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Why the bleep is eBay so expensive??

tipc said:
Everyone's talking about old puters. What about a water pump for a 1998 Grand Prix. Last 1 (2 sold), 999$:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Engine-Wat...012079&hash=item1f01d501c3:g:d8EAAOSw7xZdgMdS

I'm glad I spotted 1 for 28$ before I saw that listing.
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I can still find plenty of parts for my snow blower, lawn tractor, and washer/dryer on ebay cheaper than amazon. For now....

But here is my 2 cents on the current crisis. Where did the economy/budget cars go? Did everyone forget the Geo/Chevrolet Metro? it was a 9 thousand dollar car on a .999L 3 cyl engine. An AMAZING commuter car that got better gas mileage than most hybrids (Hybrids are a FARCE!). What happened to entry level commuter cars? They dont exist. Sure the Metro was the far side of that spectrum, but say Toyota; They used to sell the Tercel, than the Corolla, than the Camry. Where did the Tercel go? Honda had the CRX, than the Civic, than the accrord/prelude. Yeah they re-released the CRX, but its more of an accord at this point. The original CRV had MANUAL brakes, and MANUAL steering. Where are the entry level cars!? I don't own an SUV nor will I ever buy one!!!!
 
VERAULT said:
Where did the economy/budget cars go?
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Most manufacturers abandoned them because they weren't profitable (there wasn't demand). Ford went even farther, they discontinued everything that wasn't an SUV or the Mustang. The cheapest new car you can buy in the USA is currently the Chevrolet Spark @ $14K but I wouldn't get in that unless I had a death wish. There are still entry level sedans, but "entry level" in 2021 means roughly $20k.

Getting back on topic... regarding ebay pricing: While I'm sure a few auctions are money laundering, and others are special cases (like propmasters who have a 50K budget for "make this look like the 1980s" and don't care about cost), most people don't want to accept that there are very reasonable and understandable explanations for higher prices on vintage computers, vintage software/games, etc: Buyers are willing to pay that much. It really is that simple. People interested in the hobby are usually in a computer field, which pays pretty well these days. So someone in their early 30s who really, REALLY wants to revisit Windows 98 games on a 400 MHz Celeron with a 3DFX card will have no trouble forking over $400-$500 of disposable income (especially when they forked over $600 or more for the cell phone in their pocket).

The only area of this hobby that concerns me are the rising prices of computer games. Some go into the thousands, and these numbers are justified by the quality of the item, still in factory shrinkwrap... but some people have discovered that you can re-wrap items and the inexperienced collector won't/can't tell the difference. It's not exactly counterfeiting, but it is definitely unscrupulous, which is why my next youtube video is about this very subject.
 
VERAULT said:
I can still find plenty of parts for my snow blower, lawn tractor, and washer/dryer on ebay cheaper than amazon. For now....

But here is my 2 cents on the current crisis. Where did the economy/budget cars go? Did everyone forget the Geo/Chevrolet Metro? it was a 9 thousand dollar car on a .999L 3 cyl engine. An AMAZING commuter car that got better gas mileage than most hybrids (Hybrids are a FARCE!). What happened to entry level commuter cars? They dont exist. Sure the Metro was the far side of that spectrum, but say Toyota; They used to sell the Tercel, than the Corolla, than the Camry. Where did the Tercel go? Honda had the CRX, than the Civic, than the accrord/prelude. Yeah they re-released the CRX, but its more of an accord at this point. The original CRV had MANUAL brakes, and MANUAL steering. Where are the entry level cars!? I don't own an SUV nor will I ever buy one!!!!
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About a year and a half ago I bought my wife a Mazda CX-9. I looked at everything in my price range and it came out on top. What you will notice when shopping is it will be difficult to find a new vehicle with manual anything. They all have P/S, P/B. P/Seats, A/C, Automatic Trans, Basic Stereo, etc. It's real hard if not impossible to find a standard shift unless it's a sports car or truck. So, these are the standards these days and they just bumped up the bottom line. It would be too expensive to option, say the Corolla, to have manual roll-up windows. There may be exceptions to this but it's going to be some oddball make and not in the mainstream.
 
VERAULT said:
I can still find plenty of parts for my snow blower, lawn tractor, and washer/dryer on ebay cheaper than amazon. For now....

But here is my 2 cents on the current crisis. Where did the economy/budget cars go? Did everyone forget the Geo/Chevrolet Metro? it was a 9 thousand dollar car on a .999L 3 cyl engine. An AMAZING commuter car that got better gas mileage than most hybrids (Hybrids are a FARCE!). What happened to entry level commuter cars? They dont exist. Sure the Metro was the far side of that spectrum, but say Toyota; They used to sell the Tercel, than the Corolla, than the Camry. Where did the Tercel go? Honda had the CRX, than the Civic, than the accrord/prelude. Yeah they re-released the CRX, but its more of an accord at this point. The original CRV had MANUAL brakes, and MANUAL steering. Where are the entry level cars!? I don't own an SUV nor will I ever buy one!!!!
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I think you're missing the point entirely. There are hundreds of items that have a huge, seemingly arbitrary markup. I can't pretend to fathom the reason/s. Someone suggested money laundering. As good an explanation as any. Like Al Queda embedding messages in pornose.

