How much do I need to pay?

The market for tickets on eBay is just like any other market, with the price determined by the number of buyers and sellers and changing over time.

There are several ways to investigate what price you should be paying and when you should be buying.

Completed Items search
By far the best way to work out the amount a ticket will cost you is to do a "Completed Item" search - located to the left of the item and about half way down the page. Check the box and click "Search". Magically you are presented with all the items that have sold for your chosen search in the last 30 days. Look at the last few items which finished the mostly recently, this is the market price.

You will probably be amazed at both the variation and also the similarity in prices... More importantly, Mr. Tout will be well aware of this amount and he will be setting his Buy It Now prices and bidding up his auction values towards it. So have it in mind when you are trying to negotiate.

Timing
When was the last time someone told you timing was everything? Well with ticket purchases on eBay it really is...

The market price for any particular gig varies dramatically between going on sale and the day of the gig so knowing when to buy is really important.

Here are some ideas about pricing for items:

1. Prices are highest for most gigs just after the tickets have just sold out on all the major ticket sites. Fans are panicking that they are going to miss out on seeing their favourite band so they flock to eBay to try and pick up some tickets before everyone else does - hoping to grab a bargain.

2. Prices will fall (for almost every gig). A combination of too many touts, extra dates or tickets being released or sometimes just the euphoria dying down often means prices will fall again.

You may not realise it but the ticket market is now so distorted by people buying just to sell on eBay that gigs are selling out simply because the touts buy all the tickets. "Yeah I know, thats the problem!" Yes, but this is actually a good thing, there are no so many people trying to do the same thing on eBay that they all end up undercutting each other in order to shift their tickets and preserve their profits (or minimise their losses).

Try waiting until the week before the concert and you will see tickets drop to way below their face value as touts try to reclaim what they can for the tickets. Is it nice to know that a tout can be subsidising your night out?

This doesnt work for every gig but believe me, it is now the rule rather than the exception.

3. Time of day - eBay sellers know when eBay receives the most traffic, this is usally during the lunch break or when people get home from work and varies depending on the gig. Younger teenagers are more likely to log on when they get out of school college than people in their mid 20s who are stuck at work until 7.30pm. Think about the following for the band you want to see and adjust accordingly. As a result, gigs that end in the early morning or late at night often end up selling for less.

4. Sniping - a nice little concept, sniping is basically the art of bidding at the last minute - the longer you leave the less chance you will be outbid. There are various tools and services on the Internet that will snipe for you - places incremental bids in the dying seconds of the auction up to your set maximum. This also stops you get carried away and bidding over the odds.