Bummed Out Over eBay

C

Confederate

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It's been months since buying anything over eBay, but I'm really surprised to see the number of knives up for bids. I almost never bid for knives, but tend to buy them outright. This is possible, however, only when there are plenty of good deals (which in turn is based on the demand for knives). Apparently the demand for knives has gone up because almost every seller is putting their knives up for bid.

At first I thought it was only Cold Steel knives, but then I saw Spydercos and other brands were up for bid, too.

QUESTION: Is this a trend or does it have to do with supply and demand? If the latter, what is driving the present demand? And if it's the former, what is causing the trend? Did someone do a study?

The Obama Administration has said that there's essentially no inflation, so we know knife and gun prices have not risen significantly...right? :mad:


ColdSteelPro-Lite_2_Small.jpg


I like to buy knives that tend to be close-outs like this Cold Steel Pro-Lite, which I bought
a bunch of when they went out of stock. Great knife deals are getting to be a lot tougher
to find lately.

.
 
Ya.. I bought a new spyderco para-military off the bay for 50 bucks, buy it now price, that was crazy. This was in the spring. I like to put my ultra rare knives on Ebay as people will bid that sucker sky high and even with the fees you will still rake in a ton of money from it. Normal production knives not so much.
 
As someone who sells a bit on ebay, it probably has to do with the listing deals they're giving to sellers. Right now, you can list 100 items a month on auction at any beginning price for free on basic auctions.

So instead of spending a couple of bucks up to whatever to list at fixed price, if you are a volume seller, it could potentially save you hundreds of $$ to list it at auction.
 
Lately i have been doing business alot with Ebay, since here in Kansas there arn't many knife dealers. Ebay prices, in my experience, are really low. I got a Zero Tolerance 0350 for 98 bucks buy it now price...
 
Since this is more about ebay and economics and time of year than a discussion of knives, it really belongs in GB&U.
 
I'm not sure but it seems that people that try to sell stuff on ebay can't be making that much money. The fees are an absolute killer, in addition to listing fees, final value fees, then Paypal takes its bite. You can end up breaking even if you are lucky that is.
I know a guy that sells motorcycle parts on ebay and he had to stop after the last round of changes. Seems like the new CEO is visited nightly by the "bright idea fairy", the result is a PITA for the sellers that rely on the format to try and eek out a living.
 
I think an equilibrium has been met on ebay. At first, there were many more buyers than sellers, hence profits were higher. People who lived in remote places were willing to pay for shipping because it was less than driving to buy it themselves. I recall on ebay when someone spelled the listing wrong, not all buyers caught on, so it was wise to do a search for say Arrowsmith instead of Aerosmith. There would be less competition, hence a lower winning bid. Now, everyone sells on ebay, so the value of products new are similar to ones offered for internet sale. Ebay sort of paved the way for internet business transactions. I did not dare give my credit card over the internet, but I was willing to do a paypal transaction. It felt safer to me than the latter. Then, when I sold on ebay, I was able to have my paypal acct. recieve money, which was better than waiting for snail mail.

I would scour junk yards and buy parts off old vehicles in CA and have happy customers in the rust belts wanting them. Now, too many people are doing just that, so the market is saturated, and profits are slim.
 
Confederate said:
It's been months since buying anything over eBay, but I'm really surprised to see the number of knives up for bids. I almost never bid for knives, but tend to buy them outright. This is possible, however, only when there are plenty of good deals (which in turn is based on the demand for knives). Apparently the demand for knives has gone up because almost every seller is putting their knives up for bid.



QUESTION: Is this a trend or does it have to do with supply and demand? If the latter, what is driving the present demand? And if it's the former, what is causing the trend? Did someone do a study?

