! everyone loves cake!

! everyone loves cake!

I've been selling stuff slowly over the last 12 months or so, and I haven't noticed much of a slow down. Granted, I don't sell in huge volumes - just a few hundred dollars a month or so - but it's been pretty stable.

Having said that, this time last year I had moire examples of price spikes - items selling for far more than they should have. I and X series modules for example going for $100-150. Not in shrink even.

These days there seems to be the same level of interest - similar number of watches, items go for about the same price on average. It could be that like others have said, the stronger US dollar has helped. An item I sell for $20 AUD equates to around $12 or $13 USD, and shipping is pretty reasonable - I can send a module to the USA for around $5 USD, which makes it competitive with domestic US shipping (I don't add any extra handling on top, so the extra couple of dollars most US sellers seem to add makes airmail from here in the same ball park as 1st class USPS).

I generally start items at the lowest I'm prepared to accept for them - if they don't sell, I don't mind putting them aside and trying them again in a month or two. I find I usually get a pretty good sell rate though, around 75% or so.

There is a big difference though between what I do (selling as a hobby) as opposed to selling to make a living. I'm not buying to sell and try and make a profit - just offloading items I've acquired over the years so I can use the cash for other things.

Regards

Mike

Pipswich wrote:I think I may go back to bidding and simply allow the seller to opt out occassionally or offer to pay closer to my real bid than the default opening at 99c.  That would ease my reservations and support the sellers too.

My favorite BBQ place went out of business a couple of weeks ago.  If I had only used your philosophy maybe he would still be in business.  I guess I should have felt bad buying BBQ brisket sandwiches for $4.99 and offered to pay him $7.99 instead.



Ok, lets be realistic.  Business doesnt work that way and neither does collecting.  A good businessman changes the way they do business when times get tough, they dont keep doing things that lose money.  Maybe the owner of the BBQ restaurant could have upped his prices a little.  Maybe the supply company he bought his pickles from was charging him higher prices than a different company and he makes a change there (dont laugh, according to airline trivia, American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class).  Or maybe his BBQ just wasnt as good as he (and I) thought.  Regardless, its unfortunate that he went out of business but I'm not about to pay a ridiculous price for a BBQ sandwich at his place when I can get a pretty good one for half the price a couple of miles down the road.

And why do you feel the need to mention the words "collecting" and "blood sport" in the same sentence?  I really dont see the correlation.  Pretty much every person I know that collects something is elated when they find a rare item and pay a fraction of what the consensus value of it is.  I guarantee that if I ever find a woodgrain set in an antique store for $25 I am not going to feel bad about getting a heck of a deal when another customer grossly overpays for a piece of ratty furniture from the same store.  It all evens out eventually.

Ebay is an auction site (or used to be).  Not a charity site.  But if you really feel the need to help all of the sellers that according to you, arent getting the support they need, you could always start a second account and bid against yourself on items you want.  That way the seller gets more money and you can feel good about screwing yourself out of a good deal.

Pipswich wrote:Among other things, the capital costs associated with running a restaurant are significantly higher than those associated with selling on ebay.  That observation aside, I am as happy as anyone else to get a great bargain and if I find a superior bargain in an antiques mall or book store or yard sale, etc. where someone established the price necessary to sustain their business, I am not going to argue with them at all.  

Part of the disagreement of opinion here is one of relative perspective and it perhaps results from my unwillingness to define ebay as an auction platform rather than a communication vehicle.  We use ebay (and collectors forums) as platforms to build relationships with those who buy and sell items of interest to us.  With no willing partners, there is no sustained business or collecting.  The rogue 99c deal on ebay is far less important to me than the potential to acquire the things I desire at a fair price or to dispose of the things I no longer want at a fair price.  

You might be shocked at how responsive sellers can be if they decide to trust you.  Offering to pay a little more for shipping because they miscalculated or emailing them about buying five or six items that didn't sell in the previous week and asking them to combine shipping, then etc. can often yield good relationships for both parties.  If I treated every transaction as an unequal battle of me trying to get the lowest price and the seller trying to get the highest... I know my collections would take longer and be more expensive to assemble.

Edit:  I am going to try to bow out of this discussion as I feel I have made my position clear enough for the time being.

Does this stance include negotiating hugely undervalued BINS as well?



http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0010555353

! everyone loves cake!

bclarkie wrote:

Does this stance include negotiating hugely undervalued BINS as well?


** expired/removed eBay auction **

You sure are good at this stuff Brian

Pipswich wrote:Well, you know something I don't and that my emails don't reflect regarding "negotiating' that one.

Just to be clear, you are going to go with, "you just happened to get REALLY lucky in your searches" so much so that exactly 2 minutes and 3 seconds from a seller who coincidentally decided to place a BIN on his auction 5 hours after it started, you found it and bought it?

! everyone loves cake!