Ebay no longer cheap

[Soundloco]

For some years I have helped out at many model railway shows a couple of traders and enjoy the time doing so. However one question we got asked was can you do an already discounted item cheaper as it is cheaper on Ebay. Well one item I have watched certainly wasn't.

I purchased a Bachmann Collectors Club NSE 2-car EPB from the club being a member. However I noticed one on Ebay so watched it's progress. It finally sold for just over £192 including p&p. I was shocked as it is still available from the club to current members for just over £117 with p&p or non members who join paying the £20 get it for just over £137 inc p&p and get this years benefits.

It is not the only item I have noticed sell for money over the top althoug hothers have not been by that much. The Stobart 66 for one sells on Ebay for around the £75/85 mark for what are mostly 2nd hand items, but is still available from new Stobarts for under £70.

Guess now we have to shop around even more to get that bargain we all seem to want.

One of the ways I have saved on new items is to pre-order as if price goes up still get for pre-order price but if goes down pay the lesser price.

[RedgateModels]

There's no general rule really, but to back up your theory I was watching a Bachmann BR Standard Class 4 mogul on eBay that went for about £55 on Saturday night - I bought one on Saturday from a trader at the Boston Show for £45, and that one was already chipped

 

Some show traders though seem happy to sticker second hand stock up at top dollar prices and take them home with them - different business model I guess, if they do sell at the price they ask it makes up for all the shows it didn't sell, maybe ......

[Poggy1165]

Surely it's down the the bidders in each particular auction. If Ebay items are going for big bucks, it suggests strong demand.

[John M Upton]

The Bachmann Collectors Club NSE EPB was just another example of blatant profiteering on a still readily available item and at least two mugs fell for it, a common occurrence these days.

 

There are however countless other examples of ones born every minute who are bidding way OTT for items that are still on shelves and traders tables for far less.

[shortliner]

But then there are those of us who live in areas where "Traders tables" and "shops offering a good choice" simply do not exist! And if you choose not to model UK practice anyway.........

Edited September 19, 2011 by shortliner

[Kenton]

I think there are some folk who simply do not wish to join up on the Bachmann wagon and see no real benefit in doing so (especially if they only want one "cheaper" item.

 

If you are prepared to wait on eBay you usually find a cheaper ticket on the following bus - there will be one along eventually - and often several as the excessive "sale" price seems to stir others into parting with theirs in anticipation of a fast buck.

 

However, I agree, eBay no longer comes up with the bargain items/clearances that it used to. Too many folk see it as a way of making money especially by over egging items as "rare" when in fact they are simply junk that would otherwise end in landfill - probably where most of it actually belongs.

 

Having said that the occasional bargain does come along ... though it is spoiled by the scrum trying to get it.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

...ones born every minute who are bidding way OTT for items that are still on shelves and traders tables for far less.

What is I think overlooked is that the item being bid on may well be secondary for some bidders. They are in it for the chase, to 'win' it. Little different from the people who lay money on which gee gets to a specific spot first, or how many times a ball goes into a particular aperture.

 

As 'Kenton' above, just stand clear of any playing those games and wait for the following bus, on that route or elsewhere (like here) everything turns up at a sensible price eventually...

[Guest Natalie Graham]

Has ebay ever been cheap for model railway items? Generally the only time you will see anyone getting a bargain is when you are selling it.

[hayfield]

Ebay has both cheap and dear items. The idea is for sellers to get as much as they can for their items, on the other hand as a buyer you want it as cheap as possiable.

 

As a buyer I set a maximum price on an item that I am willing to spend, if someone else values it more then good luck to them. As Kenton has said if something sells at a good price them lots of others try and cash in on the price, only to see that actually devalues the price.

 

A good quality picture and description normally increases the items value, having said that there are times when an item fails to fetch what I thought it was worth. I have both benefited from this as a buyer and on a few occasions lost out slightly as a seller.

 

What has amazed me though is that sometimes the price I have got for some of the un-wanted items that have come with an item I wanted (still with me). Even if it only sells for a few pounds it reduces the final cost of the item I wanted, puts the unwanted items into the hands of someome who wanted them. And also helps keep the Royal Mail in business.

 

Yes on very rare occassions I must admit to paying over the top for an item, but then again most of what I buy is well under what I think it is worth.