The Obama Administration has said that there's essentially no inflation, so we know knife and gun prices have not risen significantly...right? :mad:
Click to expand...
but I'm really surprised to see the number of knives up for bids
Click to expand...
Need more data
Such as, on Oct 25,2009 there were 22,000 "auction style" auctions for knives on EBAY
On Oct 25,2010 there were 19,000..............
I can't be swayed by your small sampling size/anecdotal evidence of "I'm really surprised to see..."
Sorry.....:o


QUESTION: Is this a trend or does it have to do with supply and demand? If the latter, what is driving the present demand? And if it's the former, what is causing the trend? Did someone do a study?
Click to expand...
It all has to do with supply and demand, good sir :D
What causes the demand curve to shift to the right you ask?
Income effect,substitution effect,budget constraints, price elasticity of demand, speculation on future income,etc...etc...etc...
Innumerable factors and circumstances could affect a buyer's willingness or ability to buy a good. Some of the more common factors are:

Good's own price:The basic demand relationship is between potential prices of a good and the quantities that would be purchased at those prices.[8] Generally the relationship is negative meaning that an increase in price will induce a decrease in the quantity demanded. This negative relationship is embodied in the downward slope of the consumer demand curve. The assumption of a negative relationship is reasonable and intuitive. If the price of a new novel is high, a person might decide to borrow the book from the public library rather than buy it.[9] Or if the price of a new piece of equipment is high a firm may decide to repair existing equipment rather than replacing it.

Price of related goods: The principal related goods are complements and substitutes. A complement is a good that is used with the primary good.[10] Examples include hotdogs and mustard, beer and pretzels, automobiles and gasoline. (Perfect complements behave as a single good.) If the price of the complement goes up the quantity demanded of the other good goes down.[11] Mathematically, the variable representing the price of the complementary good would have a negative coefficient in the demand function. For example, Qd = a - P - Pg where Q is the quantity of automobiles demanded, P is the price of automobiles and Pg is the price of gasoline. The other main category of related goods are substitutes. Substitutes are goods that can be used in place of the primary good. The mathematical relationship between the price of the substitute and the demand for the good in question is positive. If the price of the substitute goes down the demand for the good in question goes down.[12]
Income: In most cases, the more income you have the more likely you buy.[13][14]

Tastes or preferences:The greater the desire to own a good the more likely you are to buy the good.[15] There is a basic distinction between desire and demand. Desire is a measure of the willingness to buy a good based on its intrinsic qualities. Demand is the willingness and ability to put one's desires into effect. It is assumed that tastes and preferences are relatively constant.

Consumer expectations about future prices and income: If a consumer believes that the price of the good will be higher in the future he is more likely to purchase the good now. If the consumer expects that her income will be higher in the future the consumer may buy the good now. In other words positive expectations about future income may encourage present consumption
Click to expand...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand
The you throw biases in the mix===>
Many of these biases are studied for how they affect belief formation, business decisions, and scientific research.
Anchoring – the common human tendency to rely too heavily, or "anchor," on one trait or piece of information when making decisions.
Bandwagon effect – the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink and herd behavior.
Bias blind spot – the tendency to see oneself as less biased than other people.[2]
Choice-supportive bias – the tendency to remember one's choices as better than they actually were.
Confirmation bias – the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.[3]
Congruence bias – the tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, in contrast to tests of possible alternative hypotheses.
Contrast effect – the enhancement or diminishing of a weight or other measurement when compared with a recently observed contrasting object.[4]
Denomination effect – the tendency to spend more money when it is denominated in small amounts (e.g. coins) rather than large amounts (e.g. bills).[5]
Distinction bias – the tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.[6]
Endowment effect – "the fact that people often demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it".[7]
Experimenter's or Expectation bias – the tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appear to conflict with those expectations.[8]
Extraordinarity bias – the tendency to value an object more than others in the same category as a result of an extraordinarity of that object that does not, in itself, change the value.[citation needed]
Focusing effect – the tendency to place too much importance on one aspect of an event; causes error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome.[9]
Framing effect – drawing different conclusions from the same information, depending on how that information is presented.
Hyperbolic discounting – the tendency for people to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs, where the tendency increases the closer to the present both payoffs are.[10]
Illusion of control – the tendency to overestimate one's degree of influence over other external events.[11]
Impact bias – the tendency to overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states.[12]
Information bias – the tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action.[13]
Interloper effect – the tendency to value third party consultation as objective, confirming, and without motive. Also consultation paradox, the conclusion that solutions proposed by existing personnel within an organization are less likely to receive support than from those recruited for that purpose.
Irrational escalation – the phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the decision was probably wrong.
Loss aversion – "the disutility of giving up an object is greater than the utility associated with acquiring it".[14] (see also Sunk cost effects and Endowment effect).
Mere exposure effect – the tendency to express undue liking for things merely because of familiarity with them.[15]
Money illusion – the tendency to concentrate on the nominal (face value) of money rather than its value in terms of purchasing power.[16]
Moral credential effect – the tendency of a track record of non-prejudice to increase subsequent prejudice.
Negativity bias – the tendency to pay more attention and give more weight to negative than positive experiences or other kinds of information.
Neglect of probability – the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.[17]
Normalcy bias – the refusal to plan for, or react to, a disaster which has never happened before.
Omission bias – the tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions).[18]
Outcome bias – the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made.
Planning fallacy – the tendency to underestimate task-completion times.[12]
Post-purchase rationalization – the tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value.
Pseudocertainty effect – the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.[19]
Reactance – the urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice.
Restraint bias – the tendency to overestimate one's ability to show restraint in the face of temptation.
Selective perception – the tendency for expectations to affect perception.
Semmelweis reflex – the tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts an established paradigm.[20]
Status quo bias – the tendency to like things to stay relatively the same (see also loss aversion, endowment effect, and system justification).[21][22]
Wishful thinking – the formation of beliefs and the making of decisions according to what is pleasing to imagine instead of by appeal to evidence or rationality.[23]
Zero-risk bias – preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.
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Then throw in the "reference price effect" to the mix===>
http://forum.johnson.cornell.edu/faculty/mthomas/referenceprice.pdf

