Man, ebay has some deals..

  • Thread starter Thread starter elenore19
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elenore19

elenore19

Slowing becoming un-noob.
Seriously. I was just surfin' around lookin' at mics that I want to get (someday) and every mic is reduced by at least 30%. Same with everything. Lots of things are like more towards 40/50% cheaper. And most of those items are new. Pretty fantastic. Wish I had money.

Just sharing my excitement about cheap stuff.
 
You must be talking about the used stuff. There are a lot of sellers listing new stuff and their prices are higher than regular online retail, a LOT higher in some cases.

But what baffles me is why someone would bid up to $405 dollars (not including shipping) on a mic that he coulda bought new and had shipped to his front door for $320? (I may have already voiced that question in another thread....sorry)

But many times what you say is quite true. In the not too distant past I have won mint condition mics for $99, $140 and $280 that retail new for $200, $289 and $350. I dont think I've ever lost money buying and selling guitar speakers on ebay. Got a steal from Avatar once, four Hot 100's for $100 bucks shipped! The guy at Avatar told me it was a fluke that happened because the auction ended on a major national holiday when nobody was watching or paying attention...... except me.

Another thing I wish people would learn is dont bid until the end. Dont bid on something just to be the high bidder. It's so frustrating to see a nice $350 dollar mic sitting there at $63 bucks for 5 days, then some rookie comes along and bids $65.50 while there is still 2 days left. An hour later the price shoots up to $229 because the first guy is more interested in being king of the hill. It's a mistake to treat ebay like a real live auction where you try to nickel and dime the bids one after another. All you are doing is driving up the price. If everybody would mentally decide their max bid and then wait until there is 15 seconds left on the auction, things on ebay would sell a lot cheaper!! Unlike a live real auction, with a timed auction the point is not to be the high bidder, the point is to be the last bidder.

Usually you can get a better deal if you are patient and wait, set your max price you will pay and stick to it. Just 2 days ago I resisted the temptation to bid over my max on a mic I was itching to hold. Sure enough I found one in better condition a few hours later and won it for less than my max dollar.
 
I just recently sold a laptop hard drive that should have gone for about $80. I got $150 for it.:eek:

I guess the guy really wanted that specific model number or something. He even emailed me to thank me for the great deal!?:confused:
 
soundchaser59 said:
You must be talking about the used stuff. There are a lot of sellers listing new stuff and their prices are higher than regular online retail, a LOT higher in some cases.

But what baffles me is why someone would bid up to $405 dollars (not including shipping) on a mic that he coulda bought new and had shipped to his front door for $320? (I may have already voiced that question in another thread....sorry)

But many times what you say is quite true. In the not too distant past I have won mint condition mics for $99, $140 and $280 that retail new for $200, $289 and $350. I dont think I've ever lost money buying and selling guitar speakers on ebay. Got a steal from Avatar once, four Hot 100's for $100 bucks shipped! The guy at Avatar told me it was a fluke that happened because the auction ended on a major national holiday when nobody was watching or paying attention...... except me.

Another thing I wish people would learn is dont bid until the end. Dont bid on something just to be the high bidder. It's so frustrating to see a nice $350 dollar mic sitting there at $63 bucks for 5 days, then some rookie comes along and bids $65.50 while there is still 2 days left. An hour later the price shoots up to $229 because the first guy is more interested in being king of the hill. It's a mistake to treat ebay like a real live auction where you try to nickel and dime the bids one after another. All you are doing is driving up the price. If everybody would mentally decide their max bid and then wait until there is 15 seconds left on the auction, things on ebay would sell a lot cheaper!! Unlike a live real auction, with a timed auction the point is not to be the high bidder, the point is to be the last bidder.

Usually you can get a better deal if you are patient and wait, set your max price you will pay and stick to it. Just 2 days ago I resisted the temptation to bid over my max on a mic I was itching to hold. Sure enough I found one in better condition a few hours later and won it for less than my max dollar.
Click to expand...

+1

Agree. I see that all the time on E-Bay. What it amounts to is that you really have to know the value of what you are bidding on. What is a good price and what is not a good price. Merely getting a discount from MAP isn't necessarily a good deal. You should know what online retailers will actually sell the item for and what the e-bay bidding history on that kind of item is.

And then exercise some self-discipline in your bidding. Set a maximum price that you are willing to pay and stick to it. If you get caught up in the ongoing bidding whirl, you can end up having paid more than the item is worth. In retrospect, its always easy to think that "if I had only bid another $15, I might have won that item", but that is a slippery slope and another $15 can easily become another $50 or $100.
 
People lose their minds on ebay, and ebay knows it. That's why their ad campaigns are all about "winning" now...they know that getting out bid brings out the competitiveness in bidders, then they'll do things they'd never normally do otherwise.

As far as price goes, remember that if you pay 25% less for something on ebay, sure that's great, but you also don't get a warranty or any kind of customer service if anything goes wrong...and it frequently does. You also have no *real* assurances regarding the history of the product. I'll gladly pay 25% more for that stuff.

