Bad selling practice

[Robert-371453]

Hi,

I am disgusted at the practice of some dealers who and so called model railway enthusiasts who have bought the R3971 General Steam Navigation and are now profiteering and sell at more than £500 and one dealer is sell on easy at £650, I am not after one as I don't use this era and feel very sorry for those who are and for many which way beyond many model railway enthusiasts.

This not good for the community and puts people off modelling.

[RDS]

@Robert

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[96RAF]

These quick profit making resellers only succeed because there are enough gullible buyers supporting their trade. Refuse to buy at their inflated prices and they have no option but to sell at a realistic price.

[AndyMac1707817969]

Or they can hold on to it thus making it even scarcer and prices will rise even more. When demand outstrips supply then prices will always go up.

[ColinB]

This always happens, at least with this model there were more about at normal price. There is a guy on EBay that sells secondhand parts at amazing prices, it always amazes me that he sells anything but he does. Sometimes people pay more expensive prices on EBay than what they would if they did a simple Google search.

[AndyMac1707817969]

This mistaken idea that many people seem to have that someone should sell you something for half the price they can get for it elsewhere because you think they should is not bad selling practice. Bad practice you think because it does not favour you. I am sure when you go and sell something like your car or house you try and get as much as you can for it.  

It’s not a one way street with eBay, lots of 'Bad Buying Practices' as well. There are many including

Its arrived damaged I don't want to have to return it and my phone is 10 years old and it does not have a camera so I can’t send you a photo and I don't know anyone else with a camera, I just don't think it’s worth what I paid now.

Oh and of course there is

Your item for sale and a buyer tries to convince you that it’s worth less than half what you are asking. They send you a link to a listing of a really cheap one that was snapped up within minutes of being listed and think because someone else gave away theirs for next to nought so should you. Buyers seem to think its fine to try and defraud seller and rip them off, they call it a bargin

Another – Why is this coach far more expensive than ‘similar’ ones? Answer – if I were you I would buy the other cheaper one if you think it’s that similar. 

Your item has been listed for a couple of days at £100, you get a message, your loco is not selling but I am prepared to offer £30 for it. Yes everyone on this planet who might want to purchase it ever has seen it in those couple of days and decided no but generous buyer is here to help rip you off yet again.

I guess you should just be happy they read the description before buying and this seems a hard task for some. My personal favourite, listed a coach description ‘In excellent condition but comes unboxed’. Buyer has a grievance as its came not in its original box. Explanation. ‘I did not actually read the description before purchasing but I feel even if I had the word ‘unboxed’ was not prominent enough in the sentence that I would have noticed it.

[Rana Temporia]

Andy, I think you have had some of the same eBay buyers as I have.

I also have the “your postage is more expensive than x”, of course it is, and I have explained why as I don’t use unreliable couriers and will only send as “signed for” in the description if you’d bothered to read it.

There is also the common non-payer who outbids all the genuine buyers and then disappears off the face of the planet, or “i will offer you £10 for everything you have on eBay at the moment” dude who for some reason is allowed to continue no matter how many times he gets reported.

eBay used to be OK, I’ve not sold anything on it for some time now and recently I have bought very little as the bad experiences seem to be outweighing the good. There are still some genuine people using it but unfortunately a lot of the trust has gone.

You can’t leave a bad feedback score for buyers anymore, you can leave bad comments but on a glance it still looks like they are good. Also, even when you report people eBay takes no notice, when I reported one non-payer apparently he had five accounts and was well known for it, he is still on there!

[ColinB]

I have not really had any really bad experiences with EBay selling, so I have probably dealt with the 95% of the public that is ok. As to prices, I don't mind paying a reasonable price for bits and generally I price my stuff the same. I generally sell stuff for what I think it is worth, which is generally more than I paid for it but a lot less than the scalpers, I usually want to get rid of the excess stuff. I did get the odd Buyer offering me amazing low prices for parts because EBay had added the offers box and set it ridiculously low, but you can always say no. As to the high prices, I know the price of of a new part also because I am always scanning the prices, when the price of a body with a buffer missing is nearly as much as a second hand complete loco in good condition they the price is too high, quite often the part is not even rare. There are sellers on EBay that sell stuff for really high prices and if you follow them over a couple of months they generally still have the bits.

[atom3624]

There are others on Ebay who sell an obviously 'used' item - ex factory / shop, taken home and opened / unsealed - as NEW, then inflate the price.

There are others who include 'offers' and don't accept £0.10 less than listed.

We all have our experiences on 'that auction site', but it does remain a very useful resource, whether it's simply reference, or it's actually locating difficult to source items.

Al.