I haven't sold anything in a while. eBay sent me notices stating my rating has fallen below standards. I think as a result there are certain promotions I'm not offered anymore, which sucks. Anyway do sellers arbitrarily markup their items to make ebay think more highly of them?
 
tipc said:
I think you're missing the point entirely. There are hundreds of items that have a huge, seemingly arbitrary markup. I can't pretend to fathom the reason/s. Someone suggested money laundering. As good an explanation as any. Like Al Queda embedding messages in pornose.

I haven't sold anything in a while. eBay sent me notices stating my rating has fallen below standards. I think as a result there are certain promotions I'm not offered anymore, which sucks. Anyway do sellers arbitrarily markup their items to make ebay think more highly of them?
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I just sold a few items on Ebay and I set the price at what I thought I could get at the time. I not the benevolent good guy on Ebay. Most of the time I'll put it up on the forum here for a few and offer some sort of a deal, then if no takers, it's off to Ebay for whatever I can get.
 
Trixter said:
but some people have discovered that you can re-wrap items and the inexperienced collector won't/can't tell the difference. It's not exactly counterfeiting, but it is definitely unscrupulous, which is why my next youtube video is about this very subject.
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Some of this even happened “back in the day” but I don’t think those examples were being unscrupulous, in certain instances.

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Trixter said:
The only area of this hobby that concerns me are the rising prices of computer games. Some go into the thousands, and these numbers are justified by the quality of the item, still in factory shrinkwrap... but some people have discovered that you can re-wrap items and the inexperienced collector won't/can't tell the difference. It's not exactly counterfeiting, but it is definitely unscrupulous, which is why my next youtube video is about this very subject.
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How can anyone buy (with the intent to keep shrink-wrapped) or sell shrink-wrapped products on eBay, especially at a premium? As the buyer, if you don't open it up to inspect it, it may contain a brick. As the seller, if you don't open it up and inspect it before you sell it, the buyer can claim it contained a brick and you have no photographic evidence you had the contents.

Also, is it really unscrupulous to sell something as shrink-wrapped without claiming it was never-opened? If is shrink-wrapped, but not claimed as never-opened, the buyer is the one that makes the assumption it was never-opened. Because of the verification problem, wouldn't everything have to be opened, inspected, and re-wrapped anyway?
 
Well I for 1 would be terribly pissed if someone sells something as new, and according to eBay new means unopened, never handled, and upon getting it finding out it isn't new. I once bought a motherboard and resold it without ever opening it. It is what it is. New is new, we shouldn't worry about the small percentage of time when someone tries to get over on a seller or buyer. It absolutely burns me to no end when sellers advertises pulls or A grade items as new when there isn't even packaging involved. The one exception is bulk packed items. The item is only as new as it was when it left the factory.
 
charnitz said:
How can anyone buy (with the intent to keep shrink-wrapped) or sell shrink-wrapped products on eBay, especially at a premium? As the buyer, if you don't open it up to inspect it, it may contain a brick. As the seller, if you don't open it up and inspect it before you sell it, the buyer can claim it contained a brick and you have no photographic evidence you had the contents.

Also, is it really unscrupulous to sell something as shrink-wrapped without claiming it was never-opened? If is shrink-wrapped, but not claimed as never-opened, the buyer is the one that makes the assumption it was never-opened. Because of the verification problem, wouldn't everything have to be opened, inspected, and re-wrapped anyway?
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I bought a shrink wrapped edition of Windows 7 Ultimate last spring and it was counterfeit. I got a full refund including shipping from the seller and didn't have to go through PayPal or Ebay. There would have been no way to tell if it was legit even if the shrink was removed as it was all about the key.
 
tipc said:
Software is different , much easier to fake. Can't fake a motherboard, although I'm sure China has tried. You can fake "new" though. It's a hazard, but not a large one IMHO.
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The software was real. It was the key that was fake. When you think about it, it would be really hard to put out phoney Windows.
 
I got stuck with conterfit LM338k,s they were relabeled LM317's. The seller has sold thousands of items. Didn't even respond to me. They don't offer refunds.
 
Of all the vintage software I have bought from eBeh, I think I have only had one that was deceptively re-shrinkwrapped, but it had everything with it, and didn't cost more than a few bucks, so it did not matter to me.

