Since late 2009, I have noticed that prices here are steadily creeping up, and lately, sellers here are quoting prices that are even higher than ebay. I was helping a customer to look for a set of Guru lands. 1 MOTL member who was quitting, wanted $450+ for 5 Guru (1 of each), even though there were 2 ebay auctions that end at $380-390 for a set.

Today, saw another MOTL thread that list Guru lands at $155 for island, $82 for non islands. I check ebay ending prices and they are more like $140-150 for islands, $75 for non-islands. There is even an ebay BIN of $350 for Island + Mountain + Swamp + Forest.

http://classic.magictraders.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/094426.html#4

While I understand there are still some understanding MOTL sellers who are willing to work out deals with buyers, it seems like the trend of MOTLers asking for "Higher End of Ebay Ending prices" without wanting to pay ebay/paypal fees is getting serious.

And every once and a while you'll see a list where someone needs to unload some stuff quick at cheap.
The other lists that have cards sitting on them at high prices have always been there I think.

I think cards in general are worth more nowa days, and especially for niche cards people feels there's enough of a market to tinker with high prices and see if they get any bites.

Not all items have been cheaper on MOTL.

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Originally posted by Volcanon:
Shrug, it's been overly expensive here since everybody and their dog has started demanding that non-US buyers pay $20 for shipping for a dollar rare.

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Originally posted by Soldier Boi:
I know exactly what you mean. I do a lot of buying on here but lately I just have been using eBay more and more because sometimes people here want more money for cards that are sellin for less on eBay. Back in the day the MOTL price guide was the price of the card period. I guess the prices are to low for people now. I get most of my cards from MAB or eBay. Every once in a while I post a list or I see someone who has some cards I want at reasonable prices.

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Originally posted by Vegas10:
what is MAB?

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Originally posted by Filip Cec:
I do not see any reason why MOTL should be cheaper then Ebay. Especially for stuff like Guru lands which are rather rare and constantly rising in value.
On this forum you still can pick up a lot of stuff cheaply but IMO if someone wants to sell stuff at a "higher-then-MOTL-price-guide" price, I'm perfectly ok with that.

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Well, sellers on MOTL save on ebay fees (10-15%), paypal fees (4%). 14-19% is a lot of money (If you feel otherwise, try offering 14-19% discount to all your customers and you will know what I mean). That is why MOTL should be cheaper than ebay.

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Originally posted by Filip Cec:
And that's the exact reason why people sell on MOTL in the first place. But still, why should they use prices lower then MOTL - a lot of times the cards will actually sell. If they do not the seller can lower the price. If they do not lower them then either they are bad merchants who will not make a profit or they have some other reasons why they do not want to sell at a lower price (local demand, price speculations etc).
As far as the Guru lands are concerned - they are special pimping items and therefore I understand the traders that do not want to drop the prices below a margin they see fit - either the gurus will sell for a high price or they will sit in the binder and slowly raise in price. If you aren't in a hurry to get some cash why should you adjust your price to the MOTL price guide when dealing with guru lands?

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You are factually wrong on a few count:

1) MOTL Price Guide does not provide figures on Guru lands....I typed "Guru" and nothing came up. Maybe you can teach me the search term you are using

2) Well, selling on MOTL at ebay prices or even 5-10% discount to ebay prices will give the seller more than selling on ebay as ebay comes with 15-20% fee once you factor in paypal fees as well.

But selling at more than ebay prices is really dubious. Maybe there are a lot of "not so clever" MOTL members that are willing to pay more when ebay has cheaper BIN alternatives.

I am not interested in discussing this further with stu or Filip. I just count myself lucky that I have a friend who is willing to lend me his ebay account to bid and buy freely. You guys can carry on the debate from now. Basically, the conclusion is "There are not so smart MOTLers who are willing to pay more than ebay prevailing prices so it is ok to chop their wallets". The next time you buy on MOTL, do double check ebay to see if you are one of the "not so clever MOTL member" who is paying more than ebay prices. Buyers aware.

Will not be posting any further in this thread as some of the replies here are not of high discussion values and seem to be based more on personal vendetta.....If I continue to reply, I forsee this thread being locked. If you guys have good points to contribute, do continue to post. Otherwise, refrain as I will not be posting further on this thread.

Cards in other formats, I try to sell at or approximately below MOTL and take conditions into account. I think my prices are generally fair, but there also seems to be much lower demand for Legacy cards here, and I don't want to price my cards so low as to barely make it worth my time just to be able to make a sale (the only reason I am able to sell so much is because I buy some collections locally/online, so I need to make some profit from it; the lower profit % I make the less reason there is to keep doing this).