Then again, once in a blue moon you get an absolute steal. I got a Yamaha Rev5 on ebay for $180. They routinely sell for $600. It's these kind of stories that keep me checking ebay every now and again to see if I can get a great deal.

Frank
 
Weasel9992 said:
As far as price goes, remember that if you pay 25% less for something on ebay, sure that's great, but you also don't get a warranty or any kind of customer service if anything goes wrong...and it frequently does. You also have no *real* assurances regarding the history of the product. I'll gladly pay 25% more for that stuff.
Click to expand...

that isn't always true-- i just got a new guitar from a dealer with with the warranty for $150 less than the mf price.

ebay is great for some stuff-- particularly "pro-sumer" stuff, but it also drives the prices up on a lot of vintage gear to ridiculous levels.
 
kojdogg said:
that isn't always true-- i just got a new guitar from a dealer with with the warranty for $150 less than the mf price.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you're right...there are some situations where that isn't true, but then you bought it from a *dealer* on ebay, not just a shmoe selling his guitar, so it's not really the same thing. I'm talking about the guys who are just selling their own personal gear on ebay.

Frank
 
Got a Marshall TSL 60 ($1600 new) on ebay for $550.

I felt bad for the guy...
 
Go Google the term "ebay fraud" sometime, too...

I saw a quote some time ago from the FBI that 80% of the fraud complaints on the internet came from eBay...

;-)
 
Aren't their health laws for selling used mics? I saw on ZZsounds that you can't return mics that have been near your mouth because off health laws. Does that apply for when you sell them on E-bay?
 
Farno said:
Aren't their health laws for selling used mics? I saw on ZZsounds that you can't return mics that have been near your mouth because off health laws. Does that apply for when you sell them on E-bay?
Click to expand...

I highly doubt it. Return laws, to the extent they exist in different states, probably only apply to commercial sellers.
 
Farno said:
Aren't their health laws for selling used mics? I saw on ZZsounds that you can't return mics that have been near your mouth because off health laws. Does that apply for when you sell them on E-bay?
Click to expand...

Absolutely not. Everything is sold as-is, health concerns notwithstanding.

Frank
 
That Guy said:
That is apparently a law in NJ, where ZZounds is located. Not sure how it would effect ebay.
Click to expand...

Every commercial seller in every state makes that claim. What it really means is that they've seen a bunch of people buying mics to record something, using them, then returning them.

Because the sellers can't sell those products as new once the box is opened, and because mics and a few other items are abused at a much higher rate than other products, they ban returns on them.

These same companies lost a multi-thousand dollar purchase from me a couple of years ago because of that policy. I asked them if I could buy a wireless in-ear monitor transmitter/receiver package (with one receiver), use my -own- headphones with them just to make sure the signal quality was acceptable (leaving the original headphones in their sealed plastic packaging), then buy about a dozen additional receivers if it was good enough or return it if it wasn't. There's clearly no health concern involved.... They said no, so I didn't buy the receivers at all. I'd rather not own the gear than buy it and find out that it has as much trouble with interference as all the wireless headphones I've used (which universally suck harder than a black hole). Oh, and at local stores, I have returned wireless headphones.... :D

Oh, well. Saved me a couple thousand dollars for a series of gigs that ended up not happening anyway.
 
Farno said:
Aren't their health laws for selling used mics? I saw on ZZsounds that you can't return mics that have been near your mouth because off health laws.
Click to expand...
A lot of dealers make that claim. It's not true. They just don't want to take returns.
 
fullcompass can get about any mic made, and they have return policies.
 
Don't get me wrong...I couldn't possibly care less whether a mic has been used by another person or not. Wipe the grill down with a disinfecting cloth and you're done. I do the same thing with my headphones after a client uses them, just to put other clients' minds at rest. Am I afraid of getting sick from using someone else's headphone? Of course not, but not everyone shares that sensibility.

I think it's silly to not take a mic return for "sanitary" reasons, but retailers are legally totally free to create and enforce any return policy they want and change it without notice. We, on the other hand, are free to express our displeasure with those policies by the way we spend our money.

Frank
 
I think ebay is terrible for buying recording equipment unless someone is selling their whole studio seperately. Everything I search for is being sold in the US or in China by some online store and are at stupid prices.
There are better deals on listing sites like sound on sound.
:S
aviv
 
aviv said:
I think ebay is terrible for buying recording equipment unless someone is selling their whole studio seperately. Everything I search for is being sold in the US or in China by some online store and are at stupid prices.
There are better deals on listing sites like sound on sound.
:S
aviv
Click to expand...

Maybe it has to do with what you are looking for? If you are looking for something that is nice and nobody wants to sell theirs, then you will have a hard time with ebay. But patience is a virtue on ebay, eventually everything pops up for sale at least once, you just have to watch and wait. I waited almost a year to win a mint condition SM7 shipped for less than $300. But MD421's are available cheap day and night, every day. Must be a reason.


Looks like S.O.S. is mostly a UK site? All the listings have euro prices?
 
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