Buying from ebay - skewed perspectives?

C

Charlie_K

Feedback: +0 / =0 / -0
Joined
Jul 16, 2012
Messages
4,067
So some people know that I regularly browse ebay to look for SAKs up for auction in order to add to my collection. These things are addictive and I have wound up accumulating more Spartans than any other model. The only thing I love more than the SAKs are the deals that I find. A pre-2007 Swisschamp for $35, a Fieldmaster for $16, a Huntsman for $13, and an Explorer for $5 are just some of the deals that I've stumbled across.

But I'm wondering if all these great deals are skewing my perspectives of what's appropriate in terms of price. Every Classic SD I've bought has only cost me $4, a third of what they cost at Wal-Mart. And I won't buy a Spartan or Tinker unless I can get it for $8 or under, even though that's less than half of the retail price. Am I being spoiled by these deals that I'm finding?
 
Not sure if this is going to get your hand slapped for deal spotting, but other than that, I'm not sure what you're asking. Generally Ebay is going to be a cheaper alternative to ANY brick and mortar retail priced item. That's not a new thing.
 
There's a strong undercurrent of resentment here about Ebay (and often with good reason) but truthfully I buy most of my knives there. The prices can't be beat, and there's no shortage of reputable, professional sellers. You find yourself in murky waters when you start dealing with people making personal sales, as opposed to the bigger Ebay businesses.
 
I buy most of the discontinued knives in my collection on Ebay. The best deals that I have gotten include:

Like-new ZT 0350TS for $80,
Well-used BK2 with tek-lok for $50,
Discontinued Spyderco Dodo carbon fiber sprint for $180 (they usually go for $280+),
Like-new Kershaw Junk Yard Dog (D2 version) for $40.
 
eBay has been a great source for me. I actually save the sellers I tend to find good deals from in my saved searches, and I'll refresh my phone periodically through the day and see if they've listed anything I like at a good price.

I've gotten some absolutely stellar deals, but every time I go into the customs bracket, I get burned by deceptive pictures and misrepresentations in the description. I just stick to productions now, and only from dealers with an established track record. Lately, "make an offer" listings have been good to me. Very good.
 
Quiet said:
Not sure if this is going to get your hand slapped for deal spotting, but other than that, I'm not sure what you're asking. Generally Ebay is going to be a cheaper alternative to ANY brick and mortar retail priced item. That's not a new thing.
Click to expand...

Not trying to do deal spotting or anything, just trying to give some background so it's understood why I'm thinking the way I do. Is retail overpriced when you can have it for a third the store price with a little patience?
 
Charlie_K said:
Not trying to do deal spotting or anything, just trying to give some background so it's understood why I'm thinking the way I do. Is retail overpriced when you can have it for a third the store price with a little patience?
Click to expand...

Not to insult you, but the situation is fairly basic economics. 99% of Ebay shops fit into a few categories. Some are resellers, where they "sell" an item, get paid, then buy the item from their supplier at dealer's cost, then have it directly shipped to the end-buyer. They can sell an item for what you consider cheap because they aren't paying for the upkeep of a brick and mortar location, along with employees and so on. These sorts are fairly common amongst the auto part set. Others are people who buy a bunch of items at dealer's prices first, then stack it up in their living room, and simply mail items out from their homes. Again, no overhead, and nothing cuts into their profits except Ebay/Paypal's bending you over fees. The last bunch of sellers are people who have a brick and mortar location and they use an Ebay store in order to get their merchandise out to a wider audience. There are a ton of pawn shops out there who have an Ebay store on the side in the owner's spare time. They will sell items near what other sellers do, in order to sell them. They will then usually rely on their in-person customers to pay higher prices for items so they can make their rent.

When Big Box general stores like Wal-Mart, or sporting goods stores like Bass Pro or Dick's sell a knife, some of the money you pay for that knife goes to pay for those stores' overhead costs. Employees, the electric bill, and so on. If you don't have those costs, you can do things like sell a knife for $100 less than you'd see it at your local gun shop for.
 
I got a full size Griptilian on Ebay for $9.99 "buy it now" last month from a pawn shop in Oklahoma.

