See, I didn't interpret the OP in that way at all. He was simply expressing frustration and confusion as to why a) sellers think that they have to get a certain resale return from a broken box relative to what they paid for that box and b) they continue to list many multiple times with little to no hope of obtaining the asking price.
Subsequent postings attempted to explain why some sellers might do this. There are many of us here who believe that the market drives ultimate sales prices (which, like it or not, is a fundamental truth). NOWHERE along the line did I read anyone saying that they have an inherent right to have a seller offer a card at market price or indeed any price lower than the seller wants. Certainly we as buyers want lower prices all the time (the "demand" piece of the market) but no one said we are obligated to get them in the hockey card market.
Again, to be clear, sellers can set whatever damn price they want for the cards that they own. In my earlier response I attempted to illustrate why this isn't necessarily a good idea IF they actually want to turn cards into cash.
But that's not what this thread is about, really. The OP tapped into some fundamental issues that illustrate both how eBay's function has changed over the years and how differently it is used by its participants now compared to at its inception. eBay became popular and profitable because it enabled a market to be established where previously there was none.
The key word here is "market" though, which is what some people are missing. If eBay becomes just a way to look at high-priced cards that no one is buying, then the card category will atrophy and die. Conversely, if sellers don't make enough money on sales, they will stop cracking new product and the card category will atrophy and die (maybe - or it might devolve into a trading-type site).
Luckily, the market takes care of this automatically as some sellers realize they must expose themselves to the market in order to get bids from buyers - who are themselves in competition with other buyers. That competition results in more bids and higher prices on items that people want and/or fewer or no bids on items they don't want at any given price level. This model breaks down a little when some sellers decide to use BIN/BO to elevate their pricing above market levels, but this only directly hurts the seller in the long run. The buyer is only hurt by the lack of satisfaction of being able to obtain what he or she wants at market prices. As long as there are satisfactory alternatives available to the buyer, time is on their side.
Some people like it better the current way, but every time I pull up my custom searches and see hundreds of listings for the umpteenth time that never, ever sell, I find myself just a little more discouraged by what I believe is unproductive behavior and eventually I will remove myself from the market by quitting card collecting.
Bottom line: Shouldn't we - as collectors first and profit-makers second - all be demanding that the card producers give us a product that WILL support a lively and profitable secondary market? The way to do this is not by pricing items so far above the level of what buyers are willing to pay that you actually cause the market to break down, but by refusing to spend money on crap like (UD) Ultimate and many other products where the expected return is about 20-25 cents on your hard-earned dollar. Only by refusing to buy these products can we as consumers (and we are all consumers of what is produced, regardless of what side of the secondary market we are on) make the card companies give us a better product. It can be done (like ITG does, in general) and that is the only way that cards can survive the next 5-10 years.
Ultimately, the OP is a plea for sanity to return to the hobby we love. At least, that's my take on it.