[Horsetan]

So far, I have picked up three of the modern Standards (5MT, "4" 4-6-0, and "4" 2-6-4T) for about £40 to £44 each, and very recently a 9F (BR1F-fitted) for £80. Only the 2-6-4T had been previously used.

 

There are still bargains to be had. As mentioned above, it's just a matter of biding your time and waiting.

[petethemole]

There are still bargains to be had, or missed. I logged in the other day and immediately spotted 2 Hornby GW 57ft coaches at 99p each with no bids, but was just too late to bid before the listings closed unsold. There was no sign of anything wrong with them and these often go for £10+ unless fairly rough. There was a Bachmann Hall on last night, went for less than £40. I do think though that average sale prices have gone up a bit, 3 years ago I was buying the aforementioned GW coaches for well under £10 unboxed.

Pete

[Removed a/c]

The bargains are not as predominant as they were just a few years ago. It seem to be a giant online shopping centre now instead of an auction site. When was the last time you went to an auction and the item had a buy it now price !!

[Trainshed Terry]

I shall go along with that statement there is more Buy it Now than 5 years ago

 

Terry .

[phil-b259]

I shall go along with that statement there is more Buy it Now than 5 years ago

 

Terry .

 

Indeed, but this is what happens when sites like e-bay get 'discovered' by those in the comercial sector who then buy out the founders and then continually revamp the site to obtain every grater value for their shareholders. Not that this is necessarly bad of course, after all history has many examples of inovative ideas that were slow in developing due to lack of capital, but when big buisness does get involved, profits must be seen to rise year on year. With e-bay this manifested itself with signifficant increases in listing costs, changes to the feedback mechanism for sellers, the mandatory offering of Paypall and as you have correctly observed a big push for 'buy it now' deals. Also over the past few years there has been a concerted effort to get more stores to use the site, especially those related to high street brands. Again nothing unique about this trend (which is similar to the tactic used by Amazon marketplace when branched out from just being a book / DVD retailer) but it does give an indication of where the company believes its future lies. Given this I can see we will eventually get to a point where e-bay ditches private sellers as being not worth the hasle, At which point we will hopefully see something else come along to fill the void.

[Guest Natalie Graham]

I shall go along with that statement there is more Buy it Now than 5 years ago

 

Terry .

 

And even 'Can't Buy It At All'. I found my house for sale on ebay the other day, but there was nowhere to 'buy it now'. It was just the property website using ebay to advertise their properties.

[Butler Henderson]

Anyone who has bought a limited edition model to sell on ebay is going to need to sell it for at least around 20% more than they paid for it to simply cover the orignal cost and ebay and paypal fees. That is not profiteering.

[darren01]

HI

I agree that ebay has become over priced , was looking at a second hand Hornby M7 , wanted starting bid of 75 notes!

[Trains4U]

eBay is now stupidly expensive for the seller.

 

New items cannot be sold cheaply on ebay, unless you are selling for the following reasons:

 

To make something/anything back in an emergency cashflow situation

Are selling stolen goods

Are not paying any taxes

are mental

 

If I sold a loco on eBay, at my normal shop prices, I would lose money due to the excessive fees for listing, final value and paypal.

 

Business users do not qualify for "Free Listing" days and you have to turn over £2000 a month to get a 2% discount on final fees.

 

However, these have changed recently from their tiered approach to a flat 10% for collectables.

 

To sell a £1000 item used to cost about £35, it now costs about £130 if paid by paypal - no longer viable.

 

I don't sell on eBay anymore - they have become too greedy. and in turn caused selers to force their asking prices up.

 

If there are many others like me, then the market will slowly die off, unless eBay change their policies, because to be honest, it's too much effort for the returns realised and I can do so much better with shop sales and at the handful of shows I attend each year.

Edited September 20, 2011 by Trains4U

[Bernard Lamb]

eBay is now stupidly expensive for the seller.

 

 

But they still try.

Take the new Hornby Coronach for example.

Several on ebay, all at much higher prices than other outlets.

Bernard

[Karhedron]

The Bachmann Collectors Club NSE EPB was just another example of blatant profiteering on a still readily available item and at least two mugs fell for it, a common occurrence these days.

