sure what they'd be advertising. I sure wouldn't want to do business with the folks who do this. The odd thing is they generally have very high feedback ratings so they are selling something somewhere.

The price got you to look at their listing right?

I've seen ebay items, say a car for example listed for $100,0000 and it's a $10k car. But after the listing goes for awhile it's edited to a more reasonable price. I think they get another week of listing for free.

[jpg7n16]

Do they also have identical listings at much lower prices?? I am always suspicious of sales tactics, like "whoa this book sells for $115 regular, and I can get it for only $15? I better jump on that now!" When the book actually retails for $16 or something, so $15 isn't a great deal.

I mean, haven't you ever wondered how their always able to have these 80% off sales on watches??

Amazon.com: Invicta Men's 0647 Reserve Collection Sea Excursion GMT Black Dial Stainless Steel Watch: Watches

Does that mean:
a) It's usually priced at $2,000, but you can get it for only $260! Better jump on that today!! OR
b) It's actually only worth $260 and they want you to think you're getting some great deal.

I tend to believe B. And I believe the same about those books. They're ridiculous prices that no one would ever pay, only listed to make other prices look more reasonable.


Either that, or as suggested above, money laundering

[Mr Nice Guy]

Maybe they have to cook their books and over-value their inventory for some reason. Who knows. I have seen that on Amazon except the reverse scenario:

Seller's will have a book listed for $.01? Even if they have good shipping rates I cant understand how they generate a profit of any standing.

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by Mr Nice Guy

Maybe they have to cook their books and over-value their inventory for some reason. Who knows. I have seen that on Amazon except the reverse scenario:

Seller's will have a book listed for $.01? Even if they have good shipping rates I cant understand how they generate a profit of any standing.

I've had that conversation with a friend who is in the retail collectibles business (primary market, authorized dealer, not reseller). The reality is that they are not making a profit at all. In many cases, they are selling at a loss. The hope is that those sales will lead buyers to their website where they buy other things that do generate a profit.

Personally, I'm not sure it really works that way. When I go on Amazon to buy something, I buy it. I don't proceed to browse for other things. And if I do want other things, I will do a search before buying them to find the best price on each item, not buy everything from one seller.

I bought a car charger for my iPhone for about $2.50 with free shipping. I bought a pack of 3 screen covers for DD's iPod for $.47 with free shipping. Surely no profit was made on that sale since a stamp alone costs $.44.

My friend is basically being driven out of business by folks doing that. He can no longer charge what it actually costs him to ship an item because there is competition out there willing to sell the same item at a loss. I've encountered the same issue selling on ebay. I have always charged actual postage, whatever it costs me, I charge the customer. In recent years, I've had buyers complain that I was overcharging for shipping. How can I be overcharging? If it costs me $4, I charge $4. The problem is that others are offering free shipping on the same item. If I did that, I'd be losing money on every sale.

I'm still not sure how the book thing works, though. It just doesn't make sense to me. Money laundering would only explain it if the seller actually sold the item but who is going to look at a list of available books and pick the one that is 20 times more expensive than all of the others? Are there really that many outrageously stupid people out there to make that a viable business plan?

[NetSkyBlue]

Originally Posted by disneysteve

I'm still not sure how the book thing works, though. It just doesn't make sense to me. Money laundering would only explain it if the seller actually sold the item but who is going to look at a list of available books and pick the one that is 20 times more expensive than all of the others? Are there really that many outrageously stupid people out there to make that a viable business plan?

I think the theory is that they have a customer wanting to buy something illegal, so they tell their customer to purchase their listing of "The Joy of Rock Climbing" for the price they've agreed to pay for the illegal goods. The customer can then make a purchase that looks like a legitimate book purchase on both ends, when in reality they are being shipped something entirely different.

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by NetSkyBlue

I think the theory is that they have a customer wanting to buy something illegal, so they tell their customer to purchase their listing of "The Joy of Rock Climbing" for the price they've agreed to pay for the illegal goods. The customer can then make a purchase that looks like a legitimate book purchase on both ends, when in reality they are being shipped something entirely different.

Gotcha. Wasn't thinking like a criminal .

[kork13]

...as an aside, I find it absolutely joyful how well my illicit goods idea is going over with everyone.

[bjl584]

Check to see if the listings are linked to other sites (Ebay.) The sellers with the high priced book may have a linked listing on Ebay and are banking that if you find it on Ebay you won't check other sources. They hope you will just buy it from Ebay thinking that you got a good deal. Not everyone comparison shops.

[cypher1]

Originally Posted by NetSkyBlue

I think the theory is that they have a customer wanting to buy something illegal, so they tell their customer to purchase their listing of "The Joy of Rock Climbing" for the price they've agreed to pay for the illegal goods. The customer can then make a purchase that looks like a legitimate book purchase on both ends, when in reality they are being shipped something entirely different.

That makes a lot of sense. I'd stick with that theory.

[LuckyRobin]

I, too, would guess at something illegal or at least highly frowned upon being in the pages of those books. I remember many years ago on E-bay people would list a "plain white envelope" for sale that would include "two free complimentary first class upgrades" on airline such and such. Since you couldn't legally sell the upgrades (they were given to premium members for free to use or give to their friends or family members), they'd sell the envelope from anywhere from $99 to $150. It just happened to obtain the upgrades. I'd say there is definitely something being smuggled in the more pricey books.

[disneysteve]

Out of curiosity, I just scanned through the feedback for one of the sellers who does this. Although they have a high rating (224,852) and nearly 5,000 Positives in the past 12 months, they also have over 700 Neutral and Negative feedbacks during that time. Almost all of them are from people saying they purchased a book and then were told it was out of stock. I wonder how that plays into this practice. Surely, a legitmate business shouldn't lose track of over 700 items in a year's time.

[LuckyRobin]

I think sometimes even legitimate sellers list books that they don't actually have, but think they can get a hold of quickly and make a quick profit on, and then it turns out they can't. It's not hard to enter a legitimate barcode for a book you don't actually have, they can just grab it off a library copy. I ran into this a lot on half.com when I was trying to replace an out of print Doctor Who book my husband left on an airplane. Most of the sellers suddenly didn't have it in stock anymore, but not until you tried to order it and they'd had a week to look for it before finally getting back to you.