I was in Las Vegas during the initial postings and only read the thread Sunday when I scrolled down the ChipBoard. With all of the opinions posted I figured the entire range was presented on this topic. While there was lots of curiosity I hadn’t received a single e-mail asking me a single question other than from the buyer.

While I’m not trying to present any case here I will let you know what my thinking was on my first eBay sale Jay.

Item Price. Since all of the chips I posted for auction were current in-play chips I priced them all at 99 cents for the $1 chips and $2.50 for the snappers. The only exception was the $1 chip from the Atlantis Casino in Paradise Island which was posted at $2.25. Why did I price them at face? Well because that’s exactly what they’re worth. Anyone can walk into any of these casinos and pick up one of these chips. Why would anyone pay more than face?

S&H. I broke this into its 3 parts: postage, packaging, and handling. Postage can be 37 cents if mailed in a standard envelope or 49 cents if mailed in a bubble mailer. Packaging could be a few pennies if mailed in a standard envelope or about 50 cents if mailed in a bubble mailer. That leaves handling. What did it cost me to get the chip to the buyer? Well, there’s the time to address and stuff the envelope and get it to the post office, but that’s negligible. The biggest cost is actually going to the casino and getting the chip. What’s this amount? Hard to say. If I drive the 2 hours over to Biloxi and pick up 5 chips from 4 casinos and it costs me $20 in gas is that $1 per chip for handling? What about the time involved? You can probably think of many other variables. Depending on whichever scenario you choose the handling is probably well above whatever anyone is willing to pay anyway for s&h. But still, people are willing to pay above face for a common chip -- that's because their handling cost would far exceed the total price of obtaining the chip via eBay.

All this is nice to know, but one cannot make a profitable business of it, at least not me. Since many eBay auctions list a s&h of $1.85 I simply went with that. I guess I could have priced the items above face to cover whatever additional cost I calculated for handling, but several astute comments on the ChipBoard noted that lower starting prices will draw more eyes to the auction, so I chose not to do that. Besides, buyers add both the bid and s&h costs together when making a buying decision anyway, so increasing the starting price or the s&h does not effect the total sale price.

Now that you’ve heard my thoughts as to what to price the item and s&h what does that mean? It means absolutely nothing. Zero. Zilch. In fact, who cares? Was it too high or too low? As I’ve commented a few times on the ChipBoard, things are only worth what someone is willing to pay for them.

In the case of my auctions all 17 items sold and all 4 second change auctions sold as well. Some sold at the 99 cents starting price and others sold for $1.75 over face. The decision to each buyer is the same we all make. We ask ourselves if the item is worth bidding on. That is, is the bid price and the s&h worth having the chip. Should I have discounted some of the s&h to multiple winners? Not if my thinking is that s&h is mainly handling and the postage and packaging is nominal. But the only issue here was that the buyer did not ask prior to bidding. He assumed that there would be a discount when none was stated. This puts other bidders at a disadvantage. I know when I’ve bid in auctions where discounts are given I’m at a disadvantage when bidding on a single chip. I know it’s costing me the item price plus s&h when it’s only costing a multiple chip winner just the item price. And on common $1 chips this difference is huge.

So there you have it, my 2 cents worth. Some will agree, some will disagree, and from what I’ve seen just about everyone will have an opinion. While my retionale mean nothing it comes down to that old saying -- don’t assume. Clicking on the “ask seller a question” button would have saved the buyer a lot of confusion.