Originally posted by bigdavephoto You are right that the seller nor the buyer need to revile the final selling price at anytime.What the OP is asking about though on price is not what the item sold for but why remove the price the seller had the item listed for.
I have seen this myself that when a seller has a few items for sale on the same ad, they sometimes will remove the listed price and put SOLD. I agree with the OP that when an item is sold, the seller should leave the price that he was asking with SOLD before the description of the item, after the description, or both places. There is no harm in leaving the asking price on an ad that says SOLD.
Presumably in most cases the listed asking price
>is< the final selling price. The two are thus the same,
and what I said earlier still applies. Once the item has sold, the seller is under no obligation to keep the
former asking/selling price listed.
'Harm' is perhaps a harsh word to use in this case. The selling price is privileged information and does have
value. It is valuable to the seller to not share that information because the seller may wish to change the selling
price for similar items at a later date. It is valuable information to the buyer because no one has the right to know
what the buyer paid. You could say the seller is 'harmed' by leaving the selling price because it pins him/her
to that price for future sales. You could say the buyer is 'harmed' because others may be critical or envious
of what they paid. The buyer may further be 'harmed' because others are now privy to their finances.
Just playing devil's advocate, as a seller. Once again, as a >buyer< I too would like to see a complete price
history for anything and everything ever sold.