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Crazy Auctions / Prices Thread


cteno4

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i do now see i had a few assumptions wrong on the larger scale store costs. the ebay/paypal can get down to 20% on the small stuff (i was assuming the higher paypal and listing per item fees which pushed the percentage way up, but they now have an alternates for stores and small purchases), so lots more there. assuming $2/hr then fulfillment would probably be 30 cents and many of these small items like you say may only be 10 cent cost to them so there is a decent margin in there if shipping is not too bad. china post has a bulk rate for this sort of stuff for them im sure. it is all going to one destination in the shipping country then their responsible for the rest.


 


and found this


 


Read Full Report - Office of Inspector General | United ...


 


turns out it looks like the usps is cutting a sweetheart deal on these little packages from china to us from ebay. i guess its cheap for them as they all come into a central point and have all the electronic tracking on them that makes it much cheaper and easier for usps to route cheaply. this is the big thing that gives the extra profit margin to these sellers. this way undercuts us sellers as its getting impossible to ship anything small anymore for less than a dollar here w/in the states.


 


like you say its retail as long as you can make a profit! and doing a small transaction in china is more like doing a 5x larger transaction here in terms of money.


 


jeff


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No longer listed but I saw a B-Train on Ebay.de with a BIN price of £2,300, I know rare items can gain a great deal of value but surely this price is ridiculous ?

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Can't imagine why they bother with prices like that, I can see double or triple the price to fish for the person that just wants it and money is not an option and just happens to be no cheaper ones at the time, but £2300 is laughable for a btrain...

 

Jeff

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lurkingknight

from what I've read elsewhere on some ridiculous pricing is that in order to avoid removing an out of stock item and having to relist it (it costs extra money) the seller just jacks up the price to something ridiculous so people won't buy it, but they don't lose any money by having to relist and pay the ebay fees. Then when the item gets restocked, they lower the price back down.

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ahh now that makes sense. surprising that ebay has not closed that loophole! it does make ebay look a little silly with ridiculous pricing like that even though its the sellers doing it.

 

jeff

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A common fix i've seen on other sites is that when you change the price, it's considered a relist and it's a fixed % of the new price.

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Oh the 700T. Yes that's rare. Well willing buyers willing sellers.

 

Nonetheless glad I finally gotten my E1 Max old colour so i'm happy, even if it is prototypically wrong..

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Hello,

 

Actually, the E1 is a good price at ¥30,000.  I have seen them sell for over ¥40,000.  The reason is because two cars are particularly difficult to get.  They were only sold separately and are required to make up a prototypical set.  Car 2844 E158-100, and 2845 E159 are quite difficult to find, but are required to have a full consist.  The other cars are widely available in 92059/60 and 92212/3.

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That's the same seller who got a few posts in an older thread about the same topic.

Just a few comments from the buyers:

 

item not received refused to send another'no stock' though 5 avail on their ebay 
HOPELESS! Seems you cant buy from this seller! you do get refunded though....
OMG! Do these people actually have anything to sell?

 

So it looks like he doesn't stock anything, just go and buy one from whatever source with the money. This is why shipping takes around two months, so the seller has time to get something cheap and post it. Unless he manages to sell something that is not available anymore, in which case just refunds the buyer or sends something similar. Think of it as a very slow, very unreliable, very expensive private shopping service, which may or may not work.

 

ps: I'm aware that you don't have to be in posession of the items you sell on ebay when you sell them, you just have to ship them within a few months or refund the buyers. Still, i would say this practice is morally not right.

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Every good model railway forum should have its own thread dedicated to Ebay insanity...

There already was. Two actually. So I merged them. :)

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Every once and a while I run across a Japanese ebay shop selling stuff to the rest of the world with some items at like 5-10x retail price for stuff in stock at easily accessible sources, while other listing are at close to retail prices. I've emailed a few to ask why so high in price to see if it was an error, but never an answer and price remains the same. At least you get free SAL Shipping! Any idea of what gives?

 

Jeff

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/N-Gauge-Structure-kit-Plant-Factory-Equipments-B-Japanese-JPN-/301731541805?hash=item464099f32d

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/KATO-N-gauge-24-312-Turf-Bright-Green-Model-Railroads-Model-Trains-w-Tracking-/291256727647?hash=item43d040f85f

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Diorama-Collection-Scene-human-024-People-shrine-12-set-Japan-/301728484847?hash=item46406b4def

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Shipping: Does not ship to Japan

 

Dayuuuum...

 

Why? Presumably because there are enough suckers out there...

 

Though I've heard rumour that some retailers temporarily set stupidly high prices on items so they don't incur costs by de- then re-listing them. Not sure if that's the case here.

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It's odd that only a few are so high and stuff easily found. I don't get what the resisting fees would work unless they just hope that a sucker bites, but these odd items? Just sees odd...

 

Jeff

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Willing buyer, willing seller...

 

Some with no experience and did not want to go around sourcing or searching the net will probably buy them off directly since it is already inclusive of shipping...

 

But wow the price of that Greenmax structure is about the price of a nice 4-car basic set train...  

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This is usually a typo. Recently i've seen a buch of static train models, each for 1.99 euro, except one which was 199 euro. Some sllers also mark their out of stock items this way, so nobody would buy them, but they still don't have to delist them.

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