Nah, there's no need to. They have multiples of each item, if the auction ends so swiftly that only a few have bid, only one is sold and the auction is relisted. Sell one at a loss, doesn't matter.
The really cunning part is the option to "swoop", that is to pay the asking price minus what you've bid, at which point the auction continues as normal, which is fine since they've got loads of the item involved. So not only do they make money from the bids, and from the final sale, they also sell some at full price to people who can't face having lost £100 in bids when they can just buy the damned thing for £250 anyway. Hence the "value" is set above normal market price.
Hats off to swoopo.
This also means that as long as the "value" is within a few % of what you can buy if for anyway, it's probably worth bidding on then buying at full price if it goes **** up on you. Just looking through the computing part to find anything that approximates a reasonable price. Nope, nothing that I'd consider paying their "asking price" for.
