Subject:
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Re: CFD: e-bay (aka ranting and raving)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 11 Feb 1999 05:10:37 GMT
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Reply-To:
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CJC@spamcakeNEWSGUY.COM
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Viewed:
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633 times
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James Brown <galliard@shades-of-night.com> wrote:
> I was not remotely implying that you are not part of the Lego community! I was
> stating that e-bay is not part of the Lego community. That 2% every time
> effectively never comes back in. (barring complicated theories of market ebb
> and flow)
I may have misunderstood what you said before and responded in a
rather offended tone in a previous post. Forgive me if it offended
you.
But I don't agree with this either. If a set will sell for $100 on
RTL but might go for $150 on eBay (larger audience, the way eBay
encourages higher bidding, inexperienced people, whatever) then that
2% doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, does it? If I
sell it on RTL I get $100 and Bob gets his set. If I sell it for $150
on eBay I get $150 minus the eBay fee and Frank gets his set. Any way
you look at it I get more money (as a member of the Lego community)
and a buyer gets a set he wants.
I assume, of course, that nobody but a real maniac spends $150 on any
Lego set. Speculators generally buy low and sell high.
> Again, more on that lower.
You keep saying lower. Say below. It flows better in that phrase.
:)
> volitile - nobody can accurately predict whats going to be "big" next week. My
> concern is the (warning: prejudices leaking!) trailer park bozo constantly in
That is pretty prejudiced. Downright offensive, actually. And no, I
don't now and never have lived in a trailer park. Known wonderfully
good honest people who have, though.
Picking on rednecks is still considered ok, though, so who can blame
you.
> search of the "big score" - he wanders through e-bay, sees a whole bunch of
> Lego, and notices that pirate boats are selling for a couple hundred bucks
> each. He doesn't go out and find pirate boats locally and try to sell them,
> no, that would be effort. What he does do, is starts buying them off e-bay,
> and stuffing them in a closet, with the mistaken perception that "if they get
> 200 now, they'll get 300 next week" Now, this guy rarely wins more than 1 or 2
> lots (although he's invariaby taken in by the psychological tricks e-bay uses),
I'd be surprised if many people really do this. You'd have to have
fairly deep pockets and a lack of experience and sense to do it, and
deep pockets and lack of sense rarely go together.
> but what he *does* do is drive up the price on every single pirate boat that
> goes through e-bay, for as long as his 'scam of the week' remains Lego. Given
> the sheer volume of traffic going through e-bay, and how easy it is to use,
> this guy is all over the place there. Then he goes out and buys 47 "genuine
> Italian marble" garden gnomes. ;)
How many people do you know personally who actually do this? I know a
lot of people who like to capitalize on trends, but nobody who goes to
this extreme you seem to be describing.
> The RTL and Lugnet community is a fairly close-knit community, of (generally
> speaking) intelligent, reasonable adults who have a single hobby in common.
> To me, that such a thing exists at all is enough reason to not go outside of
> it. When someone from that community sells/auctions a set outside that
> community, I feel the community as a whole loses out. Yes, the individual gets
> a better return, which then gets put back in (albiet indirectly), but to me,
> that benefit is outweighed.
I don't agree. On a personal level I do choose to sell things for
less, or hell, even give them away or trade cheap to the people in my
community I've come to think of as friends. But in general, when I
have something to sell, or a lot of somethings, I'd rather make more
money than not.
Does that mean that I won't hold something back for the abovementioned
cheaper sell or trade, or maybe even so I can give it as a gift?
Nope, do it all the time. But I'm not Santa Claus. I sell the things
I sell to make money to buy the things I want. If I can sell gable
bricks on eBay for twice what I can get on RTL, that just means more
money in my pocket that I can use on the next 6085 I see offered.
Maybe I won't have to be so cheap when I do see it.
> First, prices on e-bay are higher, and that inflates the price of non-retail
> Lego beyond what the community sees the value as being. That means that we all
> "pay" extra every time a set gets more 'valuable'. Inflation is inevitable,
> but it should be related to availability, not to profit. ( I realize that I am
> arguing an ideal)
This has happened without eBay's help and would continue to happen if
eBay's HQ were firebombed tonight. Especially when you're talking
about out of production sets. They get more expensive, not less, over
time.