[AndyMac1707817969]

eBay is what it is, bought plenty of items directly from model shops that have been unsealed and out of the box numerous times. Buyers want items for as little as they can, sellers want as much as they can. Different people will pay different prices so it’s all often just a matter of time as to what sells. Everything sells eventually. When items are plentiful it’s a buyers’ market and sellers have to compete. When items are rare it’s a sellers’ market and just a case of waiting till the right buyer comes along who is willing to pay the asking price. I never put offers on my items, does not stop people asking. I find accepting offers is just giving money away. The number of times I have refused an offer for the item to sell days later.

A short time ago asking £150 for a mint class 60 some would have said was a high price. Now with the latest new batches being circa £200 they suddenly seems quite reasonable. People often compare prices from when they were in the shops with a plentiful supply years ago to now when items are rare. Someone asking £50 for a rare long out of production MK3 coach might seem high considering they were £20 when new years ago but a current production MK3 for which there is a plentiful supply can be over £40. So in real terms not that much more

[The son of Triangman]

The famous online auction is full of those who seek to profiteer from new releases, and has been since it started. It's better to buy from Hornby or a shop direct for such releases. You cannot stop human greed, greed from sellers and greed from buyers, there will always be someone who will pay the vastly inflated price of a new issue that is rare, or the market value of a rare model out of production.

It's not bad practice, just human nature.

[VESPA]

This upping of prices is a constant method of selling rarer items. It can be on initial launch of a model or later as secondhand. I remember the old Hornby Dublo full brake going for £10 new from various sellers after Hornby Meccano went bust. Then Norman Hatton found several hundred he had in stock. They sold at £1, just a couple of shilling over RRP that killed the overprice market. At present the Clans are selling mainly at full RRP with retailers who still have them. No doubt someone will soon be asking £400 or so when they get harder to find. I got one of each last weekend at £174 with stock showing at 12 and 10. By Monday the 12 items were sold out or moved to other retailers by the area rep of Hornby. I was told in RAILS that one customer bought 2 of everything to sell one at a higher price when demand increased. That is speculation where he may have been left with the extra one. If there is a demand and a gullable mug, then there will be a sale at the inflated price.

[AndyMac1707817969]

When an item goes out of stock and the price rises above RRP people complain because they have to pay more than RRP. When an item is in stock everywhere, a retailer selling it at RRP is then considered expensive and complain, people want it less than RRP. Seems a case of having your cake and eating it. I don’t think wanting to pay as little as possible for an item gives anyone the right to claim the moral high ground.

After all production moved out of the UK to foreign shores so people could have things cheaper not caring about workers jobs in the UK, just another form of greed without caring about the social and monetary consequences. After decades of giving other countries all our money just so we can have items cheaper, just hope they don’t do anything bad with it like spend it on missiles and nuclear weapons

[ColinB]

You can get caught out with the practice of buying two of a model assuming that the price will rise. I managed to buy two of the "East Asiatic Company" Merchant Navy loco purely by accident. I originally pre ordered it from Rails, then got told they were not dealing with Hornby anymore, so I moved the order to Hattons. Hattons kept cancelling all my pre orders, so I thought this one will be difficult to get. So I pre ordered from two retailers, unfortunately I never got chance to cancel the second one. I thought wait six months and I can sell it for what I paid. How could I have been so wrong, everywhere I look it is on offer for less than I paid for it, even at the Bluebell Railway they were doing it cheap (their prices are always RRP). So buying two doesn't always work. I agree it is a "Supply and Demand" market with EBay. I must admit it has to a very special loco for me to pay more than £100 for a second hand one, even though the new ones are nearly £200, but there again they are new at £200. I could write a book about some of the supposedly "new old stock" locos I have bought on EBay, sometimes there is a reason that they are mint, they didn't work that well from new. Generally if you wait long enough, what you want appears at a reasonable price.

[96RAF]

Just remember RRP is not a true price based on development and production costs plus distribution and associated costs, it is a price established by Marketing to get as much profit from a particular model as they think the buyer will stand.

Any price ending only £x99.99 is fictitious rounded up to the nearest handy number less a penny to con you into thinking its a price bracket lower.

Industry standard pricing policy as seen in every business and shop.

[ColinB]

This thread was all about the high prices on EBay for R3971 General Steam Navigation. To be quite honest most people would have realised that this would be a sort after model, so it probably is one of the models you need to pre order if you really want one. The distribution of this model seems to be better than the previous Dublo loco the Duchess of Atholl, in that retailers did have spare ones after the release date. It could be that they didn't come with a limited number certificate, so not so desirable. I must admit I am rapidly going off the pre order idea, the Hornby Dublo locos being the only exception. The W1s are probably another, although I had already pre ordered it ages ago. Anything else I will wait for it to be released and take my chances.