That said, I actually do understand exactly what MTD is saying and I fully agree with him to an extent. However, I have to ask a question that probably has an obvious answer. If a card has a certain range on e-bay, why (as a seller) wouldn't I want to sell at the top of that range?

The only point I will disagree on from what I read is the fees. Yes, we do save e-bay fees, but not always on PayPal fees. Buyers will still choose at time to pay with CC PayPal and I do eat the 2.9% + .30... not 4% like everyone tries to claim. That is a cost of doing business, whether or not the buyer asks/chooses to add the fee.

Also, let's be realistic. Prices of Magic cards are kinda like stocks. It goes up, it goes down, it does both in the same day... pretty much, it can be a little volatile. That's why I always put the disclaimer that if I am that far off on pricing, tell me and I will adjust.

__________________
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Originally posted by MAB_Rapper:

Also, let's be realistic. Prices of Magic cards are kinda like stocks. It goes up, it goes down, it does both in the same day... pretty much, it can be a little volatile. That's why I always put the disclaimer that if I am that far off on pricing, tell me and I will adjust.

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I was going to mention this as well.

I mean, Mab's list is much much larger than anything I've published, but it's impossible to keep everything exactly up to date.

I personally use the MOTL guide strictly, but sometimes my prices are out of date. It's a lot easier to notice when things go up than when things go down, but I always have put I am open to offers. Especially if you're taking a lot of things off my hands, yeah I'd be more than willing to take a hit on the MOTL price if you're grabbing a bunch of stuff.

I think what you're seeing though is like a different mind set with some members. It is absolutely free to post your sale list, and not everyone is super concerned with moving their things. So it becomes, hey I'll slap some stuff up there and see if it moves. If not, eh whatever. If it does, sweet!

Regardless, I think my favorite thing about working on a forum to sell cards is you can always make an offer, or work with the buyer/seller to try and strike up a deal.

The other thing I would like to point out, is that the USPS jacked the crap out of their international shipping rates. I can imagine you guys out of the country hate to see people quote higher prices, but that's sorta what happened here.

Higher end stuff (cards that are 100+ each) is probably better found on ebay, but only because some people just don't put the right BIN on their cards or the bidding may end at the wrong time. So you get a deal, not necessarily that you paid for what the cards are actually worth. Will you find the card you need all the time cheaper on Ebay, no you won't...do you want to keep searching every day for that deal... I have found that the stuff that is underpriced on ebay gets bought out in a day.

Many people on here expect to get the same prices for cards that just came out, people on here are pretty smart and they don't buy them because they know the values on most new cards are only going to go down. I can't explain these people as I think for new cards you gotta mark them down by 10-20% just to get them moved. On a large list or regular poster I would say the actual problem is staying up to date. I am guilty of this big time as my list is so large that I only go back through it and reprice stuff when I have downtime, which is not often.

When I have someone tell me that you can buy it on ebay for XX, I actually go and look, but then I also go and look and see what a store would pay me for the card. 80% of the time these same ebayers could get more at the online store...does that mean that I should sell it for ebay BIN? I may readjust my value, but I won't go below what I could sell it to at a store.

If you are buying a playset or two ebay is probably your best bet to check, if you are buying a bunch of cards then you would never pay for the shipping from a bunch of different sellers on ebay and I would never even bother checking. You would go to one of the online stores instead to get a combined shipping. Well I would say the majority of the major sellers on MOTL have a cheaper price then the online stores.

In my experience people on ebay do not grade their cards right. Many people get cards that are not in the condition stated. Here if you have an issue you can have an open dialog in most cases with the parties and get it resolved quick. Very few times can you get the seller to give you a couple of bucks back or credit on a future order for the cards because of condition. After all you bought the cards so you needed them and hopefully not just because they underpriced them.

I do think the posters question should have been two part
1. is the card unique and high valued?
2. is it a cheap to moderate card you can find easily for sale?

BTW, a bubble would only occur if that items kept going up for no reason at all basically...these have a very valid reason...there aren't many of them, more and more people are playing magic every day, so the demand goes up, isn't hard to understand.

As far as ebay vs MOTL pricing, everyone can agree on easy, readily available stuff I am among the lowest on 99% of the items I post for sale, and that 1% is usually high-end, hard to find items that I have no problem sitting on and getting max value on. I don't think anyone would want to take less for a rare item that is only getting rarer.