Sniing was Re: Microdata "Microprogramming Handbook"

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com>
Date: Fri Jan 25 14:38:33 2002

Hi Guys,

   Can I throw in my 2 cents worth?

><snip>
>
>Hmmm. I guess then an xBox being sold at a price above the MSRP is not
>'too high' of a price.

   Apparntly not. I've seen the same thing at flea-markets and other "live"
events. BUT one of the things that affect this is the fact that the MSRP
aren't the same eveywhere. I used to collect HP calculators but I almost
never bought any from E-bay. Why? Because calculators that sold new in
this country (USA) for say $250 sold for twice as much in Europe and other
places simply due to the import tariffs that their countries charge. As
result, I might be willing to pay say $150 for the same model used but
someone in Europe is happy to pay $300 or more. Well above the MSRP. In
short there are lots of factors that affect the price more than MSRP. It
all goes back to the law of supply and demand. Where HP 9825s are common
and cheap in this country, they're rare and expensive in Europe.


 Or the example of dead UPS's being sold for $50 a
>pop.

  Did you ever stop to consider that the buyer might know somehing that you
don't? Perhaps he is knowledgeable on that model and knows that 90% of the
"dead" ones can be fixed by changing an internal fuse even when the
manufacturer claims that "there are no user serviceable parts inside".

 Or a CISC AS/400 being sold for $140k. Sorry, but a lot of the time
>things are available for much lower prices outside of eBay than they are
>on eBay.

   I COMPLETELY agree! My personal opinion: E-bay is for people that are
too lazy to search out there own bargains. Example: I've found TWO
Altairs in the last three years. Both of them were FREE. OTOH I could have
bought one from E-bay and paid a rediculous price for it. Don't get me
wrong, there are some great bargains to be had on E-bay but I'm sick and
tired of people complaining about E-bay prices. It just like shopping at
Sears, if you think their price is too high THEN DON'T SHOP THERE.


 Ignorant people go around buying and selling things for much
>more than they're worth on eBay.

   Wrong! It takes at least two bidders to push the price up. Therefore at
least two people think that it's worth that much. I wouldn't pay $100,000+
for a Rolls-Royce but that down't mean they aren't "worth" it.


>
>I personally have no problem with bid sniping. I've done it myself a
>number of times. The problem lies in the fact that some people do not
>have enough FINANCIAL RESOURCES to be bidding 2x what something is worth
>on eBay.

   That's fact of life, Get used to it! That's like complaining because you
can't afford a Rolls-Royce and someone else can.


 As a college student that has just been laid off from my job at
>Purdue (!) I know what it's like. Sure, there are a lot of good deals to
>be had on eBay, but there are also plenty of bad deals.

   But no one is forcing you to buy those bad deals. So take the good ones
and leave the rest. That's how you "win" on E-bay.

    Joe
Received on Fri Jan 25 2002 - 14:38:33 GMT