Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Rant follows:

Someone just "won" a used (albeit lightly used) Nikon SB900 flash. Winning bid was C$470. PST/GST on top of that. C$24/U$28 shipping or C$10 for local pickup.

Meanwhile, down at Aden Camera, a brand new unit sells for C$489.

Are these people nuts?

End rant.

L

Whether or not these people are nuts it is bitter sweet that good photography equipment holds its value extremely well if taken care of.

Tell that to the people on Craigslist!

I dunno, I sold 25 of those Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim cameras on eBay for between $20 and $40 a piece with shipping. All told I made about $625. These are the ones that were selling at Dollarama for $1 each.

So I made a 2500% profit on my $25 investment. As far as I'm concerned people can go on being stupid on eBay for as long as they like.

HOLY CRAP!
you win. thread over.

I think there were a bunch of us on here buying them and resellling - but I have no idea how successful the others were!

Those guys can win some of my stuff any time....

The auction competition is what gets these people going. I believe that people become less interested in paying a fair price for the item and get swept into the competition and wanting to beat everyone else to get the item.

I've always been surprised by this, since eBay lets you set your maximum bid and then automatically keeps you on top for as long as it can. If someone is out-bid in this system and then returns to bid again, then they obviously don't really know what their "maximum" bid is and are just being emotional, trying to keep up with everyone else but now knowing why.

So true. I recently watched a program where some economic majors explained how people get screwed in the stock market. It went much like an ebay auction where people just drove the prices up for no good reason.

In the test the students conducted they auctioned of a $20 dollar bill. They kept the bidding going until some sucker ended up paying $28 dollars for it. It showed how people get caught up in wanting to be the winner and how you're always going to be a loser because even if you wanted to sell the bill it's only worht $20 unless you can find some other sucker to pay more for it like the stock market....

That's why I always snipe with my max price I want to pay, that way I won't get into any bidding war and by only sniping it at the last seconds, I avoid provoking a price war. I am doing pretty good with this method.
In terms of ebay prices, I find that golf equipments are at very attractive prices now, even for brand new ones. I got a brand new putter for $71+ $20 shipment and it came through the post office with no taxes today. The same putter here normally sell for $199 and is on sale for $139 at Golf Town right now.
I also got a 3 wood and a 5 wood for $230, the same woods are on sale here for $178 each

I was thinking about this very topic last week!

I "snipe" as well, but I've done it manually. I've never lost an auction, paid under my maximum price and... I only bid once, right at the end.

I've even seen people bid on "broken items (for parts)" like cell phones, etc., and yet a brand new one goes for the same. Nuts! When I see an item I want, and such a bidding war is on, I just walk away. I can tell pretty early that it's gonna get ridiculous.

Another thing... I always wondered why people even bid so soon when there's like 6 days left of an auction!

I think the auctioneer or somebody associated fans the flames. Sometimes they get stuck but hey...the pluses outweigh the minuses...

Ultimately the buyer burns themselves though...

It's also possible that the item you are selling that's available locally for a similar price may not be so readily available in the buyer's area.

and i think it's the reverse on Craigslist. Put an item up at a reasonable price and you get lowballers trying to buy it at 40% of it's value and trying to convince you that it's a good deal...

Wow! Which dollarama are they selling those at? I've certainly never seen them before.

last year's story... not available any more!