Reselling is EVIL!!!!!

[Seth=L]

Actually no, it's not. I'm fed up with the large sum of people out there that think reselling is wrong. Do these people have no understanding of economics at all? If reselling didn't exist everything would have to be purchased direct from the manufacturer. This means no store, no place to look at the merchandise. How the hell would you even know what you were getting? And let's not forget the countless jobs we wouldn't have.

Now I understand that reselling used goods online isn't quite the same as having a store, but it certainly has a specific function.

Let me start with a few questions:

Q: Who does a garage sale appeal too?

A: It obviously appeals to resellers, or people looking for a good deal, and rarely is anyone looking for anything specific (not a specific product, brand, model, size).

Q: Who does Ebay appeal too?

A: Similarly someone is looking for a good deal, however they are most often looking for specific items. People looking for something specific creates demand and will command a value that may exceed the price paid at the garage sale.

Ebay is full of knowledgeable resellers that can spot the good buy at a rummage sale, flea market, pawn shop, etc... They provide the buyer with a great service. Bringing that otherwise unknown item to a market place where the item is known and has a value to customers.

So why is this frowned upon? Who decided that this was a terrible thing to do to those poor unsuspecting people that run the pawn shop and the poor unsuspecting sap that wanted that particular item and wanted to pay fair market value for it?

Let me see...

Let's tally up the wins and losses here.

Wins:

1. Garage sale host get's rid of unwanted item at a price they set and felt was reasonable

2. Ebayer looking for that vintage powerhouse receiver and finding it for a fair market value.

3. Ebayer finally getting that beautiful statement piece from the 70's to listen to Rush Limbaugh as crystal clear as could ever be on AM radio.

4. The seller gets a return on the investment with some profit as well.

Losses:

1. At some point Rush Limbaugh was involved. That's disappointing.

 

[MidnightSensi]

Meatball BATMAN@#!#$!@

 

[dkane360]

Meatball BATMAN@#!#$!@

Agreed!

Lol. I like searching craigslist for great deals like Divinci 10,000 watt subwoofers for $300

 

[MinusTheBear]

A real big negative that you left out is that this type of online marketplace to re-sell goods attracts scam artists which provide a great avenue to sell fake items which not only could be hazardous to public saftey and health but also increase consumers risk to identity theft and other types of fraud.

I wouldn't say that reselling is evil by any means and it definitely has its place, but it bears much greater risk. This is all in the perspective of an average consumer and not one that knows the ins and outs of buying and selling, which by nature, this sort of avenue can be quite profitable. It all depends on the perspective taken as well as experience involved.

 

[yepimonfire]

reselling is actually good for the economy, reason is. one person puts an item up for sale, they sell it, then take that money and spend it on other things, food, bills, new stuff. this is how the economy is supposed to work, money in money out. unfortunately, when you buy something brand new like electronics, you stimulating chinas economy, not the US'. not to mention reselling is what pays both my bills and seths bills.

 

[Jed M]

A real big negative that you left out is that this type of online marketplace to re-sell goods attracts scam artists which provide a great avenue to sell fake items which not only could be hazardous to public saftey and health but also increase consumers risk to identity theft and other types of fraud.

I wouldn't say that reselling is evil by any means and it definitely has its place, but it bears much greater risk. This is all in the perspective of an average consumer and not one that knows the ins and outs of buying and selling, which by nature, this sort of avenue can be quite profitable. It all depends on the perspective taken as well as experience involved.

I see it more as a sign of the times. After all, just look at AV123/shamwow/Gold "resellers"/online yellow pages, etc. to see that you don't have to buy 2nd hand in order to run into a scam artist everywhere you turn.

 

[Seth=L]

I agree there are resellers out there that give the rest of us a bad wrap. As long as you are forward and don't try to conceal possibly negative things about your items you should be looked at with some level of trust.

 

[gmichael]

Did I miss something? Was there an anti-reseller thread that I didn't notice?

I work at a company that buys parts from manufacturers and sells them to repair shops. If we didn't buy & stock these items, repair shops would either have to stock a whole lot more of their own parts, or wait months to receive them from overseas. We make a profit for this service. It's just business.

 

[Nugu]

I don't think anyone has issues with actual "legit" resellers like I've seen brought up here. I think the consensus is that "resellers" who do thing like buy out all the Wii's at release and then resell them for $500+ are the "bad" resellers.


I assume this thread was started for some reason not given? Did you get whined at for selling something for "too much"?

 

[jamie2112]

Its very simple really People=suck...........

 

[gmichael]

Its very simple really People=suck...........

But I thought that suck=great time.

 

[Seth=L]

I don't think anyone has issues with actual "legit" resellers like I've seen brought up here. I think the consensus is that "resellers" who do thing like buy out all the Wii's at release and then resell them for $500+ are the "bad" resellers.


I assume this thread was started for some reason not given? Did you get whined at for selling something for "too much"?

