E-Bay, whats going on ?

[crepitis]

Recently I have noticed items on E-bay changing hands for prices that are close or equal to the brand new retail price.

The latest one was a two inch Focus Extension tube with brass compression ring. A brand new one of exactly the same spec sells on FLO for £18 including post, so I thought a punt of just over half new price , including the sellers exorbitant £5 postage fee, might get a result.

How wrong could I be, it sold for £28 plus the £5 postage...£33 for an item you can get brand spanking new for around half that price.

Are there people out there whose internet service only allows them to access E-Bay, and is incapable of allowing them to check what new items actually cost ?

It seems that people are prepared to risk defective goods or being ripped off to save one or two pounds, or in the case above, to pay double for the priviledge .

[MishMich]

I noticed this, and I wondered if it is people who buy from countries where these items are not easily available? It is bizarre. The conclusion I have come to is that there are people who work together to push the prices up - then people get into a bidding war - and the bidder who was just bidding the price up turns down the item if they win, and the item can then be offered to the next highest bidder at their last bid price. That way, they get a second chance offer at a much higher amount than they would have done had there not been a phoney bidder. Also, a lot of those daft-price items seem to end up re-listed because the winning bidder welched on the deal. So, despite the rules about legal contracts (which are never pursued) there are idiots who are bidding just for a laugh - with no intention of buying - which is very frustrating if you are the one bidding against them (you cannot outbit somebody who has no intention of buying).

M.

[crepitis]

E-Bay used to be fun a few years ago and I have managed to get a few bargains from time to time, but it seems to be losing its way a little.

[Jupiter Martin]

It is just crazy last year I sold a BOSE IPOD docking station on there 2 years old and it was bid up to over the new price I was laughing all the way to the bank.

[laser_jock99]

Recently I have noticed items on E-bay changing hands for prices that are close or equal to the brand new retail price.

The latest one was a two inch Focus Extension tube with brass compression ring. A brand new one of exactly the same spec sells on FLO for £18 including post, so I thought a punt of just over half new price , including the sellers exorbitant £5 postage fee, might get a result.

How wrong could I be, it sold for £28 plus the £5 postage...£33 for an item you can get brand spanking new for around half that price.

Are there people out there whose internet service only allows them to access E-Bay, and is incapable of allowing them to check what new items actually cost ?

It seems that people are prepared to risk defective goods or being ripped off to save one or two pounds, or in the case above, to pay double for the priviledge .

Wasn't me. My max bid on that item was only £4.50!! Can work the other way though - I got a mint Skywatcher Equinox 120 refractor for much less than half the new price.

[Astro_Baby]

Yup - have seen the same. People bidding all sorts of junk at silly prices. Good for sellers though.

Take a look at this one HUGE TELESCOPE REFLECTOR FULLERSCOPE on eBay (end time 23-Jan-10 20:50:00 GMT)

£360 - not bad for a bit of drainpipe cos the rest of the scope is knackered including someone who 'knows nothing about scopes' cleaning its mirror.

The sort of views you'll get with that will be expensive bills

To be fair ebay has always had its fair share of this. I sold a load of latex club outfits years ago on ebay and people were paying waaaaaaay over the odds.

Barnum said 'theres one born every minute' but personaly I think he underestimated.

[crepitis]

Laser_Jock , I know there are still bargains to be had, but they are very much the exception to the rule nowadays.

I sometimes get the impression that people are willing to spend over the odds just so they can say " Oh Yah, I got it from E-Bay dont you know" .

[crepitis]

Astro_Baby I just had a look at the scope in your link, I cant believe somebody paid £360 for that !!.

Its funny that whenever anyone is selling a heap of cr*p that they always seem to "know nothing about telescopes" and always inherited it from an elderly relative or are selling it on behalf of a dying friend.

And when in doubt about your buying audience , type everything in CAPITALS and add a few " LOLS " here and there.

[yeti monster]

Fleabay can still turn up some excellent bargains, if you are prepared to sort the wheat from the chaff.

I picked up my 114reflector for 30 quid, only 6 miles from home. The vender had given up as he knew not about collimation. When I went to pick it up I took one look down the focusser and could clearly see that the secondary was miles out.

It's what brought me kicking and screaming back into astronomy and now I have aperure fever summink rotten............

[crepitis]

When a decent buy and close proximity come together theres no beating E-bay .

It just seems that nowadays there are too many fake bids , false descriptions , and various other underhand tactics...but I still keep going back.

[John]

My best e.bay buy was a Skywatcher 10" dobsonian in excellent order for £100 "buy it now" - so I did !. I had to drive a 150 mile round trip to get it but still an absolute steal - I felt a bit guilty picking the scope up but the seller was grateful to see the back of it and even offered to pay for my petrol - needless to say I politely declined his offer .....

A few days ago a Tele Vue plossl (13mm I think ?) went for around $150 on e.bay US - crazy !

[AndyH]

Aye. It's a strange place for sure. Always get a chuckle when something goes for more than FLO, for example, sells.

Not as busy astro wise, as it used to be I reckon. Now and again there's interesting stuff on. I have noticed that Tal gear is like buses. Nothing for a while, then 3 or 4 at a time. Strange.

