Paying too much on Fleabay

[Glort]

I have been watching a heap of camera gear on Fleabay over the last week or so and never cease to be amazed at what people pay for 2nd hand stuff.

This morning I saw a lens go for $8 less than I saw it in to retail shops in the city for.

The place I normally buy from which is an online with a shopfront in north Sydney had the same lens about $40 cheaper brand new with warranty.

I have seen numerous exampls of this over the last week with a camera bodt and a lens going for more than you can buy them for at a load of places. This is all off the shelf stuff as well, not something hard to get like a $12K lens that no one keeps in stock.

I have a list of the stuff want sitting besides the computer with the new prices. I can't understand why other people don't seem to pay the same due dilligence. Buying used stuff that is no longer made and paying too much is one thing, paying more used for something you can go to the shop and get or have delivered to your door brand new is something else.

I have got some great bargains off Fleabay. The car I bought a few months back was underpriced at least 4 K which is pretty good on a car only worth $5500! Owner listed a bunch of problems which were going to be time consuming but not expensive to rectify. Turned out they were not what I thought ( or the poor buggers mechanic had told him) and I fixed each problem in minutes and for under $10. The sunroof was more like 10 Cents needing a single rivet to hold a guide that had come loose and another 10 C electrical termnal to fix the now Ice cold aircon.

Biggest expense and not a small pain was replacing a rear wheel Cylinder and brake shoes which required a new brake line being made as well. Still, for $150 all up and a bit of running round, not the wost outcome.

I'm clearing the place out getting ready to move so I just hope that some of these people with too much cash and too little research skills start bidding on whatever I try to flog off.

[Ray!]

Some people seem to think that if it's on ebay, it must be cheaper. After all, Gerry Harvey has been complaining bitterly about how the cheap internet is destroying retail sales.

Cheers

Ray

[heyhey]

Helz yeah! I'm actually going back to the shops to buy stuff now. Warn XD9000 winch, secondhand, no cable, control box and not serviced (looked very average) sold for $900 the other day! Buy a cable, control box, fairlead, and service it and you could have bought a XP9.5! Some people are bonkers! I by cheap stuff I had no use for off eBay, then list it again straight away (but a little better) and would make a pretty damn good profit (enough to by a Dirt Bike), but now it seems everyone is catching on to how to use it properly and when to list stuff.

[Chris]

Am I the only person in the world to have never purchased anyting from Ebay lol.

I would use the car part rule, if its 2nd hand has to be at least 50% new price or I walk.

I laugh at the 2nd hand tyre prices some people ask on forums and such, they do seem to sell though lol.

[BigGQWesty]

I recently saw 2nd hand wrangler ATs for $200 each.. Pretty sure for $30 more you can get brand new... Lol

[Brett]

Yeah I noticed what your talking about with camera gear...

You gotta look around the net and find out the retail as well as the net shop prices before ebaying as prices aren't that good on eBay like they used to be on lots of articles...

Still one of the best places to get retro gaming stuff...

[Mavtroll]

Camera gear I generally get from adorama out of the us

Straight with BALLS!!!!

[Ray!]

Buying from the US, or anywhere else for that matter, is really dependent on the exchange rate, especially if you're buying anything over $1000 (including freight costs), otherwise it could be false economy.

Here's a little calculator that I created some time ago to determine whether it's actually cheaper or not to buy Oz vs US. Simply put in the current exchange rate, which you can find here: http://www.commbank.com.au/guides/personal/other/foreignexchangerates.asp (always use the smaller value), and put that into the first table (it copies across to the second one if buying under $1000). Then put in the purchase price and freight cost into either table and it'll provide you with the landed cost to Australia (near enough to make a decision anyway). The link downloads an Excel file:

http://www.australianimage.com.au/USBuying.xls

Cheers

Ray

Edited May 30, 2012 by Ray!

[Nutta]

In its earlier days ebay was great, i picked up some bargains and flogged off some shit for good money, its also good for those things that you would normally bin, they just seem to sell.

I must say these days its a bit like cash converters, everything is 10% under new!

[Glort]

Well I had a good score on ebay today.

A circulation pump I bought for the veg oil heater I built for the house arrived.

The listing pic was crap, the description sparse and I saw it with just a few minutes to go. I put $5 on it and won it only bid for .99 cents.

Postage was $13 but only cost the guy $8.76. Good luck to him.

It lobbed up this morning, brand spanking new and with a heap of brass fittings and connectors and even flow meter/regulator. That won't be any good for the heater but perfect for controlling the fuel supply on the veg burner I have built for heating the pool. Lowest setting is exactly where I want it at 500Ml min. I haven't looked it up but I'm betting that's worth a hundred or more on it's own.

From the crappy pic I didn't see any of the fittings nor were they mentioned and the listing says the pump it's used. Everything is obviously brand new. Also said the brand was unknown so it took it to be a cheap chinese one when it fact it is a well known top of the line unit.

I really got lucky with this one and it certainly made my day.

Unrelated but to make things even better, I went to see my computer bloke about a couple of laptops, monitors and another server.

He gave me a couple of really nice Dell 19" Monitors that I want for doing onsite jobs! The screens go up and down on the stand and rotate portrait to landscape, have a built in USB ports, speakers and are sharp as a tack.

Said he'll have the other stuff ready for me in a couple of weeks and then asked If could help him out with a favour and shoot some new promo material for him in a couple of months.

I really don't see a problem with that!!