Subject:
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Re: No really - a rational discussion of people selling via eBay?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Wed, 19 May 1999 03:05:13 GMT
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Reply-To:
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LPIEN@CTP.saynotospamIWANTNOSPAM.COM
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Viewed:
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2063 times
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Frank Filz wrote:
> What I find objectionable (and what I think most people are actually
> complaining about) is hoarding not scalping.
Whew. Well, that's a relief, then.
You've got nothing to worry about in a free market, because hoarding
just can't happen. As long as multiple sellers of the product exist, the
market will be at what the product is really worth.
The only way you can get hoarding is if the product is so rare that one
person actually CAN corner the market, or if governments help enforce
artificial scarcity. Remember the oil crisis? Our government helped the
Saudis and others corner the market. Hence we got scalping, hoarding,
black/grey marketeering and all the ills you get when you try to
outthink the market. As soon as prices were allowed to rise to their
natural level, voila, end of scarcity. It's amazing what wells came
online when oil sold for more than the cost of production again. Priced
oil lately? It's cheaper in real dollars than it was in 1972 before the
first oil crisis.
If you don't like hoarding you should be pushing for freer markets. We
have relatively free markets generally but they can be improved.
Fortunately the situation W.R.T. LEGO is pretty good. We have multiple
venues and prices have been generally improving as they move toward
market levels. Priced metroliners lately? They are plentiful and cheaper
than they were a year ago. It's amazing what lines of supply open up
when they start selling above 300 dollars.
Now, you say, wait. You, Larry, just paid 421 dollars for a metroliner,
what are you talking about? Well, that was no ordinary metroliner. It
was scarce. There will only be ONE first lot auctioned at Serious
Collector and it was worth more than the going rate for a run of the
mill metroliner for me to have it.
Is Franz K. a hoarder because he has a stock of metroliners that he's
releasing one at a time? No. There are plenty of metroliners out there.
Is Mobil Oil a hoarder because it doesn't immediately pump all of its
oilfields dry? No. There is plenty of oil on the market. Franz wants a
steady cash stream, so does Mobil.
Strangely enough, I think eBay has actually helped reduce prices here on
RTL because it has increased the supply of used and rare Lego.
I don't like eBay. But that's because of the bidding rules and because
it encourages scalpers. I won't use it. But I am not going to flame
anyone else for using the most efficient (biggest collection of goods,
biggest collection of buyers) market we currently have available to us.
And neither should anyone else.
Now, I think there's value in the discussion we had here before (which
never came to a satisfactory conclusion, I don't think) on how sellers
could devise a system to discourage snipers that was within the rules of
eBay.
Snipers are bad for sellers. At least that's a position that many of us
sellers take.
Snipers are frustrating for buyers. At least that's a position that many
of us buyers take. But let's not debate it again, it's been debated.
To Mike's point about what the market will bear and taking it without
feeling guilty that some RTLer didn't get a good deal. You're not a bad
person because you use the information the market has about what
something is worth to maximize your return. Charity belongs elsewhere.
Nor are you a bad person because you work to increase market information
(as I did, once) even if that decreases returns for someone who is
exploiting gaps in the information.
--
Larry Pieniazek http://my.voyager.net/lar
FDIC Know your Customer is wounded, thanks to you, but not dead...
See http://www.defendyourprivacy.com for details
For me: No voyager e-mail please. All snail-mail to Ada, please.
- Posting Binaries to RTL causes flamage... Don't do it, please.
- Stick to the facts when posting about others, please.
- This is a family newsgroup, thanks.
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