Buying from ebay - skewed perspectives?

[dericdesmond]

I feel sorry for you if your business plan for 2014 is to expand doing business on Ebay. .

Personally speaking, since starting an actual ebay store a little over a year ago, my income has nearly doubled in two years and I feel a great deal of satisfaction from it. Have also met and dealt with hundreds of great folk. Could not say that without ebay. If you were to associate my activities with anything negative as you mention above, you would be mistaken and I know that goes for a many others. In my opinion, your angle towards ebay is completely off and should be re-evaluted. Much of the negative you speak of I see everywhere in the world, not just ebay. A negative spin can be put on anything if thats what one desires.

 

[RevDevil]

Alright folks, Here we go again. You all need to be discussing the topic(s) at hand, not one another. There is absolutely nothing wrong with disagreeing with points of view, however, it needs to be done in such a way that personal attacks, insults, or insinuated jabs are not part of it. The bottom line as mentioned by the gentleman s post above mine is that some folks love eBay and others not so much. Feel free to share your experiences, thoughts, suggestions, ideas, feelings, but do not crap up the thread in the process. An opinion expressed in neutral civility gets driven further than one with personal observations and attacks.

 

[Charlie_K]

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.

Valid reasons. Maybe I should've specified for auctions with good pictures, and by sellers that have good feedback. Some deals found are insane in nature and hard to beat. Sometimes I wonder if they're spoiling in nature, and should be considered an exception rather than the rule.

 

[Thomas Linton]

No one was willing to pay more.

 

[Bob W]

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.

It's often times quite random, depending on the seller's asking price, and the number of sellers / buyers at a particular moment.

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In your first post about the Swiss Army Knives, are those brand new in the original packaging? That's a huge difference; no one's going to pay as much for a used knife as a new one unless it's something very rare. Personally, I don't collect used knives, and rarely buy a used knife for using.
And those specific models you listed are very common. There are 119 Victorinox Explorer knives and 236 Huntsman listed at this minute, for example; the market is flooded. And consider that Victorinox makes 17 million pocketknives each year...

Victorinox knives aren't exactly high-dollar items at normal retail stores either. Buy an eBay Victorinox for $10-15, or a brand new Victorinox Recruit at a major home improvement retail store for $13?