Classifieds

EdGrip

This is all interesting stuff. I've the potential to be bit of a GAS junkie, though I try to limit myself for the most part. What follows are some thoughts I had reading this thread.

 - When a seller overprices something, a PM to point this out is reasonable. "Mind your own bloody business" as somebody said above, is a bad attitude. After all, the seller doesn't have to do anything with the information you PM them, other than a thank you if they're feeling nice. They might be sitting at home getting quietly het up at the fact that their eBay-priced item isn't selling, and your PM might be useful. This applies doubly for the people who overprice stuff and then bump it all the time and then start bumping with comments like "No one???????? Come on!!!!!!!" etc. Dude. Everyone here who might see it has seen it by now. Change something.

 - When pricing for here, I look at ended auctions on ebay, I look at Gumtree, and then I price it at the low end - usually comparable to Gumtree. Basically, I feel that the classifieds area here should be "mate's rates". A group of mutual enablers, a way for us to try out toys. Chances are that someone you're trading with on here is known to be a good egg. It would be hard to stay here otherwise. If you just want the most money for your thing, don't sell it here, you stony-hearted lizard. The audience is comparatively tiny. Sell it on eBay. (My EHX Cathedral went on eBay as a mid-priced Buy It Now after it became clear that no-one here wanted a Cathedral at the time. I prefer BIN listings, both to sell and to buy. I can't be bothered to wait around for unpredictable auction results. Look at all the ended listings of other examples of your thing, and use that to come up with a BIN price that also takes into account how quickly you want to sell the thing. I factor the cost of Special Delivery postage into this BIN price. I don't like adding postage as a separate cost - it looks untidy, involves additional maths for the browsing buyer, and needs to be paid one way or another anyway, so why do it? Same on here. Just put a price. Assume you need to post it. In the relatively unlikely event that someone lives round the corner and is coming to pick it up, give them a discount.)

 - People posting on other people's FS threads "Hey! I sold that to you a month ago for a tenner less!". Just shush. Don't be a dick. The seller is probably assuming that the first PM is going to haggle him down by a tenner, like he did with you. If you don't like it, PM the seller. 

 - As mentioned above, people deleting information from their FS threads once the thing is sold - especially the price. Just what Machiavellian aim are you trying to achieve? Keeping the used price of your thing a mystery for future buyers and sellers? As if FB forum sellers are your people and FB forum buyers are the enemy? Why? Stop it. (Jooky - you're excused; as a builder, you probably want to keep your pricing patterns out of reach of the first Google of your name.)

 - "WTT my turquoise sparkle Strat for your 4 x 16 ohm Celestion Classic Lead 80s" Really? Really? Good luck with that.

 

close2u

EdGrip said:

Jooky - you're excused; as a builder, you probably want to keep your pricing patterns out of reach of the first Google of your name.

+1 to that .. Jooky and other builder-sellers are in a different situation

GuitarMonkey

EdGrip said:

 - People posting on other people's FS threads "Hey! I sold that to you a month ago for a tenner less!". 

That does annoy me though, especially when you've given something away for free and the recipient sells it on.

Also, people buying stuff on here at "mates rates" and _immediately_ listing it on eBay at 2x plus the sale price.

EdGrip

If someone is selling something at a strangely low price, I suppose we'd have to assume that they didn't know what they had. It would seem incongruous, though, that someone who didn't know what they had would choose to sell their mystery item by registering on a forum of guitar gear geeks, rather than on ebay - the biggest visible selling brand to the technophobe. But yes - if I thought that someone was making a mistake I would probably PM them to ask if they knew.

When I say "mate's rates", I suppose I mean "at the lower end of what you'll find a second-hand example of that thing for sale at". Again, if maximum cash return is your priority, there are other places for that with far, far more potential buyers than here.

I'm sure there are people who try to make a quick buck by buying stuff from forum communities and selling it on eBay; c'est la vie. 

JohnPerry

EdGrip said:

When a seller overprices something, a PM to point this out is reasonable. "Mind your own bloody business" as somebody said above, is a bad attitude.

