Subject:
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Re: tips wanted: Selling Custom Kits
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Tue, 12 Jun 2001 16:21:06 GMT
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Viewed:
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592 times
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In lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade, Ray Sanders writes:
> In lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade, James Brown writes:
> > In lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade, Matt Penney writes:
> > > Why are the Prices so low at Ebay right now? A friend asked if I would help
> > > him out by helping him sell off his collection. Ebay isn't bringing the
> > > results I have commonly seen in the past. *shrug* Any gueses? Should I wait
> > > before posting more of his collection?
> >
> > At a guess, I'd say that it's a combination of eBay finally reaching a
> > market saturation, and the blah economy starting to trickle down to
> > secondhand markets.
>
> Yep, I think so too. Seems like sales (at least on BB) started to trail off
> about mid-April. They are just now showing renewed signs of life. I think this
> is somewhat cyclical. I saw something similar happen (although now quite as
> intense) about the same time last year (on eBay). Maybe this explains why the
> big boys (WM, KM, Target, et al) were so motivated about getting rid of stuff
> during the Jan-Mar time frame.
>
> > By market saturation, I mean that enough people are aware of and using eBay
> > that the general trend is shifting towards deal-finding, and away from "just
> > saw it, gotta have it, might not see it again" buying.
>
> Ahhh, theres the word I've been waiting for someone to use... 'saturation'.
> Here are a few datapoints to consider ...
>
> Parts listed on BrickBay about the time I joined (10/2000): 250K-300K
>
> Parts listed on BrickBay today (6/6/2001): 1,690K
>
> Parts sold thus far on BrickBay (thru 6/6/2001): 1,610K
>
> Sets listed on BrickBay today (6/6/2001): 9,876
>
> Sets sold thus far on BrickBay (thru 6/6/2001): 8,667
>
> So, in summary, about 50% of the listed parts have been sold and about 47% of
> the listed sets have moved. This does not take into account any sets that people
> are sitting on waiting to decide if they should list or part-out (disclaimer: I
> have a few). In the large picture, this is not all that much product (vis-a-vis
> TLCs production capacity), but it does appear to be a relatively large chunk of
> what this market niche can absorb. Is also suggests (although not a direct
> correlation) that BrickBay has a 1-year supply of parts currently listed (seeing
> as how BrickBay is now approaching its 1-year birthday).
>
> Comments anyone ?
>
> > 'Course, I'm not an economist or anything like, so I'm probably out to lunch.
>
> Ray
>
> (fut to .market.theory)
I think that your data, while being sound by numerical standards, is flawed
by interpretation. I agree that there are as many (way more in fact) parts
available today on BB as have been sold throughout the life of the site. But
look at what 70% of the stuff is. Leftovers. Fluff. Bits too common or too
unusable to give away, let alone charge a price for.
If you are able to find a particular building component (while trying to get
past the fluff), it is very difficult to find the quantities you want. I
look for a piece I want 50 of and find sellers with one or two. Rarely do I
find people who have 10, 15 or even 25 of a really useful part. It has
happened, just not too often. This means that I either have to make several
deals or wait to find a single dealer with what I need.
Considering that the average piece costs between $.10 and $.15 - based on
retail price of a set divided by number of pieces contained, it seems odd
that the prices are so high. But then I go back to the "so many pieces that
are not very useful" statement. If you set all those aside, you end up with
the prices we see.
The thing I find humorous is that there are so many people trying to support
their buying of sets by selling ONLY the fluff - which everyone else also
has too much of. I have a huge collection. I have bins of stuff I'll
probably never use. I am reasonably certain that those same bins could not
be sold off, even at give away prices, because they are filled with the same
parts nobody else uses either.
I think that BB ought to bring back the display of information about how
long an item has been listed - it was there for a month or so, and was
really useful. Then BB ought to send reminders to sellers that an element
has been listed for more than so many (say 30 - 90) days without a sale and
suggest that the item be removed or reduced in price. This would help remove
the clutter currently on BB and make buying easier.
As for sets, I think the same statements apply - there are really
useful/desired sets - and there are tons of fluff - stuff nobody wants at
any price.
Of course there are many people who want what I generically call "the
fluff", but there are not enough of them to take care of the oversupply. So,
IMHO the market looks saturated because there is a lot of stuff listed. But
in reality, there are a lot of people out there looking for the truly hard
to find stuff (I'm in this group) and can't find it. So, I cannot subscribe
to the idea of the market being saturated - no matter how much stuff gets
listed.
My two studs worth,
Wayne
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: tips wanted: Selling Custom Kits
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| (...) All my parts are fluff. I freely admit it. At least, they are fluff to me, because they are leftovers from the kit parting process. So I keep discounting them, perhaps not as aggressively as I should, but I do discount them when I remember. (...) (23 years ago, 12-Jun-01, to lugnet.market.theory)
| | | Re: tips wanted: Selling Custom Kits
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| (...) Which goes to something I have said several times already.... BrickBay gives you a mechanism to show 'general level of interest', but no ability to say 'I need XX of this piece in this color and I'm willing to pay $YY/ea for them'. Individuals (...) (23 years ago, 13-Jun-01, to lugnet.market.theory)
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