On the other hand, one can do very well on Ebay if one devotes some time and obsession. I decided that I no longer own bikes, I just have an inventory of bikes and parts. In the last year, I’ve owned/ridden a QR, Bianchi, Coppi, Orbea, and two Specialized. I built the bikes up entirely from Ebay purchases, and I sold them all (for a nice profit) on Ebay.
This is a well-known phenomenon at this point. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I guess people love to win.
My wife recently sold a Pocket Dragon on ebay(I originally bought it for her to give to a good friend, with whom she has recently had a falling out. It cost me $25). It went up to $855 in the first few days, but in the last twenty minutes it went from $125 to $225, and the winning bidder had paid my wife’s PayPal account within ten minutes of the auction close.
I stay away from ebay. Bad mojo. I know there are good deals there, but you have to keep your objectivity.
The process is called shill bidding or shilling. It is unfortunately very easy to do. Just set up a few ebay accounts. If the shiller wins the auction than he can offer it to the next highest bidder via the “2nd chance offer” which is an agreement to buy the item at the 2nd highest bid.
I just sold some stuff that I had sitting around and was amazed at the prices that the merchandise fetched. I sold a DA 7401 chain for 52.00 bucks with shipping. I got the chain in a lot of bike parts at a auction when a LBS went out of business…kinda ironic. I think I paid 10 bucks for the lot which contained many usefull parts and accessories.
I think the prices are going up because one, sellers are more sophisticated in that auctions very rarely end at “off times” anymore. I used to get some good deals that ended at 2 am when the “one ups men” were asleep. Secondly, I think it is also the hyper competitive thing as well 'cause I’ve gotten “wound up” in bidding and paid more than I should have so it is matter of self control. I now set my max I’ll pay and drop it at the last possible second to thwart the ones who just want to win by one ups men.
I lost an auction yesterday by 2.50 but I said, “Hey there will be another one available tomorrow.” So to me it’s about patients and self control.
There must be some kind of conservative “gamblers rush” to it as well. I live in Indian gaming country but hate gambling. This seems to be a safe way to gamble; if I lose I am out nothing; if I win I get something I’ve wanted for a good price.
I will pay retail for something because sometimes it is just easier…A few clicks of the mouse on the Paypal button and it at my door in a few days.
Having said all this I think that there is some shill bidding going on as well.
What’s a “Pocket Dragon”…sounds kinky.
…It went up to $855 in the first few days, but in the last twenty minutes it went from $125 to $225…
Sorry you got me confused there, how did it go from $855 to $125 and then to $225 ???
Hey G I’ll give you my explanation why that happens from a sellers point. I have flat shipping on almost all of my sales. That is shipping is based on a “worst case scenario.” For me it would be to ship to Cali. That way everyone pays the same amount. I will cut slack for customers in the same state as I am though.
It really is not much different than buying from a catalog were shipping is based on price. You buy a stem that cost x the shipping is y whether you are in Sarasota or Tacoma (or across the street from the warehouse for that matter) . Actually I think this scenario is worse because it is based on price and not weight so your stem cost the same to ship as your can of powdered carb mix which weighs 10 times as much. Having said that, I sometimes make a little on shipping and sometimes I do not.
I would also agree that some intentionally try to make money on inflated shippping costs.
Oh Oh looks like were next after Iran. Head for the hills Bushy and his boys are coming !!!
It’s like a Hummel, but dragons instead. Doing all the lame things that Hummel characters do. Google it and see for yourself. You’ll find them in the useless knick-knacks store. Apparently, the one I bought, a baby dragon biting into a Jalapeno pepper, was very rare and limited, in which the dragon was red and the pepper was green! Usually, the dragon is green and the pepper is red.
Hence the ridiculous price. The only part of the scam that I don’t get is why my wife gets to keep the money for selling something that I bought. Ah, well, maybe she’'l use it to buy me a bike stand or some kegging gear.
"I’m sure we can all agree that Canada is to blame for much of the malaise in this world today - but jacked up Ebay prices? "
Seriously, I help a consumer electronics company get rid of some of their refurbished inventory on eBay, we have sold many hundreds of units, and Canadians, on average, pay more per unit and pay higher shipping costs. If the customs department up there weren’t run by a bunch of socialist ninnies, I would be selling as much to Canada as I could, but right now it is taking 3-5 weeks to get stuff delivered up ther using Canada Post, and UPS just isn’t an option, so we stopped shipping there.
Uh…What’s a Pocket Dragon?
Oops, I fat-fingered that one. $85 dollars. So sorry!
Simple: In a retail store its a buyers market.
On E-Bay it is a sellers market.
In the brick and mortar world retailers compete with each other for customers.
On E-bay customers compete to buy from a retailer.
It is that simple. In the store the buyer negotiates down. On E-Bay you negotiate up.
Tom, I agree with you… it is a sellers market because of the competing buyers. But I have bought a bunch of stuff on ebay when i was the only buyer, and I got some SWEET deals.
I think another reason people pay so much on e-Bay is some don’t think of it as real money. They sell some piece of crap they were going to throw away. That money is then sitting in their Paypal account. They do this a few times and start thinking “hey, I have an extra $100 that I got for free.” If I go to my local store, I have to use real money to buy that whatever, but if I buy it on e-Bay, I can use Paypal and it’s really free.
At least this is what my wife keeps saying. Everytime she wants to buy something on e-Bay, she says it’s with my “free” money I have from selling junk I would have given away.
Jeff