Auction vs Buy It Now Sold Prices on eBay: Why They Differ and Which to Comp

A card investor pulled the last sales of one card and found two different prices hiding in the same search. The last auctions closed at $275 and $281. The last Buy It Now and Best Offer sales went for $345 and $348.99. That's about a 25% gap for the identical card.

If you average those together, you get a number that matches neither market.

#Why the gap exists

• Auctions clear at "right now." The price is whatever the bidders who happen to be watching at the end will pay. Fewer bidders, lower price.
• Buy It Now buyers pay for certainty. They want it now, at a known price, without watching a timer.
• Bid-ask spread. As one reply put it: "The difference you're citing can basically be attributed to a bid-ask spread." Auctions look more like the bid; Buy It Now looks more like the ask that someone accepted.

It's not always this direction. Hyped or rare items can spark bidding wars that beat fixed-price listings. But for most everyday items, auctions close lower.

#Which sold prices to comp

That last row is a quiet advantage: if a deal still works at auction prices, you can always move it fast.

#How to split them on eBay

On the sold results page, open the Buying Format filter and pick Auction or Buy It Now, one at a time. Take the median of each. If you only look at the combined list, the mix of formats can swing your "comp" from week to week even when nothing about the market changed.

#Splitting them in code

Every sale from the sold-listings API comes back with its format, so you can compute both medians from one request:

from statistics import median

items = sold("charizard 4/102 psa 9")["items"]
auction = [i["sold_price"]["value"] for i in items if i["buying_format"] == "auction"]
fixed   = [i["sold_price"]["value"] for i in items if i["buying_format"] == "fixed_price"
           and i["best_offer_price_known"]]

print("auction median:", median(auction))
print("buy it now median:", median(fixed))

Or pass buying_format=auction / buying_format=fixed_price to get stats for one format directly. See the docs.