Price Inflation

[chris00nj]

Is it me or are sellers on ebay trying to massively inflate prices at the moment?

I just noticed a reasonable Red Scale Elmar up for £525 and the same UK seller sold a nice M3 for £450ish recently at auction and has gone to listing another similar one for over £700 buy it now, which is just a crazy price for an M3.

Inflation of prices takes a seller and a buyer. Buyers are forced to pay it and if they don't like it, they don't have to buy. If the seller is keen on selling sell stuff, he'll drop the price

Ebay sellers like gokevincameras have huge premiums on their gear. However, I'm not sure they sell that much.

 

[n5jrn]

True. With eBay being the largest marketplace by far for used gear, you are competing against people all over the world. And don't forget, if you win an auction, you just agreed to pay more than anyone else that's looking at that item. So by my definition, that's not a 'bargain.' 🙂

I don't necessarily see it that way at all. If I win an auction for an item and the price I end up paying is less than at a non-auction source, I will still consider it a bargain.

My issue with feeBay is more the starting prices on the auctions. Often those are completely unreasonable. Really, now, why should I even bid for an item being offered by some random eBay seller I know nothing about when I can find a brick-and-mortar store whose asking price for an identical item is less than the starting bid on feeBay?

On second thought, the fact that eBay seems to have no shortage of fools who assume that eBay must have the best price and thus actually bid on such items without doing their homework means that one still there, unsold, at the brick-and-mortar store for me to purchase.

 

[splitimageview]

I'm uncertain why start prices are a problem. As previously posted, if you don't like a BIN price, don't buy.

There are always people that pay too much, both on ebay and at other sources. The question is, what is 'too much' exactly? One person may think 3k is too much for a new-looking 35/2 v1 cron, another person might think it's a bargain. Ultimately, both are correct.

 

[n5jrn]

Early bids, especially where the number of page views cannot be seen, let others know that they will have to compete with someone for the item. Of course, it's not very intimidating if you set down what you're willing to pay for the item and stick to it.

I have found that on eBay, bids tend to attract more bids, because many seem to interpret a bidding war as a sign that the item being bid on is desirable. After seeing an item which was languishing without bids for several days suddenly acquire several bidders competing with me after I placed my first bid, I shifted to only placing snipe bids.

These days, I don't bid on much at all, however, because I typically find I can get better prices elsewhere.