Ebay prices predictably drop.

I was talking to my parent on Friday about the PS3. Offered to bring it over and watch some High Def movies with him. He started pressuring me to sell it on ebay, saying that it was going for thousands. I gave him a number of reasons, including the fact that it was already opened, and that the model I had was going for $1500 and lower. I also mentioned to him, though, that the people selling on ebay were going to get screwed and the price was going to drop through the floor within a week as Sony started shipping more consoles to the states. (Kaz Hirai was doing interviews saying that PS3s were being sent daily to the US on chartered jets and would be arriving at stores sporadically.)

It looks like I was right, but wrong about the cause. Ebay prices are dropping, started dropping as early as saturday. 

It appears that instead of more supply in the stores, we’re ending up with a supply and demand rebalancing on ebay. There were a set number of people willing to pay $2500+ for the consoles, and they’ve mostly gotten theirs wrapped up. Almost all of the bids over $2500 now are gag bids or those with really bad ratings. Those selling them for $5000-259000 will end up having to drop their price to dump their inventory. As the price drops, the demand will go up. A site I saw said the average bids for those nearing closing were around $1000. I was predicting that we’d see them sitting around $800 next week. Lets see how close my prediction is.

Hopefully the gougers will learn their supply and demand lesson. If a bunch of the people in line with you are also selling them on ebay, you’re likely to not get nearly as much as you’re expecting from them.