I suspect some collectors may re-shrinkwrap boxes just to help protect them, or make them look nicer in a display. Nothing wrong with that as long as they do something, like including a business card under the plastic, or a sticker that would rip it, that somehow indicates it is not original.

Indeed, when buying it is sometimes better to see what is inside. Sometimes, what looks like a retail box may actually be a "network edition" that only includes manuals, not disks. In fact, I am eying one right now which I am uncertain if disks are actually included or if the shrink wrapped manual boxes were just part of a larger media kit.
 
I've been lurking on eBay for years and a lot of my collection has come from there, including an IBM 5162 for $200 shipped. It still boots from the original hard disk. I have a couple dozen saved eBay searches which land in my email inbox every morning and I go through them while drinking my coffee. It's become a part of my daily routine. It may seem like there aren't any good deals on eBay but there are. The reason you don't see them is because they sell almost immediately. What you see on eBay is the stuff that hasn't sold immediately because it's overpriced. Being the first one onto a listing takes a little bit of luck but it does happen. Sometimes it takes me 2 years to find things but I always find them sooner or later.

PS: I flew to Computer Reset so I can tell you from personal experience that the prices are beyond reasonable and the volunteers are great people who just want to see vintage hardware in the hands of collectors. I can't say enough nice things about them. I didn't fill a van or anything like that because I had to ship my purchases back to VT but I left with two big boxes of spare parts, manuals, and an IBM 5161 for $100. The shipping cost twice that. If there's a way for you to make it down there I strongly recommend that you do it.
 
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jafir said:
Some of this even happened “back in the day” but I don’t think those examples were being unscrupulous, in certain instances.
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Back in the day, software stores would routinely re-wrap returns and put them back out for sale. I know this because I worked at two, and until the Michelangelo virus scare of 1991, this was common practice. I've personally re-wrapped hundreds, if not thousands, of items (which is why I can spot factory vs. re-wraps pretty easily).

When those show up for sale, many people didn't know that was a standard practice, so they don't know they're selling something that's been rewrapped. My video will address this too.

charnitz said:
How can anyone buy (with the intent to keep shrink-wrapped) or sell shrink-wrapped products on eBay, especially at a premium? As the buyer, if you don't open it up to inspect it, it may contain a brick.
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There are various markers and indicators that you can use to tell if the wrap is still original from the factory. For people who can do that, there is a collector's buying and selling market.

SomeGuy said:
I suspect some collectors may re-shrinkwrap boxes just to help protect them, or make them look nicer in a display. Nothing wrong with that as long as they do something, like including a business card under the plastic, or a sticker that would rip it, that somehow indicates it is not original.
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I haven't seen anyone willfully indicate their item is re-wrapped.

Some software collectors intentionally rip the wrap off to verify contents, and don't care about collectible value. Another reason to discard wrap is to prevent imploding the box over time, but this depends on the box and the wrap. In any case, I will be addressing all of this in my video.
 
To be fair to Ebay sellers... the linked Ebay auction for the IBM AT opened at $300. That is a very reasonable price to open with. The fact it went to almost $1000 was due to overzealous bidding. Even so, if you are a collector and you are missing this one last item, and here one is complete, working, and with a library of software and manuals... it can be tempting. You can always make more money but retro PCs in collectable shape can be far harder to come by. Some times you just have to swing for the fences.

I personally hate the folks that try to sell me an item as "new" but they opened it out of shrink supposedly to verify contents. That is BS. It is a "used " item the minute the original shrink wrap comes off. If an item is truly new and in shrink, there is zero need to open to verify contents as the manufacturer is responsible for the contents at that point. I believe this is just another scam attempt to justify a higher price listing.

Even retailers have tried to sell "used" stuff as new before. I bought a computer at Best Buy for my wife and got it home, opened the seals and took out the PC, only to find a completed Registration card already filled out inside for an owner just a week earlier. Took it back and they protested mightily about it, and i finally invoked their "7 day, no questions asked" policy and took my business elsewhere as punishment. I'm sure they repackaged it and sold it as new again. I should have trashed the box.
 
Airxx said:
To be fair to Ebay sellers... the linked Ebay auction for the IBM AT opened at $300. That is a very reasonable price to open with. The fact it went to almost $1000 was due to overzealous bidding. Even so, if you are a collector and you are missing this one last item, and here one is complete, working, and with a library of software and manuals... it can be tempting. You can always make more money but retro PCs in collectable shape can be far harder to come by. Some times you just have to swing for the fences.
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To be even more fair to seller - he countered my offer with $600 on that listing. I would have taken it, but shipping made it untenable for me considering the weight, especially with the library. :)
I appreciate when a seller counters rather than declining something outright when they should use the lowest acceptable offer option when they list :) I'm stoked for the seller here - good for him!
 
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