It is not just Bachmann. Several of the N gauge society products have sold on eBay for more than the cost of the item and a year's membership. Daft perhaps but not uncommon.

[Oldddudders]

The recent debate on the "ebay madness" thread over the expensive Bachmann CC 2-EPB does exemplify the frustration some of us feel when watching others shell out well-over-the-odds for items on general sale at better prices. Here in France, I have noticed that most ebay sales for sellers classified as "professional" are generally at or close to what we might call RRP. However, France also has its box-shifters, and their online tactics are fascinating. The other day some items I'd been eyeing up on one website suddenly dropped from 189 euros to 177.66, which seemed such a precise and irritating figure as to have some meaning. Sure enough, a major competitor website had suddenly announced a 6% reduction in prices across the shop - lowering his price for these items to - 177.66! This chap has been offering online some decent Electrotren stuff at less than half the price of other sellers using Buy-It-Now on ebay. As others have said, if you use the Internet wisely, you should be able to undercut a lot of ebay prices for new goods.

[Kenton]

I think we forget the mission that eBay originally set out on.

 

It was to provide a platform for sellers to dispose of unwanted items by offering those items to a wider network of potential buyers who wanted the items.

 

That mission has evolved and changed considerably. The independent seller is gradually being priced out in favour of the "store".

 

It is now about enabling a "store" (that can be an individual) with access to multiple products but without the IT cost infrastructure to sell on the internet. Those stores are using the platform of eBay in the same way as they would their own IT web base but with the eBay machine and branding behind it. That only reasonably comes at a cost. They should, in theory, still be able to undercut the high street.

 

The second hand element is dwindling because eBay is encouraging these "stores" who see the auction as an uncertain business model and "buy-it-now" as a simple extension of their "shop". But it is also dwindling because the sellers on wBay have changed. They now desire to make a profit or at least to recover the cost of the item they are selling.

 

What has changed is the sellers mentality. It used to be that people threw away items they no longer needed or wanted, or simply put them in the attic for their children to inherit. Since eBay they now realise they can actually find someone who will pay good money for those unwanted items. More so, the mentality has evolved, not without eBay's encouragement, people seem to think that a second-hand item, broken or damaged, item with an over inflated "rare"/"added value" original MRP is now somehow valued in excess of the original price paid. Then we have this only confirmed by the nature of the buyers who seem to think it is all a game, a bidding war, or that simply cannot be bothered to actually stop ant think/reasearch about what they are actually buying.

 

As a buyer of kits on eBay I cannot understand why a kit (which has no guarantee of having all its parts) sells for more than the finished built article and often at multiples of the original price. It makes no sense.

[Karhedron]

As a buyer of kits on eBay I cannot understand why a kit (which has no guarantee of having all its parts) sells for more than the finished built article and often at multiples of the original price. It makes no sense.

The price for a finished kit seems to depend mostly on who finished it. It is the same in most modelling hobbies that a mint kit will sell for more than a completed one unless it has been done by a genuinely talented modeller.

 

To sell a kit-built item for more than the cost of the kit and parts requires a finish rivalling that of RTR. This is one of the quirks of eBay in that people are not willing to pay for anything less than perfection, even if it is still better than anything they could do themselves. It is also a reason why proffessional modellers often steer clear of smaller scales (particularly N gauge) as they find people are not willing to pay for the time and effort involved.

[Kenton]

</p>people are not willing to pay for the time and effort involved.</p>

</p>That is the truth of it. In any scale there is no real understanding of the time and skill involved in building a kit and then the additional time in a quality paint job.

 

Yet for some reason are prepared to pay large sums to spatter "weathering" all over a new RTR offering.

 

I have seen some miserable examples of "professionally" built kits, usually glued together by what appears to be the local supply of Araldite and hastily painted over to disguise the result.

 

It seems that many who purchase built models make a direct comparison to RTR where as many who buy the basic kit are more interested in the experience of the build than the finished item.

[Colin_McLeod]

. When was the last time you went to an auction and the item had a buy it now price !!

 

Last month.

There is a traditional auction house in a street off Oliver Plunkett Street in Cork (mostly furniture and pictures) that does have "buy it now" prices displayed on some of the items.

Edited September 25, 2011 by Colin_McLeod