Pop Price Guide’s New 2-2-200 Rule to Combat Outlier Price Points

It’s our mission to make Pop Price Guide the most accurate database when it comes to valuing Funko Pop! figures.

Unfortunately, there will always be bad reporting or even bad actors out there to keep us on our toes and on the lookout for bugs or scams. This can create “Outliers”, here is how they are defined:

After some recent situations that we think were outliers, we talked to a number of experts and then sat down to devise a method to better safeguard against wayward and fraudulent price points.

All in the last three months:

• eBay Australia reported a sale for $3,200, while in fact, it was an accepted Best Offer for $62 (so a technical problem)
• A PSA Graded 10 Pop! of Ms. Marvel sold for $320 when it had a PPG value of $20 (a change in market perspective)
• A buyer with a compromised credit card well overpaid for a few Funko Pop!s in the last few months (just fraud and as it was not his money he did not care)

Outliers are a mathematical concept and can be complicated:

We did not want that. Instead, we tried to create a process that is easy to understand, makes sense for our Members (also the ones without a Ph.D. in Statistics), and is easy to apply.

Under our new system, the Squad can better combat suspicious Price Points or other Outliers by using a three-step practice we’re calling the 2 / 2 / 200 Rule.

When we find what looks like an Outlier Price Point, we’ll now use these steps to determine if a sale needs to be excluded from the Price Guide:

• The sale is over $200 (easy)
• The sale is at least two times the Database Item’s current Estimated Value (should be easy 😉 )
• And there are at least two other examples of the same item available for purchase on the same marketplace (eBay, Mercari, etc.) that are in similar or better condition and being offered at around the current Estimated Value (easy)

Here is an example:

And here is the new Help page that explains it.

We will review this rule the same we review all of the Price Guide operations on an ongoing basis and if you have comments or questions there is space for those below!