Not Just Stamps

There has been much commenting on this board and others over the scams on eBay, particularly the selling of over price items, such as marketing common 100 year old stamps as "Rare" etc. Hoping to land a sucker apparently, who is unaware of the true value. Well it isn't just stamps! I am in the market for a new Kindle Fire. Amazon (the manufacturer) sells it for $200. Yet there are NUMEROUSE listing on eBay for well over $200. I've seen it for as much as $249. Apparently all hoping to land a sucker. Must be something about the bazaar atmosphere, or hoping that people will think 'if it is on eBay it must be cheap'!

While the collectable market has always had people selling items over their common "CV" value. It's not uncommon for everyday items to be sold at 10% - 50% markups on auction sites or even a local shop or market. It's all about supply and demand. Before the holiday season there was a back order on many of the kindle models (from Amazon) as well. I know this well, because I bought my baby brother one and had to pay a bit more since I was late in getting his gift. The same goes for the new family sized foreman grill with removable plates that normally sell for $50 - 60 bucks at wallyworld I paid about 12% more for because I forgot to get the gift early. It's not really suckers they are looking for, but people like myself that either forgot or were too lazy to shop early before the chain stores did their holiday markups then the "mark downs" that are actually no more marked down than any other time of the year.

Prices will always fluctuate in any market, but the consumer market is roughly abused during the holiday season. Here is one that is close to my heart. Take Harley Davidson for instance. When you walk into a Harley shop to buy accessories or clothing you are paying 150% - 250% above dealer cost. In a normal retail environment markup is maybe 50% - 75% depending on the establishments overhead and location or this is what I know as common from my own businesses and friends as well. Unless it's a "specialty or niche" shop those figures are quite common. That's why if you want Harley gear you can almost always "haggle" those prices down if you have a nack for doing so.

Now the collector market is a whole other bag of worms. The closest "stamp" dealer to me is roughly 250 miles away. He's also the only one for about that much in a radius so he pretty much asks for CV or right about CV on just about anything and people will pay it because that's all there is. I buy most supplies online and almost all my stamps through trade or auction because of that. In our world it truly is worth whatever someone is willing to give you for it.

Chief

Not only are scammers out there on Ebay - here is a post for a block of 8 of the Margaret Mitchell 1-cent stamp for only $9.98 - but shipping is free!
http://www.ioffer.com/i/8-author-ma...nm-502287137

Chief,

Very good and true observations (especially with regards to Harleys, which sell for OVER book), but not true for Kindle, where Amazon is shipping a million a week, at $199 for the Kindle Fire. Today you can buy one, and have it delivered in two days. No back log at all

joe1225us

I tried to get one before Christmas and It allowed me to complete the order and everything then ten minutes later I got an email stating that it was back ordered and would be after Dec 26, 2011 before it would ship. It allowed me to cancel the order and I called CS and was told something about a plant in China and problems blah blah causing back orders. Needless to say I got one for 20 bucks more and shipped two day Fed-ex for free. So I was more than happy to pay the extra for a timely Christmas gift :)