I was reading an add on craigslist and someone felt the need to make their own add explaining what that seller had done. The seller had a laptop that was recently a woot! that they were selling for more than the woot! price (go figure). Basically the dude called him out, which I found to be particularly ****ty. Maybe the dude doesn't have a job, or just needs a little extra money to make ends meet. People with no forethought like the fella calling him out on his "high price" really piss me off. If someone wants to pay the asking price then I fail to see the problem. It's not like that woot! will be available for more than one day anyway.

Recently Best Buy was had a clearance on an item that was marked way below market value. I purchased some and resold them. I'm sure someone, somewhere thinks that's an ***hole thing to do. But that's how I manage, I seize opportunities to make money when I can. All things considered, that's probably one of the worst things I've done as a reseller from a moral standpoint. That's simply because people do go to Best Buy to look for specific products. However I don't typically go to Best Buy hoping to find a deal so good I can make money from it. If Best Buy was that stupid to sell the item for that low, I see no reason why I shouldn't benefit from it.

Us resellers seem to have a bad stigma too. I've talked to a few people and told them what I do and I often get people turning their nose up to me until I explain in detail how the process works (this is where the misunderstanding of economics comes into play). They simply how no idea how the business world works. Principly, I do what virtually any company in sales does, but on a much smaller scale.

Sorry, but this was just kind of my 4:00 AM, what grinds my gears segment. If anything it will be entertaining to read people's responces.

 

[NicolasKL]

If Best Buy was that stupid to sell the item for that low, I see no reason why I shouldn't benefit from it.

Personally I'd rather see the end user benefit from it, rather than an almost entirely useless extra middleman. See: Wiis.

I wouldn't call it evil, but I think it's fairly lame and unproductive.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I personally agree with Seth - I say - Carpe diem - If you can find someone willing to pay above fair market price or your making profit selling at market price - Kudos to you.
There's no such thing as 100% guaranteed sales - you can always have a chance of loosing money on some shmock who's will try to trick you or simply file groundless complains, request full refunds after product have been damaged by him etc....
What I'm saying is as a reseller you have to have a margin build-in in price to cover for such event.

 

[adwilk]

Personally I'd rather see the end user benefit from it, rather than an almost entirely useless extra middleman. See: Wiis.

I wouldn't call it evil, but I think it's fairly lame and unproductive.

Its absolutely productive... Best Buy had a reason for blowing those out, probably a net down on older goods or something. Either way, BB had to get rid of them. They did. These practices allow BB to turn over more product a year, ultimately providing an outlet with lower prices across the board, save the "fixed price" items.

If BB, or other retailers didn't have these resellers to scoop up the good deals and divert them (a practice known in every major goods distributor chains) then prices would be higher for EVERY end user. We should be thanking Seth.

The Wii thing... what can I say? I'm a capitalist at heart. If I go in to buy 10, I'm getting a discount!!!

I once bought 2 pallets of Trojan condomns from a distributor that couldn't get rid of em. I didn't make a ton of money, but what a great story.

 

[its phillip]

The only resellers I don't like ones who buy rare/limited print albums or games and resell them for much higher prices after they go out of print :/ Some of the cds or games I'd like to have go for close to a hundred or well into the hundreds (sometimes even for used copies), and that's much higher than I'd ever be willing to pay.

 

[Nugu]

I do think it retarded that anyone would call someone out for that type of thing on CL, especially when other more dubious things slide by.

As far as finding good deals or collectibles to sell, I also do that when the chance falls into my lap. Sadly though most of the stuff I find are things I collect so I end up losing money. That or ebay/paypal/shipping takes too large a cut to make it worthwhile.



Now a more important question has been aroused. adwilk what did you do with two pallets of condoms? I don't see how two pallets of condoms didn't make you a ton of money.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Now a more important question has been aroused. adwilk what did you do with two pallets of condoms? I don't see how two pallets of condoms didn't make you a ton of money.

Adwik uses 2 pallets of condoms by himself

 

[NicolasKL]

Its absolutely productive... Best Buy had a reason for blowing those out, probably a net down on older goods or something. Either way, BB had to get rid of them.

And you think end users wouldn't have bought them? All the really good BB deals I've seen they would have sold out quickly regardless of whether one reseller bought 20 or 20 individuals bought one. That expensive HTPC oriented keyboard comes to mind. BB lowered the price to something crazy, a hundred resellers snatched up most of them, thousands of would be end users got stiffed. Stuff like that is annoying, but the Wii thing is too much. Taking an item out of the hands of someone that can pay 250 for it and putting in the hands of someone that can pay 600 for it isn't something you should pat yourself on the back for.

The Wii thing... what can I say? I'm a capitalist at heart.

Yes, what can you say?

 

[yepimonfire]

I agree there are resellers out there that give the rest of us a bad wrap. As long as you are forward and don't try to conceal possibly negative things about your items you should be looked at with some level of trust.

well for one, thats why ebay has a seller rating. there's all different kinds of resale though, it's one of the only recession proof jobs out there because you can't pay some chinese dude to open up a store here if he lives there. there's private resale, which is like what seth does, then theres retail-resale, like shops that retail items etc, i'm sure no one objects to those. i'm not sure why seth made a thread on this, did someone pound u for selling?