Bidvoy: the value of products based on eBay data
Bidvoy is a free online service that returns product price trends and recommendations to you when you use the service.
The marketplace eBay is a great resource even if it changed significantly in recent years and moved the focus from consumer to business offerings. It is still possible to make bargains on eBay or purchase items on eBay that you won't find anywhere else. It is still possible to make bargains on eBay.
One question that you have to ask yourself each time is whether the asking price is reasonable. If you analyze a specific product, you will notice that the price range is huge. Core reasons for that are that sellers may pick any price and that items may be entered without expiration date.
The price range of a new Lego Star Wars Death Star is $394.89 to $1529.99. You should research the price of an item on eBay and elsewhere before you make a purchase unless the item is dead cheap.
One option to do so is to browse the sold listings on eBay. Works well but if you need to do so regularly, you may prefer a different service that speeds things up a little bit. Enter Bidvoy.
The value of products on eBay
Bidvoy is a free service for eBay in the US, UK, Germany, and Austria. The service monitors products on eBay to show you the value of a product over time on the marketplace. It offers additional services that you may find useful.
Here is how it works:
- Select the eBay marketplace that you want to base your research on.
- Type a product name, e.g. Samsung Galaxy Book 10, Apple iPhone 5, or Lego 42078.
Bidvoy displays the price trend of the item based on eBay data and the selection of a category (which you may change). You can modify the data range, default is six months, and specify whether you want auction or buy it now, used or new data.
The service lists averages, weekly trends, the number of auctions and the price margin underneath the chart. There you may also find suggestions when to make the purchase (minimum for the buyer) and when to sell it (maximum for the seller)
Bidvoy lists a handful of auctions with recommendations. The service earns affiliate commissions when you click through and displays its assessment of the price next to each item (e.g. overpriced). Links to Amazon may also be provided.
Closing Words
Bidvoy is a useful service to find out the value of products based on eBay data. The service does not seem to use sold listings on the other hand which usually reflect the price better than auction listings.
There is also no option to monitor the price or keep a list of favorites to check price trends regularly. You can bookmark each and open these bookmarks, but it would be more useful if Bidvoy would offer such features instead.
Bidvoy offers complementary data that you may find useful. I would not base my buying decisions solely on the product as it lacks features such as the data from sold listings on eBay.
Now You: Do you use eBay?
What happened to BidVoy? The site has been down for months!
I’m always surprised to see items that should cost 100 being listed for 800. There will be a dozen listings for 100, then one listing for 800.
I wonder if they are just hoping that someone accidentally clicks on their listing and buys it for the ridiculous price.
Any idea why you frequently see this on eBay?
@james c:
I don’t know about eBay specifically, but you see the same sort of thing on Amazon. Search for a product and sort the list from most expensive to least. You’ll usually see a few with ludicrously high prices, like thousands of dollars for a $5 item.
I read somewhere that this happens because a seller is out of stock for the item, but wants to keep the listing intact so it won’t lose ranking or somesuch. So they intentionally bump the price so high that nobody will buy it, then lower the price again when they get it back in stock. That seems weird to me, so I favor a different explanation I read: money laundering.
Apparently some people use Amazon to launder money by listing items for ludicrous amounts of money, then buying them themselves.
If there’s truth to either of those things, it’s probably true on eBay as well.
For me, i love shopping, mostly on ebay. i dont do a lot of it but what i do turns into fun. i can shop, read reviews, compare prices and on and on. all from the comfort of my den. i have never had buying or shipping problems…returns are free and easy. and i dont have to deal with dips disguised as salespeople. parking is no problem as its always available in my comfortable desk chair. but thats just me…c.
I don’t use eBay, nor Amazon, nor any supermarket-like on-line purchasing store but rather on specialized websites (books, computer hardware …). I appreciate the Web for consultation, information and comparison of products but then I’ll prefer going in town and buy there unless the product I need and found on the Web is not available in my city shops. I deeply dislike the increasing trend to buy all & everything & you name it on the Web.
I’m realizing that eBay, because it’s an auction website, doesn’t really fit in my “supermarket-like on-line purchasing” stores because it’s more than that. No auction here in town unless that of poor people’s goods when they just couldn’t manage any longer (this is not Paris!); nothing to do with eBay. My neighbor loves eBay, he tells me he finds nice stuff, sometimes modest but no longer available in shops, he receives a bunch of electronic things he pays a few bucks, sometimes even from China … OK. Little ‘old me don’t like auctions nor bargaining, but that’s only me.
Forgot to mention that the idea a journalist would write only about what he likes personally is not mine at all : of course the point is always information. Some bloggers commit themselves so tightly to their articles that it becomes obvious interference is of the lot. Not here, not that it need to be said but only that emphasizing got in my mind.
Swiss precision :=)
@Tom Hawack:
I don’t really consider eBay as a general-purpose store. When I’m buying something on eBay, it’s because I literally can’t find it anywhere else and can’t do without it. For me, this is usually obscure electronic parts.
Agree, especially since it makes the shops disappear and thus the life in our cities.
It is the fault of the lack of time and the fact that it takes everything and right away nowadays.
Tom I do the very same thing most of the time; sometimes, it is not possible to buy items locally, e.g. when it is an old item, you live remotely, or don’t have options to transport an item or have it transported to you.
Yes. I live in the US, where owning a car is borderline mandatory in order to function. Online shopping is one of the things that lets me get away without owning one. Getting rid of my car was a wonderful thing. I really, really enjoy not having the expense and hassle of it anymore.