"Bad Economy and Ebay" Topic

It used to be that 1/2 price was the sweet spot to pick up those bits of lead people were willing to get rid of. Recently it seems that folks are more than willing to dig in and pick things up for considerably more than half price. I watched a few auctions for anything from game rules to miniatures and have been out bid on several even though I went a good bit more than half price.

Do you think that more folks are turning to e-bay for gaming purchases due to the bad economy? Thoughts?

The poll is evil. The gun is good.

a. no

b. people are people. sometimes things go for way more than you think they would; sometimes for less. Just depends on who catches an auction at any point in time.

for me, I have a price I am willing to pay, and if others desire it more and back that up with higher offers, then it is theirs.

I saw a rules set offered on e-Bay and the starting bid was $10 USD more than the original price of the rules – THEY WERE THE CURRENT VERSION OF THE RULES AND STILL IN PRINT!!

On the one hand, you have people who simply think their stuff must be worth a fortune regardless what it is. On the other hand, you people who think if it's on e-Bay, they have to be getting a good price for it.

Go figure.

Auction are auction, which means that in many cases the selling price is somewhat unpredictable, because the buyers are unpredictable.

also factor in the shipping, some ebayers charge less shipping than some internet-stores, there's also a lot of internet dealers who have minimum orders for international

that has made me pay more then retail on ebay, since i still saved some money :)
doesnt happen often tho..

There have begun to be published very interesting studies showing that people will often do very, very irrational things in an auction on E-bay. Just two examples:

With multiple bidders, items will be bid up beyond a Buy It Now price a surprisingly large amount of the time (as high as 25% in some studies).

More bidders bid on an item with a $0.01 USD start price and $5 USD shipping than on the identical item with a $5 USD start and free shipping.

Too true.
I've seen bidding wars on one item, when others were available with no bids and lower BIN! prices.

For the things I've been interested in, I've been able to get new items at 50% off or less. It's been great. Some non-miniature items I've been purchasing for fractions of what I would have a year or two ago. The recession has reduced prices on many items.