On Fri, 19 Mar 1999 13:19:06 EST, PCACala@xxxxxxx jammed all night, and by
sunrise was overheard remarking:
> > What would cause someone to bid a high price for one specific item
> > while another of the exact same item gets very few bids and gets sold
> > at a very low price.
> See above. Once a person willing to pay above going market value buys the
> item, the loosing bidder often cools off and things settle down again.
But really, "above market value" doesn't exist on e-bay -- everything is
essentially sold AT market value. The market, of course, being e-bay.
Some folks who buy on e-bay participate in a larger market which includes
the other folks who sell on the internet or in the meat world. These
people (I'm of this group) don't buy higher than market value. Some
people buy only on e-bay. They don't buy higher than market value,
simply because they can't -- when your world is e-bay, what you're
willing to pay defines market value. For that moment, anyway.
Part of this is simply that, e-bay is so easy to use, people often take
exactly the same amount of care in buying a relatively high-priced item
as they would a newspaper at the local Wawa. I think this is a fairly new
thing -- more auction goers in the real world take some trouble to show
up at an auction (or, in the serious end of things, hire an agent to sit
at an auction for them). Even this model, auctions have a tendency to
define the market value of rare items, as they're often the only venue of
sale for such items.
> > Currently there is a glut of OM-10's listed, but some are going for
> > as low as $70 while others are getting bidded up to $150; for almost
> > exactly the same thing. So what caused people to overlook one item
> > and compete for another of the same thing?
> This seems to be the same thing you were asking on the 35mm f/2.8 In this
> case, also look for type of lens included, presence of a Manual Adapter (an
> OM-10 FC), presence of a Databack (an OM-10 Quartz). You are right about the
> glut. There is a glut everywhere.
That's basically the "seller's revenge" many on the e-bay have been
calling for. E-bay has stongly favored the buyer, simply because it's
such a large market that, for the most part, there has been much more
competition among buyers than sellers. It now seems that the word about
e-bay being a place to get good-to-crazy prices for your used goods is
getting around. This will inevitably have a levelling effect -- you
shouldn't get crazy bids, as a rule, once the general populaces gains
experience (the e-bay buyer population can't double every quarter or half
forever), they'll adjust to the "another coming tomorrow" philosphy.
> I cringed two weeks ago when I had to buy
> a 24mm f/2.8 Zuiko on a OM-10 because the OM-10 is harder than heck to sell.
> But I found a Manual Adapter a week later than will greatly increase its
> desirability. I might even put an old 50mm f/1.4 Zuiko on it to really make
> it desirable.
I was almost tempted to buy one, once they started to glut, just to
"collect the whole set" -- then I would only need an OM-F/30, OM-2, and
OM-3. Unless you start to count variations... But I went for the OM-1,
and oddly enough, I'm seeing body-only and body-with-50mm 1.8 going for
as much or more than I paid last week for body-plus-winder 1. I also took
a gamble -- the camera I bought had the "found this in Mom's attic"
description, not the "I'm a camera store guy slumming it" description. So
when they say "good", you have to interpolate, ask questions, check the
photos, and basically realize they're not saying it's "less than VG"
quality in more-or-less-standard camera store terms.
--
Dave Haynie | V.P. Technology, Met@box AG | http://www.metabox.de
Be Dev #2024 | NB851 Powered! | Amiga 2000, 3000, 4000, PIOS One
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