How to price your stuff to sell
Here at ShopSavvy our backend systems see a LOT of prices each day – millions in fact. That data is pretty useful. For example, have you ever wondered how much you should sell a particular used product for if you really want it to sell fast? We have a simple endpoint that can give you this price:
http://data.shopsavvy.com/products/24543656067/suggestedused
Just insert the UPC/EAN after the /products/ in the URL and our system will return a price 20% lower than the lowest used price other sellers are offering. The system isn’t perfect as we only have a few million products with ‘suggested used’ prices out of more than twenty million total – but it is pretty good. Also, some sellers sell books for a penny (i.e. they make money on the shipping arbitrage) so 20% less than a penny is like .008 cents.
We have LOTS of endpoints like this for all sorts of bits of data. Have any cool ideas? Email us and we might be able to help – sales@shopsavvy.com
Undercutting by 20% is not a good pricing strategy. I have years of experience selling used items “on the side” – mostly DVDs, books and VHS (back in time when VHS mattered) and I have 100+ feedback on Amazon and 300+ on Ebay, so i must have sold over couple of thousand items by now. So anyway this was backgrounder about which market i have knowledge of – and i can tell you that because of already low margins one cannot afford to undercut by 20%. Because of the way Amazon Marketplace and Half.com order the listings, a difference of 1 cent is enough to put you on top of the list (which increases sale chances disproportionately, just like in Apple AppStore and Android Market)
Let me do quick pricing as illustration. The item you gave as example – UPC 024543656067, Avatar (Original Theatrical Edition, 2009). Right now your system returns $2.20 on it. Looking on Amazon, the lowest used price is $3.65, so with $3.64 i get on top of the list – and if the condition is “very good” or “like new”, i guarantee you it will sell within a week. The difference of $1.44 is significant because we haven’t accounted Amazon fees yet: $0.99 “per-item fee” + 15% “referral fee” + $0.80 “closing fee” (yes, Virginia – Amazon milks three times). So if i sell for $3.64, i get to keep $1.30. If i sell for $2.20 though, their cut is $2.12 which leaves me “profit” of 8 cents. Whoops. At least it’s not negative but i think the point is clear.