Do your own study====>
On Oct. 26, 2010 at 1:36am PST there were 22,160 "auction style" knives for BID [Buy > Collectibles > Knives, Swords & Blades > Folding Knives ]

Do the same search "filter" on Nov. 26 at 1:36am PST
I don't think there will be much of a difference..IMHO
Who knows though..been wrong before...heheheheh
I'm sure it will spike around Xmas and tax refund time;)...(maybe)....strong possibilty....:cool:

If I were to guess why EBAY buyers chose "auction style" vs. "buy it now"===>
Uncertainty as to "value" of the knife and what price to set for Buy It Now
It's MUCH easier to let the market decide the equilibrium price than trying to figure out what they should price a knife at for Buy It Now

Do a BF search on "pricing" and see how hard it is to figure out a "correct" price to charge for a knife....:)
 
HUH? You lost me at "It..."

Trent Rock said:
Need more data
Such as, on Oct 25,2009 there were 22,000 "auction style" auctions for knives on EBAY
On Oct 25,2010 there were 19,000..............
I can't be swayed by your small sampling size/anecdotal evidence of "I'm really surprised to see..."
Sorry.....:o



It all has to do with supply and demand, good sir :D
What causes the demand curve to shift to the right you ask?
Income effect,substitution effect,budget constraints, price elasticity of demand, speculation on future income,etc...etc...etc...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand
The you throw biases in the mix===>


Then throw in the "reference price effect" to the mix===>
http://forum.johnson.cornell.edu/faculty/mthomas/referenceprice.pdf

Do your own study====>
On Oct. 26, 2010 at 1:36am PST there were 22,160 "auction style" knives for BID [Buy > Collectibles > Knives, Swords & Blades > Folding Knives ]

Do the same search "filter" on Nov. 26 at 1:36am PST
I don't think there will be much of a difference..IMHO
Who knows though..been wrong before...heheheheh
I'm sure it will spike around Xmas and tax refund time;)...(maybe)....strong possibilty....:cool:

If I were to guess why EBAY buyers chose "auction style" vs. "buy it now"===>
Uncertainty as to "value" of the knife and what price to set for Buy It Now
It's MUCH easier to let the market decide the equilibrium price than trying to figure out what they should price a knife at for Buy It Now

Do a BF search on "pricing" and see how hard it is to figure out a "correct" price to charge for a knife....:)
Click to expand...
 
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