Well, places such as kbb.com often seek out what prices were paid for new and used cars recently to determine, in part, the values that they post for every make & model under the sun.
There is a similar method that you can easily perform to get a ballpark idea for the item you have. You can do this for just about any item- not just an item that you'd like to list on ebay.
There are two basic methods to get an idea of an items worth using ebay. First and foremost, you can do a search for any particular item, and see what other sellers are listing their item for right now.
Suppose you have a collectible team baseball that you'd like to place a value on. You can easily do a search for such item, on ebay, of course, and see what other sellers currently have their similar or exact items priced at.
However, a more approximate determination can be made by doing a search of the same item, but not by searching through current listings, but by completed listings. If you look along the left side of the screen, you should find an entry that says, quite simply, 'Completed Listings'. Now, notice I did not say to do a search for 'Sold Items'. A completed listing is not necessarily one that ended in a sale. Plenty of listings terminate without a sale. Now, you may be thinking, "Of what use is this to me? I want to know what an item sold for to give me an idea of its' value."
Well, many things can be gleaned from unsold listings. You can review the listings of an unsold item and try to determine just why it didn't sell. Perhaps the price was too high. Perhaps it was priced just right. Perhaps it was priced too low, and it simply didn't sell because the owner made a typographical error in his listing resulting in a diminished number of viewers who actually saw the ad.
But, back to the subject. The easiest way to get a ballpark idea of an items' value is to do a 'Completed Listings' search. The easiest way to do this is to click on the 'Advanced' link which is always immediately next to the blue 'Search' button on every ebay page. Clicking on the "Advanced" link takes you to the next page, where you'd enter not only a few keywords of the item you are seeking to value, but ALSO, a short ways down the page, you'd click in the box next to the words 'Completed Listings'.
A complete list of every listing that ended within the past two weeks that used the same keywords you just entered will appear. You would simply need to browse through the completed listings and try to find one or two that most closely matches the item upon which you are trying to place a value.
This means will not always be correct, and take heed.... it may also not even be accurate. You will have to use your best judgement. Suppose you have a rare baseball signed by Babe Ruth. Suppose one sold on ebay last week for $550. That number in and of itself does not necessarily represent the true market value of the baseball. It may have been worth well more than $550. $550 represents the dollar amount that the item sold at- nothing more.
Let's use a different example. Let's say you are looking for a used laptop for your kid, and see some nice used models priced at $500. Let's say the model number of the one you are interested in is ABC123. To get an idea of what some ABC123 model laptops sold for recently, you'd do a quick search of that model number in the 'Advanced' section, being sure to click on 'Completed Listings'. Let's say 44 completed listings pop up as a result of your search.
Of those 44, ten did not sell, and the lowest price of the one that did not sell was $250. The highest price, $495. Upon further investigation, you look in to the one that did not sell for $250 and discover that it had been dropped and had a damaged screen- the most likely reason why it didn't sell at all. Of the 34 that did sell, the selling prices (the prices in green) ranged from $305 - $385. You could reasonably deduce that an average ballpark range for an ABC123 laptop would be somewhere around $340 - $350. Armed with that information, you could be assured that you likely wouldn't be getting taken to the cleaners if you bought an identical model for anywhere even close to $340 - $350.
Naturally, as with anything else, you'd need to make certain you were comparing apples to apples. A used laptop with a faster processor or a higher-capacity hard drive would necessarily raise the value- and hence the price- of the laptop.
So, that's the basic method for getting a ballpark idea of an items' value using ebay. Keep in mind that ebay is not the ONLY means of price/ value determination. There are tons of websites, not to mention living-breathing carbon-based lifeforms known as appraisers who might be more apt to give you a more precise valuation. Ebay values are only ballpark reference points, and not necessarily definite values.
I like to think that values are purely subjective: the value of anything is only as high as someone is willing to pay for it. The toaster on your kitchen counter is worth about $10 new at KMart, and about $1.50 used on ebay or at any yard sale. But hey, maybe some buyer is willing to pay you $100 for your toaster on ebay.
Quite unlikely, but, anything's possible. To that buyer, the toaster is worth $100.
There is a science that I believe in, in order to help sell an item for the most amount possible, which I believe helps every ebay seller.
Imagine this scenario: Suppose I find an old clock from the 1930's at a yard sale for $30. If I were like most sellers who might buy it with the intent to re-sell on ebay, I'd likely simply cart it home, take a few pictures and put it on ebay for $75, whereupon it sells to a clock collector.
I, however, am not like most sellers. I would take it home, clean it up a bit, make a nice YouTube video to prove that it works, take 10 - 12 pictures to really show this thing off plus a well-written, in-depth, detailed listing, and THEN put it on ebay for $150 - $200. Maybe it's really only worth $100 - $150, but because of the time & effort I put in to the item as well as my listing, I literally convinced a buyer with my ebay-selling persuasion that it was worth $200, whereupon it sold to the same clock collector.
Which would you rather sell it for- $75 or $200?
Now, here is where my efforts help the NEXT seller.
Suppose someone else over in Texas finds an identical clock a week later and lists it for $200. Some different clock collector could conceivably do a search for completed listings and see that my identical clock sold for $200 a week prior. The precedence has been set. This current clock collector may reasonably deduce that the current market value for this clock is around $200, and may either buy it at that price, or may opt to make an offer to the seller, say, for $175 perhaps.
In any case, the argument could be made that my effort helped the next seller get an additional $100 for his clock, simply because mine did a week before- all because of a little more effort on my part to get the maximum price for an item.
You may not be so eager to use the same techniques as I employ for no other reason than to help the next seller. But, why not do it for yourself? In the process, you might very well be helping the next ebay seller as well. What if you sell a clock for $200 that ordinarily would have sold for $75- and what if YOU were the second seller, cashing in on a little extra profit because of the first clock that sold?
It behooves ALL of us ebay sellers to try to use every legitimate and moral means at our disposal to maximize ones' profits. Who knows, an item that might ordinarily have sold for $75 last year might now be selling at $200 this year because every seller who's listed such an item has effectively convinced the buying public that said item is now worth $200.
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