I'm not sure if they didn't know what they had or were new to EBay and ment to start bidding at $9.99
 
This might not still be the case but, a while ago, a lot of the used Swiss Army knives being sold on EBay were TSA-confiscated knives that were then sold by government agencies in bulk. Ebay sellers would purchase those lots and then resell individual knives. I've heard some people say" The other guy's loss is my gain." I would suggest that people who have had knives confiscated might not share that attitude!
 
I've purchased more than a few blades on "teh" bay. I've always been a bit suspicious of fraudulent sellers or even worse - knock off knives. Haven't been bit yet.
 
eBay is a great place to buy knives. Be an informed buyer, and you won't get burned. You can find amazing deals for new/lnib knives, you just need patience and know what to search for.
 
buckthorn said:
This might not still be the case but, a while ago, a lot of the used Swiss Army knives being sold on EBay were TSA-confiscated knives that were then sold by government agencies in bulk. Ebay sellers would purchase those lots and then resell individual knives. I've heard some people say" The other guy's loss is my gain." I would suggest that people who have had knives confiscated might not share that attitude!
Click to expand...

There is a ton of that kind of stuff going on. Knights armament sold a bunch of folding back up iron sights to the Military a few years ago, and the Military ended up not using them so they sold them off at Military surplus. The $250 sights were showing up on the auction sites for 30 bucks, and Knights Armament threw a fit (they're much like Chris Reeve or Benchmade, they try to artificially set the price of their gear by having tight regulations on distributors and controlling the number of units they produce). A company rep tried to scare buyers by outting out a memo that the units showing up on the open market were stolen Military equipment and anyone that purchases it will be prosecuted (a complete lie that ended up coming back to bite them).

Still, there is a lot of stolen merchandise and fake merchandise floating around on Ebay. You don't know if you're buying from some guy in Idaho or you're funding terrorist cells. Like someone else said, many of them don't even have the merchandise on hand and will place your order when you place an order. There is just way too much shady stuff going on there - I mean, Ebay takes 14% off the top in fees and PayPal fees - to make it worthwhile to sell there, those people are usually cutting some kind of corner or doing something unethical. If the were truly legitimate businesses, they would get out from under Ebay and set up their own online store. Even though I find it comical that a company that tries to inflate the prices of their wares by controlling sales and making dealers sign contracts gets shafted when the government throws a ton of their stuff off to Ebay sellers, it truly isn't good for their business or the industry. The only people really making money off Ebay are the people that own Ebay, everyone else takes a loss compared to a regular business model.
 
A Justice said:
There is a ton of that kind of stuff going on. Knights armament sold a bunch of folding back up iron sights to the Military a few years ago, and the Military ended up not using them so they sold them off at Military surplus. The $250 sights were showing up on the auction sites for 30 bucks, and Knights Armament threw a fit (they're much like Chris Reeve or Benchmade, they try to artificially set the price of their gear by having tight regulations on distributors and controlling the number of units they produce). A company rep tried to scare buyers by outting out a memo that the units showing up on the open market were stolen Military equipment and anyone that purchases it will be prosecuted (a complete lie that ended up coming back to bite them).

Still, there is a lot of stolen merchandise and fake merchandise floating around on Ebay. You don't know if you're buying from some guy in Idaho or you're funding terrorist cells. Like someone else said, many of them don't even have the merchandise on hand and will place your order when you place an order. There is just way too much shady stuff going on there - I mean, Ebay takes 14% off the top in fees and PayPal fees - to make it worthwhile to sell there, those people are usually cutting some kind of corner or doing something unethical. If the were truly legitimate businesses, they would get out from under Ebay and set up their own online store. Even though I find it comical that a company that tries to inflate the prices of their wares by controlling sales and making dealers sign contracts gets shafted when the government throws a ton of their stuff off to Ebay sellers, it truly isn't good for their business or the industry. The only people really making money off Ebay are the people that own Ebay, everyone else takes a loss compared to a regular business model.
Click to expand...