 

No it isn't. A bad attitude is some busybody assuming their knowledge of what gear is "worth" (which is never set in stone and depends on many variables) is greater than that of the seller simply because they've perused the last two months' completed listings on eBay. Now, if the seller is endlessly bumping his thread and whining that his stuff's not selling, i can appreciate that a steer on why that might be is appropriate, since he appears to have asked the question. What i object to is those who think it's their public duty to PM sellers out of the blue griping about something they think is too pricey. In which case "mind your own bloody business" strikes me as entirely appropriate. Not least because it was my post.

Parker

Personally, flipping is ok in my book. The seller gets the price they wanted. If someone buys something off me with the intention to flip, then that's ok as it's their risk and time for a few extra quids. I've bought stuff to flip and I've been honest with the seller as it looks underhanded otherwise. It also gives them chance to refuse the sale. It hasn't happened yet though! Win-win.

Drew_TNBD

I don't do mates rates either. We're not mates. We're trolls working together for the benefit of mankind!

EdGrip

A thing is absolutely worth what everyone is buying them for at the moment. What it sold for last year, or might sell for next year, are irrelevant if it is not last year or next year right now. 

My knowledge of what it's worth based on looking up ended eBay listings, other FS threads in other forums etc, is what I will be basing my judgement of whether your offer is a good one on. If I click your thread open and you're trying to sell it for something much higher than what everyone is buying them for at the moment, you're basically wasting your own time and that of everyone who opens the thread. It could well be that this has come about because you couldn't be bothered to look up the ended listings and find out what your item is actually worth, and are instead inventing an optimistic figure based on "a bit less than I paid for it new" or something. In which case, that PM could put everyone out of their misery, so why not?  

Edit: And, again, that PM doesn't get in the way of you hopelessly not selling your item for weeks, and it doesn't damage your chances by being visible in the actual FS thread. If you don't like the PM, just ignore it. I would hope that whoever sends the PM writes their thoughts in a friendly and non-abusive way - the tone of someone just offering a suggestion. If the PM is snarky or abusive, that's a different matter, and should be reported.

JohnPerry

EdGrip said:

A thing is absolutely worth what everyone is buying them for at the moment. If you don't like the PM, just ignore it.

it's "worth" what someone is prepared to pay for it today. And it ought to be every seller's right to take a punt on what that might be. As for ignoring PMs, well, of course. But then you and everyone else could ignore ads you didn't like the price of. I don't think it's anyone's role to save Fretboarders a few seconds (which you have decided they have wasted) by trying to police the classifieds.

JDE

All of this notwithstanding I actually think the classifieds here work pretty well. I know the odd nose gets knocked out of joint, but we're all pretty decent at the end of the day. I used to collect vintage razors and sold a lot via forums and that was a total ballache on some forums. Hysteria over total trivialities. Mainly due to (not casual racism, just the facts, ma'am) Americans being, well, American.

Iamnobody

Absolutely right about value being what someone is prepared to pay.

I've just watched a 00's Les Paul Classic Premium Plus reach the best part of £2k on the bay.

Ok it's mint and a PP but that guitar wouldn't sell for £1100 on here most days.

I've queried a price on the classifieds before publicly but hopefully in a constructive way? And only after the seller bumped and (jokingly) suggested one of us remortgage to pay for it!

I've also paid for something offered free because it had a market value, and a value to me as the exact part I needed to restore a guitar to standard spec.

I think overall the classifieds tick along nicely here. But we are in a slump, have relatively small numbers of members and times is hard so don't expect top dollar.

EdGrip

I think our classifieds section is great. I really missed that avenue when the MR forums went, and I'm glad to have it back.

The browsing of second-hand guitar stuff that you have to tell yourself you don't want is a forum-specific thing, really. It's fun.

UnclePsychosis

Let's face it, most of us already have multiple guitars and far more gear than we really "need". It's hardly a surprise that during bad times most of us aren't desperate to throw money at unnecessary luxury items.

I never fail to be amazed at just how much people care about what other people choose to do with their stuff. If someone wants to ask silly money for a guitar that's their problem not mine. If someone wants to buy something and readvertise it elsewhere then that's their choice. Once they've bought something they are free to do absolutely anything they want with it.

This whole "I'm going to get upset when people make a choice about stuff that belongs to them" attitude is utterly bizarre.

Lodious

UnclePsychosis said:

Let's face it, most of us already have multiple guitars and far more gear than we really "need". It's hardly a surprise that during bad times most of us aren't desperate to throw money at unnecessary luxury items.

