--- On Tue, 3/16/10, Greg Hupe <[email protected]> wrote:
> Respectfully, I do not agree with this comment. If sellers
> are willing to eat pay more overhead through eBay's greed,
> how can buyers go wrong with great items that start at 99
> cents?
>
> Best regards,
> Greg
I have to agree with Greg here. I enjoy buying my meteorites at auction because
there are times when I can get some screaming good deals. Often well under
retail. This may not be the best thing for the dealers, because I understand
their need to make a profit to be able to bring me the material I crave. I do
buy much less often at retail, but I also feel that auctions reveal a little
more about the true market value of certain material.
I appreciate dealers who start their auctions at $0.99 because they are letting
the market dictate what the material is worth, not necessarily what they even
paid for it... I usually avoid anyone who starts their auctions at slightly
below retail.
That being said, when it comes right down to it, I'd much rather more of my
money going to the dealer than to ebay in the form of multiple fees.
I did a search for online auction sites and yes, ebay is by far the largest,
but they aren't the only one. It seems the second largest one is ebid.com, with
only about 14% of the listing as ebay. Currently ebay has 2367 listings
returned when you search "meteorite" while ebid only has 18...
A quick look at the fees on ebid makes it look like it might be more seller
friendly, but with the lower amount of traffic and bidders, the lower fees
might not equal to higher profits.
It might be interesting to see an experiment if some dealers started places
lots on another site and used their once a week ad to mention those listings
and see if this might become a viable option.
--
Richard Kowalski
Full Moon Photography
IMCA #1081
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