> Second, every time someone not part of the Lego community buys a set, it
> effectively disappears forever. So each time a set is sold outside the
> community, that set becomes harder to find, and the price goes up. Again, we
> all pay.
Well, again, I'd have to stress that not ALL sets sold through eBay go
to people even *I* would say are outside of the community you seem to
have so firm an understanding of. I know at least 5 people who could
very easily buy Lego sets on eBay (all of them are into Lego stuff and
all of them have used eBay for other things) but you wouldn't know
them from Adam as they don't choose to participate on RTL or Lugnet.
If my friend John buys an older Technic set via eBay you wouldn't know
him so you'd see it as a loss to the community. I do know him and I
wouldn't. Now something tells me that if *I* know 5 people who are
unknown to the rest of you, at least a few of you know at least a few
people of your own.
What if the Doctor (forget his name) who recently surfaced with his
awesome castles had been buying up older Castle sets for the last two
years on eBay? By your second reason there you would probably have
said that for two years those sets disappeared into the ether, then
suddenly reappeared when he broke onto the RTL scene.
> Third, while you get a better return (say 20%), only 18% of that return 'stays'
> in the community - the other 2% is effectively lost into the general economy,
> and it never comes back.
Yeah, but all 18% goes into my pocket, and then possibly into Todd's
pocket or Naji's pocket or your pocket. If I had sold on RTL and made
20% less then that 18% would have never made it into your pocket. And
if one of the people *I* believe are just as much a part of the
community as you or I bought the set via eBay then where is the loss?
> Fourth, if a set is sold 'outside' the community, then we never know what gets
> done with it - there is never any feedback - no website, no newsgroup
> discussion sparked by someone finding a great set, nothing. Again, we lose
> out, and this is arguably a more significant lose than the money part of the
> equation.
Who says? This is all supposition. It can happen that way. I don't
want to beat the horse even more, but you haven't done anything to
demonstrate that a set sold to ANYONE on eBay is a set sold to someone
outside the community. I don't think you can.
> Finally, (and this is more of a personal thing than anything else) If there is
> someone that I know wants something, I'll sell it to them before I put it in my
> garage sale. If I want to get rid of my old lawnmower, I'll see if a
> neighbor, or family member, or friend needs it. The knowledge that something
> is being used by someone I know, and that I know will care about it and use
> it is more important, I believe, than that extra bit of profit. Everytime
> someone from RTL/Lugnet goes 'outside' the community, it implies that the
> community is less important that the 'almight dollar' - note I did say
> "implies".
Doesn't imply that to me. Something tells me I could have made a
little bit of money selling the red timber walls and banner from 6067
that I had as extras. I didn't sell them, though. I sent them to
someone with nothing more than a mention that if he has something I
could use we can work it out. Doesn't matter to me if I ever get
anything in return or not, just like it didn't matter to the person
who gave them to me.
Maybe I should have given that 6274 away. I didn't mainly because I
traded a brand new Metroliner to a friend who was crying over not
having one for several sets and while I think I got the short end of
the stick, it did make him happy and I got some pleasure from that.
But I do want to convert those "short end of the stick" sets into cash
so I can make up for my loss. :)
--
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800-835-4386 (S@H USA) / 800-267-5346 (S@H Canada)
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: CFD: e-bay (aka ranting and raving)
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| (...) No problem. I flared up too. (...) Understood. I would just prefer that the buyer who gets it is someone who participates online. From what others have said, about half the winning bids go to people who don't participate in RTL or Lugnet, and (...) (26 years ago, 11-Feb-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: CFD: e-bay (aka ranting and raving)
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| (...) <more snipping> (...) Oh, I'm not arguing against the minimum incriment! My point is that its a very seductive trap that e-bay uses (and most auctions, to be fair) to get more money out of the marks. Most people, everytime they're outbid, they (...) (26 years ago, 10-Feb-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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