I never fail to be amazed at just how much people care about what other people choose to do with their stuff. If someone wants to ask silly money for a guitar that's their problem not mine. If someone wants to buy something and readvertise it elsewhere then that's their choice. Once they've bought something they are free to do absolutely anything they want with it.

This whole "I'm going to get upset when people make a choice about stuff that belongs to them" attitude is utterly bizarre.

Massive +1 to this.

There does appear to a percentage of people on here who appear to feel a sense of entitlement to comment on people ad's, and I think that it basically comes from the fact they have too much time on their hands and/or are purposely trying to talk down the market.

Look at what used to happen on the MR forum, some guy was selling a Mk2 version of an amp which was basically mint, and people started comparing it to a MK1 version which had been gigged to an inch of it's life and had recently completed ebay, as if they were the same thing and saying 'it's the state of the market, innit'.

crunchman

Some people on here are cheapskates when it comes to buying. 

A while ago I tried to sell a PRS on here.  I had someone putting a public comment on the thread where I was advertising it saying my price was too high which completely derailed the thread. Now my initial offering was slightly optimistic because I wanted to leave a bit of haggle room, and the room to drop my asking price by £75, but there is a difference between what some people are prepared to pay and what is a fair value for the seller as well.

On a £50 pedal I don't mind getting a bit less as it's not worht the time and effort haggling over a fiver or maybe a tenner, but on a £1000 plus guitar I don't want to be dropping more than £200 over what I can get for it elsewhere.  That's a significant chunk of money.

I've now got that PRS for sale in a shop on consignment.  It's reasonably priced - there is another secondhand PRS Singlecut in the same shop for £200 more.   Even if I get £150 less than the current asking price I'll still be £225 better off than if I'd sold it on here at the price people were apparently willing to pay.  If I get the full asking price I'll be over £300 better off.

BenSirAmos

As a community / forum, we might not want to comment on prices that are none of our business. But we surely we can combat misinformation if it is being used to justify an unrealistic price. 

I'm thinking of misinformation about when a guitar was built, claims that something is 'all original', etc. We need to be able to do that to maintain the reputation of the forum - but then it is only a small step to saying something is overpriced. I'd rather see factual and verifiable stuff expressed publicly rather than in PMs. 

Parker

BenSirAmos said:

As a community / forum, we might not want to comment on prices that are none of our business. But we surely we can combat misinformation if it is being used to justify an unrealistic price. 

I'm thinking of misinformation about when a guitar was built, claims that something is 'all original', etc. We need to be able to do that to maintain the reputation of the forum - but then it is only a small step to saying something is overpriced. I'd rather see factual and verifiable stuff expressed publicly rather than in PMs. 

Surely thats the job of a modmin? If there are questions of the authenticity, then this should be investigated by the forum moderators - not vigilantes!

underdog

I love the classifieds on this place, I often wait to see if an item I want comes up on here rather than buy it straight away from somewhere else. The other day I realised I needed new p90s for my SG, later in day look in classifieds and there's a set of irongear for sale, sorted.

When I bought my Les Paul I asked on here and left it a week before I just had to gas on eBay as no one has what I wanted on here. Right now I'm waiting for wah to appear

fretfinder

horse said:

fretfinder said:

johnnyurq said:

It is sad that things clearly worth more are being ignored until they hit rock bottom.

But if they don't sell until they hit 'rock bottom' then they're clearly not 'worth more' are they?

My ex-R8 is a case in point. I put it on here for £1800 then £1700 then £1600 and still didn't get any cash buyers. In the end I went for a PRS plus cash trade deal that both sides were happy with. I thought £1800 wasn't a bad price but clearly it was too high as it didn't shift.  

The small pool of buyers here means that chance plays a big part in things though, so maybe £1800 was an ok price. For all you know, somebody might have been willing to pay nearer £1800, but just didn't have the money at the time. Or somebody new might have come along and paid £1800 for it. With a bigger pool of potential buyers I think there's a greater probability that somebody will pay a higher price (within reason).

I put the R8 on eBay and gumtree a while after it didn't sell on here, no result there either.

GuitarMonkey

underdog said:

Right now I'm waiting for wah to appear

Love this