How to tell whether a second-hand listing is actually underpriced

The lowest price on the page is almost never the best deal. Most of the time it is the listing with something wrong with it, or something left unsaid. Here is how to tell the two apart.

1. Compare against the item's market, not its retail price

"It was €900 new, now €400" tells you nothing: 55% off retail is ordinary for a four-year-old item. The only comparison that counts is against other listings of the same model, in similar condition, on sale right now.

Open five comparable listings and see where the price you are weighing up falls. Inside the group, it is not a deal. Below all of them, the question becomes: why?

2. The gap has to be meaningful

10% below average is not a deal. Between shipping, included accessories and how willing the seller is to negotiate, 10% is noise.

The threshold worth stopping for sits around 25% below observed market value. Below that gap you lose more time than you make.

3. Be suspicious of the enormous discount

70% off a desirable item is not luck. The usual explanations, in order of likelihood:

• it is not authentic;
• it is broken, and the description says so in one line at the bottom;
• an essential part is missing (charger, key, remote, certificate);
• it is stolen;
• the listing is a scam and no item exists.

The real deal almost always hides in the less spectacular band: 25–40% below, with a plausible explanation attached.

4. Look for the reason behind the low price

A genuine deal usually has a boring reason: a house move, an unused gift, an upgrade, an inheritance, a seller who does not know what they have. If reading the listing lets you tell yourself a plausible story about why it is cheap, that is a good sign. If you cannot, it is not that there is no story — it is that nobody told it to you.

5. Read the photos, not the description

The description is written to sell. The photos are not.

• Few photos, all from a distance: something is being hidden, or the seller does not care about selling well.
• Photos pulled from the internet (white background, catalogue quality): they do not have the item in hand.
• One blurry photo of exactly the part that matters — the screen turned on, the serial number, the heel of the shoe — is never an accident.
• Background detail: the rest of the room, several identical items lined up (a business seller posing as a private one).

6. Check the stated condition against the price

"Like new" at a third of what other "like new" listings cost is a contradiction. Either the condition is overstated, or the price has a reason that is not written down. A direct question to the seller — "does everything work? any faults that don't show in the photos?" — clears up most of it, and how they answer tells you nearly as much as what they answer.

7. Work out the real cost, not the price

The price on the listing is not what you spend. Add:

• shipping, if it is not included;
• the buyer protection fee, where the marketplace charges it to the buyer;
• the trip, if it is a local pickup;
• the repair or missing part you have already priced in.

An item at €120 with €15 shipping and a €30 new battery does not cost €120. Compare it to the market at its real cost, or you are comparing two different numbers.

In practice

These seven checks take two minutes per listing. Doing them is not the problem — doing them across fifty listings a day is. That is exactly where you need something to narrow the field before you start looking.