This is untrue, as was (in general) your inference that most sellers on Ebay are possible terrorists or "there's something shady going on". None of that is true. It's (again) simple economics. If you obtain a widget for $5 from a distributor, that you're then able to sell for $35, you will make a profit, and often, that $35 is far less than the item would cost if you bought it at a store. At the end of the day, the distributor gets paid, the reseller makes a profit, and you bought an item that you are happy with. No one loses, it's not a scam, and you aren't buying counterfeit merchandise. In fact, many people who DO sell fake or counterfeit items tend to get run off of Ebay pretty quickly. Those who don't, well, their heavy negative feedback tells the tale.


I speak from personal experience buying and selling on Ebay, as well as knowing people who actually make nearly as much doing it on the side, as they do at their day job. Hell, I have bought items there for way less than they were worth, and resold them a week or two later, after more properly marketing them. There are always people on Ebay selling, who have no idea what they have. They get some knife, or some other collectible from a deceased relative, have no idea about it, and put it up with a BIN of $20 or whatever. You buy it, then post it in the proper sections, with a very detailed description, and boom make some money.

Ebay isn't for everyone, but a profit IS there to be made if you find the niche, or understand how it works. Yes, their fees suck, but they are the biggest game in town, and they know it. I have accounts at two or three of the Ebay knockoffs that were started up, and the customer traffic just isn't there. Ebay is where it's at, and I hate it sometimes. But it is what it is.
 
Last edited:
Charlie_K said:
Not trying to do deal spotting or anything, just trying to give some background so it's understood why I'm thinking the way I do. Is retail overpriced when you can have it for a third the store price with a little patience?
Click to expand...

The appropriate place for this thread is the GBU section of the Exchange. When we start talking prices and deals, it stops being about the knife and more about the cost.
 
Quiet said:
This is untrue, as was (in general) your inference that most sellers on Ebay are possible terrorists or "there's something shady going on". None of that is true. It's (again) simple economics. If you obtain a widget for $5 from a distributor, that you're then able to sell for $35, you will make a profit, and often, that $35 is far less than the item would cost if you bought it at a store. At the end of the day, the distributor gets paid, the reseller makes a profit, and you bought an item that you are happy with. No one loses, it's not a scam, and you aren't buying counterfeit merchandise. In fact, many people who DO sell fake or counterfeit items tend to get run off of Ebay pretty quickly. Those who don't, well, their heavy negative feedback tells the tale.


I speak from personal experience buying and selling on Ebay, as well as knowing people who actually make nearly as much doing it on the side, as they do at their day job. Hell, I have bought items there for way less than they were worth, and resold them a week or two later, after more properly marketing them. There are always people on Ebay selling, who have no idea what they have. They get some knife, or some other collectible from a deceased relative, have no idea about it, and put it up with a BIN of $20 or whatever. You buy it, then post it in the proper sections, with a very detailed description, and boom make some money.

Ebay isn't for everyone, but a profit IS there to be made if you find the niche, or understand how it works. Yes, their fees suck, but they are the biggest game in town, and they know it. I have accounts at two or three of the Ebay knockoffs that were started up, and the customer traffic just isn't there. Ebay is where it's at, and I hate it sometimes. But it is what it is.
Click to expand...

I'm saying you don't know who you're buying from. That's true for most online stores (you can check their business credentials with their State's treasury department, but you don't even have to be a legit businessperson to get business credentials), but it's even worse on Ebay. You can however buy from a BF approved dealer and know that you're dealing with a store that has a track record, is supporting our economy, that pays taxes, and is at least ethical enough to keep their reputation healthy with their customers. The legitimate deals are buried in too much slag on Ebay, and I'm not the only one that feels that way about buying there. I didn't call people selling on Ebay terrorists - it's absolutely true though that if you go on Ebay and search for an item you want and choose a random store, you don't know what type of person you're doing business with. Over the years I have found out first hand that a lot of cutlery dealers on that site are greedy, morally bankrupt and have no ethics to speak of - so I know there is that type of seller over there, I can't verify that there are a lot of ethical business people with strong morals.