[Deneb]

I saw a s/h Meade DSI go for £240 on ebay a couple of weeks back, Mad.

Cheers

Nadeem.

[steve51450]

i am said seller on ebay who sold the 2" extension tube, the reason for the OTT postage charges on ebay are simple

1 its an auction and you never know what it will sell for

2 it keeps your fees down (10%) now on ebay

3 almost everything has to go recorded delivery on ebay now or you are not covered under ebay rules

4 packing materials, time & petrol to a post office are not free

The reason ebay prices are mad at the moment is because ebay is in a massive state of flux while it changes itself into the next amazon. They have put there charges up again, brought in a new top rated and above seller table with almost impossible expectations & on top of this they have handed all the power to the customer making ebay one of the safest places to buy from in the world. Over the next year you will also see the removal of any other form of payment except for paypal as well. What this all means is top rated seller and only top rated sellers get the main exposure and every body elses listings get pushed to the bottom. This means that most listing are not seen unless people troll through the pages. As we all know your average internet buyer can be a tad lazy to say the least and will not bother scrolling from the 1st page so they miss the bargains. This is a shame but the way of the future on ebay i am afraid. I had a long conversation with my ebay manager the other day and in not to many words he admitted ebay do not really want the small joe bloggs auction any more, they want medium to large business's as well as there new push to daily deals & outlet tabs which are aimed at the large corporate multiples.

On one hand i am amazed & very pleased at what my 2" extender sold for i am saddened because it is the start of the end of ebay as we know it, which is a crying shame but as we live in a capital society and not utopia where the shareholder is king was always going to be the natural progression for ebay

The days of an auction site for the people has long since passed i am afraid Now ebay have lost their roots It will leave a very large void for the next ebay style auction site to fill

In the meantime, change your search setting on ebay from ebay's new default setting which is best match ( top sellers mainly) to just listed or ending soonest as you will see everything then.

[MishMich]

When you do get a good deal, it's a bit of worry - do other people know something I don't? I got my SPX very cheap, and nobody else bid. Turns out the lister put it in but got his dates muddled, so it was listed for a couple of days at the start of the week, instead of a week ending on a Sunday. Apparently you get more bidders at the weekend. SPX is great, although I had to do a bit of work on the crayford to get it smoother. Only problem is I want something bigger. But it will do until I can get a larger SCT.

M.

[skye at night]

I personally hope Amazon takes over as ebay just consumes itself...

As for the prices.

I think there are just so many people who despite obviously having the internet..think that ebay is always the cheapest prices and dont check out elsewhere...

As said before . some sort of license/aptitude test is needed for use of computer and the internet..

Steve

[russ]

Ebay is certainly having a wiggy moment but i made this same comment on SGL back in 2006. Even back then i couldn't understand why people were paying more than the shop prices for secondhand gear. And Steve is right, why do people just presume Ebay is cheapest? It's a good place to start for a price comparison but a google search normally turns up something cheaper elsewhere.

The odd bargain still gets through. Like John i picked my current 8" Skyliner dob through Ebay.......£40 no other bids. He obviously wasn't very happy about the price and i fully expected him to pull out. When i arrived to collect the dob was still buried in the garage under a heap of junk and looked a mess on first sight. Clearly see why he used a promo pic for his Ebay auction. But it all cleaned up a treat though.

[crepitis]

Thats the point I was trying to make in my original post, people seem incapable of looking to see the actual cost of a new item before bidding on E-Bay.

some of the prices must be down to "bidding fever", but a lot can be attributed to ignorance and , frankly, stupidity.

[laser_jock99]

Thats the point I was trying to make in my original post, people seem incapable of looking to see the actual cost of a new item before bidding on E-Bay.

some of the prices must be down to "bidding fever", but a lot can be attributed to ignorance and , frankly, stupidity.

....always do your research first.

[russ]

Thats the point I was trying to make in my original post, people seem incapable of looking to see the actual cost of a new item before bidding on E-Bay.

some of the prices must be down to "bidding fever", but a lot can be attributed to ignorance and , frankly, stupidity.

I think you have nailed it with the "bidding fever" or win at all costs!

[crepitis]

I have to admit that in my younger days on e-bay I occasionally fell victim to a dose of the "fever" myself , buying cr*p that I neither needed or wanted , but Im much less prone to it nowadays .

[russ]

Yes i think a lot of us have caught a bit of the fever at some point. I did once for a graphics card for the PC. My final bid + post was only £5 off the new price....doh!!!!

[crepitis]

The Fever seemed to be worse in the past when you could see the other bidders user name, and you might recognise it as somebody who had outbid you before, and it was Payback time !

Now its just "bidder2" "bidder3" etc, takes that element out of the equation, thank goodness.

[russ]

it was Payback time !

[AndyH]

Shamefully I must admit I did that once many years ago

Andy.

The Fever seemed to be worse in the past when you could see the other bidders user name, and you might recognise it as somebody who had outbid you before, and it was Payback time ! ;)

Now its just "bidder2" "bidder3" etc, takes that element out of the equation, thank goodness.