It doesn’t upset me. I just have no use for Watchers.
I am much more interested in Views. That’s where the buyers come from.
Rich
I dunno Rich, maybe just understand that a few watchers, like me, want to buy but just can’t at the moment. There have been numerous items I’ve watchlisted as I didn’t have the funds when they were listed that I was able to go back in and locate quickly when I had the funds. A couple clicks in my watchlist and the sale was done.
Looking back through my purchase history - in 2024 I purchased ten things from Ebay, four of which had been watch list items.
That’s exactly where the four watchlist purchases from last year came from for me. I watchlisted a few favorite pieces of rolling stock they were selling. Some lasted until I was able to purchase, some didn’t.
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Yes. Traditionally, Watchers are those who’ve declared an interest in your item and they don’t want to lose track of it. This is much more valuable than “viewer” who simply confirm they’ve clicked on it. Often, too, a Watcher is someone who wants to buy it, but thinks that your price is too high. If you are patient, a seller with too high a price will eventually lower that price. If the lowered price is 5% or more, Ebay automatically sends a “Price Drop” notice to every single Watcher of that item. As a Seller, this is important knowledge, because it lets you know how much to drop in price … to get a response.
What corrupts this relationship are sellers who are interested in competitors’ pricing. The Ebay suggested price is a joke - ignore it. It’s never correct. Like all economics, the price is what a customer will pay - period. So, sellers (including me) will “Watch” numerous other listings of the very same item to see if they sell at one price or another. That’s how to keep your own listings competitive.
It gets frustrating, though, when those “Watchers” make you think your product has interest, when it’s simply being cross-checked by other sellers hoping to see the same thing.
On a slightly different subject, I left the Bid process years ago - both as a seller and a buyer. It’s a total waste of time, IMHO. Yes, you can sometimes make a killing - but that’s the same thing an addicted gambler says. The House (EBAY!) is the only one who always wins with Bidding.
I almost always use Buy It Now with Offers - as a seller and a buyer. As a seller, it keeps interest while guaranteeing minimum pricing without fees. As a buyer, it often puts you in a one-to-one relationship with the seller, instead of competing with who knows how many bidders and the omni-present Snipers who are always present in the closing micro-seconds. Buy It Now without Offers is also not a locked gate. Contact the seller anyway and offer something. I’ve found it works almost 50% of the time.
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??? Amazon offers FREE shipping with a minimum $35.00 order. You don’t have to belong to “Prime”.
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I am often a watcher, and will bid on or buy it now sometimes.
Funny thing happened once. I already had a Mehano 2-6-0, wanted another. A seller had 3 he was selling, all closing within seconds of each other. I put in what I thought was super low ball bids on all 3, figuring I had maybe half a chance at winning one. Got all 3! Dan
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I don’t often “bid” on Ebay items, I normally use the “buy it now” option is the price is right. With PayPal, you can use PayPal Credit, which allows you to pay over six months with no interest if the purchase is over $100. Since I’m retired, I have a guaranteed income, but not as much as when I was working, so being able to spread a payment out over several months works great.
Otherwise, trainshow/flea markets are a source for me. I started in HO in 1987, and a lot of the stuff made then is still OK with me now - bluebox Athearn cars, AHM/Rivarossi passenger cars, etc. can be picked up cheap.
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When I want to rid myself of something, if I can’t make $25/hour for my efforts, I just give it away, usually to a thrift shop.
Similarly, I couldn’t be bothered with bidding. After spending time learning how bidding works, and following items (or leaning how notifications works), I’m not convinced that I’ll save $25/hour.
If the Buy Now price is worth it to me, I buy it. If not, forget it.
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I get what you mean, I do not want to pay modern pricing, I don’t care how many details it has!
And this is why I’m slowly moving to be able to manufacture cheap trains.
I’ve only been a model railroader for a few years and I haven’t even finished high school, but I still hate the cost of trains.
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I think that it was just an example.
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It was much easier to collect back in the day! A balance between quality and price would benefit the hobby, allowing more enthusiasts to enjoy it without breaking the bank.
Summary
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Welcome lunnabae
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Welcome aboard, @lunnabae
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Welcome to the forums!
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welcome
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I disagree about it being “Easier to Collect, Back in the Day “
I remember trying to various different items back before the internet, you had to go to swap meets, LTS’s, check the classified adds, etc. I even remember starting at the beginning of the LTS listings in the back of Model Railroader, and calling store, After Store, AFTER STORE, looking for something.
If it was an out of production item, you were just SOL, if you weren’t LUCKY 
enough to find it in the above mentioned sources
Then came the internet, and especially EBay, then you could do a WORLDWIDE Search in seconds. You aren’t Guaranteed of finding what you’re looking 
for, but your chances of finding what you want, went up by several orders of magnitude
Another thing that Helped the Collector, is that with things being much Easier to find, many “Hard to Find Items “ were, Well, LESS HARD to Find, and that lowered the prices for many things, when the “Supply” of them went Up, greater in proportion to the number of people looking for them
Nah, in My Opinion, it is a much better time to be a collector, especially for those who collect Pre-War and Post-War Lionel, things are now easier to find, than they were in the 70’s-80’s, but the Demand for those things is gradually diminishing, as Sadly the generation that is most interested in those items, is also diminishing in numbers
Doug
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Quite true, I’ve seen the prices dropping on the aforementioned articles steadily over the past ten years BUT each cloud has a silver lining. For those who want to get into the O Gauge hobby the lowering prices on Post-Wars (and some Pre-Wars) make for a great entry point. You can get a good condition Lionel Post-War for a fraction of what todays “computers on wheels” are going for. And there’s plenty of “how-to” books and YouTube videos to help a beginner get started.
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Welcome aboard lunnabae! 
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I did mention the lowering of the prices in the paragraph above the one that you quoted 
Doug
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I don’t think interest in prewar and postwar is diminishing. Especially among my generation (Gen X/MPC). Personally I’ve become disenchanted with the modern high tech (as Wayne says “gee-whiz”) gizmos and electronic gadgets that keep the prices astronomical but are only recently beginning to prove their reliability and durability anywhere near the level their predecessors enjoy. Therefore I’ve gained a greater appreciation for the simpler but vastly more “fixable” quality of those mechanical devices that electronics don’t afford the unskilled end user. An electronically inept idiot like me can’t keep those high tech locomotives operating “as built”. But I can clean an e-unit.
Unfortunately another big and seriously important way the market differs now as compared to the pre Internet 1970’s is that Internet in and of itself. Collecting information was limited back then to very few hard facts and a lot of anecdotal evidence that wouldn’t be confirmed or disproved until years of work by serious collectors had been accomplished. Today almost all of that knowledge is seconds away from anyone contemplating selling “grandpa’s old train” and in online arenas like eBay it leads to overpricing of under researched items.
But it also can also produce some excellent bargains and opportunities if you know where to look.
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So you did!
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