I'm speaking from experience as well - you cannot get knives that sell for 35$ for 5$. If there was that much markup in knives, everyone here would have a store on Ebay. And if they ran people that sold counterfit merchandise off the site, it wouldn't be so prevalent. Go to the Spyderco forums, Rycen points out more than a dozen examples of fakes every week. They rarely get taken down even after a dozen people report them, and the next week the same fakes are up on different accounts when they do get taken down.

I have had an Ebay store since just after they went online, and was one of the very first sellers that offered knives, but haven't operated a full scale store for a while now. I've seen all the dirty stuff that both Ebay and jealous competitors have to offer over there, and it's a comparitively terrible way to do business. It has degraded significantly since the early years, and I feel sorry for you if your business plan for 2014 is to expand doing business on Ebay. The only reason I still have an Ebay account is for a very specific niche that I have developed a market for on Ebay. If circumstances were different and I could count on supply, I would have developed a direct line of sale a long time ago. If you want to give away 15% of your gross to a company that is ready to close your store down because of any frivalous report or minor indiscretion, and does a poor job of regulating the counterfit merchandise that hurts the very industry you're a part of, that is your decision. It's a necessary evil for some people, but you haven't even tried if you think it's the "only game in town". If you have a steady supply of merchandise that you want to sale online, I highly suggest you consider not depending on any auction sites period. You can have the same overhead and start a legitimate online store on your own website and have your products indexed on Google and Amazon, and not have to deal with nearly as much crap - the barrier of entry is a little greater though, so not every shyster and hack can do it. You could also set up a dealer account on the forums - a lot of us frequently buy from authorized dealers to support the site and for our own peace of mind that our merchandise is legit. Just because you can make money at something doesn't mean that it's worth it, and it sure doesn't mean there aren't better ways.

I do buy from Ebay on rare occasions (never a production knife that is still being shipped to retailers though), but most of the knives I buy come from more legitimate sources. I always thought BF members would usually pay a few extra dollars to know who they were buying from, and know that their merchandise came directly from manufacturers - someone said "Smokers should report when they sale a knife that it may smell like tobacco"; I feel like people that buy from Ebay should disclose that fact as well, because I'd rather pay $150 for a Millie that came from a legitimate source than lose that peace of mind for 15$ off.
 
It's the wild west. If you're a "pilgrim," you get ripped off.

One of the largest sellers of "traditionals" puts many of them together from assorted parts - parts that come on one knife only as a result of his creativity. Frankenknives.

Mass-produced knifes made by CHINA are sold as custom-made by a specific maker with a Western-sounding name.

Fakes abound - many threads here at BF about fakes of high-end knives.

Many sellers just make up a good "story" and try to get you to buy that.

Words are used that sound good but have no meaning: vintage; genuine; authentic; "looks like"; "I was told . . ."; "usually sells for . . . ."

The rule is Let the Buyer Beware. Pay only with a credit card. No decent pictures = pass. No clear description of the action of a folding knife = pass.

I buy there frequently. As is almost inevitable, I would have been burned except for that pay with credit card thing.

eBay. Life is an adventure.
 
I use ebay cuz i like buying a knife for the same price i can sell it. That way i never lose money if i want to switch it out
 
A Justice said:
I'm saying you don't know who you're buying from. That's true for most online stores (you can check their business credentials with their State's treasury department, but you don't even have to be a legit businessperson to get business credentials), but it's even worse on Ebay. You can however buy from a BF approved dealer and know that you're dealing with a store that has a track record, is supporting our economy, that pays taxes, and is at least ethical enough to keep their reputation healthy with their customers. The legitimate deals are buried in too much slag on Ebay, and I'm not the only one that feels that way about buying there. I didn't call people selling on Ebay terrorists - it's absolutely true though that if you go on Ebay and search for an item you want and choose a random store, you don't know what type of person you're doing business with. Over the years I have found out first hand that a lot of cutlery dealers on that site are greedy, morally bankrupt and have no ethics to speak of - so I know there is that type of seller over there, I can't verify that there are a lot of ethical business people with strong morals.

I'm speaking from experience as well - you cannot get knives that sell for 35$ for 5$. If there was that much markup in knives, everyone here would have a store on Ebay. And if they ran people that sold counterfit merchandise off the site, it wouldn't be so prevalent. Go to the Spyderco forums, Rycen points out more than a dozen examples of fakes every week. They rarely get taken down even after a dozen people report them, and the next week the same fakes are up on different accounts when they do get taken down.

I have had an Ebay store since just after they went online, and was one of the very first sellers that offered knives, but haven't operated a full scale store for a while now. I've seen all the dirty stuff that both Ebay and jealous competitors have to offer over there, and it's a comparitively terrible way to do business. It has degraded significantly since the early years, and I feel sorry for you if your business plan for 2014 is to expand doing business on Ebay. The only reason I still have an Ebay account is for a very specific niche that I have developed a market for on Ebay. If circumstances were different and I could count on supply, I would have developed a direct line of sale a long time ago. If you want to give away 15% of your gross to a company that is ready to close your store down because of any frivalous report or minor indiscretion, and does a poor job of regulating the counterfit merchandise that hurts the very industry you're a part of, that is your decision. It's a necessary evil for some people, but you haven't even tried if you think it's the "only game in town". If you have a steady supply of merchandise that you want to sale online, I highly suggest you consider not depending on any auction sites period. You can have the same overhead and start a legitimate online store on your own website and have your products indexed on Google and Amazon, and not have to deal with nearly as much crap - the barrier of entry is a little greater though, so not every shyster and hack can do it. You could also set up a dealer account on the forums - a lot of us frequently buy from authorized dealers to support the site and for our own peace of mind that our merchandise is legit. Just because you can make money at something doesn't mean that it's worth it, and it sure doesn't mean there aren't better ways.

I do buy from Ebay on rare occasions (never a production knife that is still being shipped to retailers though), but most of the knives I buy come from more legitimate sources. I always thought BF members would usually pay a few extra dollars to know who they were buying from, and know that their merchandise came directly from manufacturers - someone said "Smokers should report when they sale a knife that it may smell like tobacco"; I feel like people that buy from Ebay should disclose that fact as well, because I'd rather pay $150 for a Millie that came from a legitimate source than lose that peace of mind for 15$ off.
Click to expand...

I only got through your first paragraph before your hypocrisy got to me. So, you're telling me that you don't buy products from people you don't know? I know for a fact that that's not true. So, the rest of what you wrote was really irrelevant. Well, that, and you contradict yourself multiple times. If you don't like Ebay, that's fine. But to use poor logic as a reason for not using it as a resource, well, don't know what to tell you. Those of us who want a good product at a good price will continue to use it. You're free to pay more under the illusion of "knowing where your money goes". Also, please show me another auction site with the amount of traffic that Ebay has. There's a reason it's still the biggest, well multiple reasons. You're free to discount them, of course. No skin of my nose. :thumbup:

P.S. As a final thought; you mention that you still sell on Ebay because you are covering some specific niche. It's probably a good thing that there are countless people out there who don't need to have an in-depth knowledge about a seller in order to do business, don't you think? I mean, with all those customers who don't know you, why would they buy from you...right? Oh, but you're totally different from all those other sellers, right? Those "hacks" and "shysters"? Sure thing, brother. LOL Sure thing. Have a good night.
 
Last edited:
Okay so some of the posts here have been incredibly helpful and informative, and I don't feel like I've lost my sense of perspective.

Although I'm still curious why some specimens of a particular model can be snatched up for so little, and others in the same condition will have bids considerably higher.
 
Charlie_K said:
. . .

Although I'm still curious why some specimens of a particular model can be snatched up for so little, and others in the same condition will have bids considerably higher.
Click to expand...



Sometimes the listing is so poor that few find their way to the item. (e.g.: khukuri listed as "pickle knife" or "banana knife" [I bought both.])

Some buyers are more willing to gamble on poor pictures and/or description. They "see" something that others do not see.

Some buyers are willing to gamble on a generally scamming seller and/or poor feedback (i.e., below 99%).

Some sellers create a glut that depresses bidding.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top