Bigblue&Goldie
Well-known member
The prices Craftsman tools go for on Ebay are what's mind blowing! I saved on average 30% buying my Snappy ratchets new on ebay vs the truck or off their website.
eBay bidders, do they ever shop around??
- Thread starter ScottsGT
- Start date
I bid on a lot of tools on ebay, I probably actually purchase less than 5% for that reason. If it's going to be so close to new price, I just buy new or don't buy at all, usually just don't buy at all unless it's a deal. I got my Bridgeport and LeBlond lathe from ebay for $800 each. Good deals can be had if you hit it right.
I used to go to a flea market that was awesome, but moved due to work. I got a snapon 1/2 drive ratchet (old style) for $8, also got the long handle Craftsman breaker bar for $8. I've bought SK sockets for .50 each. Now that's the ticket!
I used to go to a flea market that was awesome, but moved due to work. I got a snapon 1/2 drive ratchet (old style) for $8, also got the long handle Craftsman breaker bar for $8. I've bought SK sockets for .50 each. Now that's the ticket!
Foreigner here. Those Snap On products are probably going to overseas buyers where Snap On isn't available or if it is, really expensive. What you guys consider expensive in many instances can represent huge savings to those overseas buyers. Or they are willing to pay dearly for unobtainium. I know I have my eye on Matco double box flex ratchet set as there isn't a Matco presence in my country. Those sellers aren't looking at the domestic market.
I prefer Amazon to ebay but there are some items not available on Amazon.
Askme42
Well-known member
I feel like eBay has really just become another retail outlet.
Whoops! Typo! It was the IR2135 TiMax. Yea, it's the loud one, but I caught the thread here where you can shove a cut up Scotchbrite pad into the exhaust and do the same thing. But then again I want my neighbors to hear me gettin' down on some lugnuts in the driveway! Suckers gotta take their rides to the shop and I'm doing it myself in the driveway! No kidding, my neighbor has an old yard truck he calls AAA to come out every spring to charge/change the battery. All he has to do is ask!
My favorite ebay pet peeves are BIN or best offers. You get these people who are asking near list price and either decline your not unreasonable offer without a counter or you put an offer of say, $200 on a $250 item and it auto declines and continues to auto-decline at $225 and $235. I swear some people just don't want to sell stuff.
turmlos
Well-known member
Deals can be had, especially on larger items that sellers are not willing to ship. I got a nice Carolina 3-ton shop crane for $100 locally, and I've seen industrial grade air compressors listed for less than scrap value and not even sell (3-phase motors play a part in that I suppose). That being said, I find it handy for filling out incomplete sets that I've acquired by other means. I may overpay a little at times, but I blame that on my OCD.
The 2135qtimax and 2131qt also have a pad that fits around the motor housing that makes them quiet too. You'll need both to get the same quiet results.
Yeah I can't figure out the people with best offer on their stuff and they won't take 5 dollars less. Ever since ebay changed the spread from 10% to 30% between the start price of your auction and your BIN price I just sell everything with BIN. It works well for me.
Lance-AR
Well-known member
I've been listing things as BIN OBO and lowering the price each week. What do you mean by the spread and what is it?
I have a suspicion that one day a huge scandal will come to light, that the reason Ebay now hides the identities of everyone is because IT shill bids automatically with its computers to add a little to each auction, driving up Ebay profits astronomically. Just have to wait for someone to prove it.
kythri
Well-known member
kythri
Well-known member
And again,
You think that makes you sound wise, but it's not having the result you're hoping for. Enjoy your sleepwalk with the flock.
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David Jackson
Well-known member
I think that's a very interesting way to go; especially if the item you are bidding on is something you don't absolutely have to own, just would be nice to own.
I will have to remember that.
kythri
Well-known member
You think that makes you sound wise, but it's not having the result you're hoping for. Enjoy your sleepwalk with the flock.
I don't think it makes me "sound wise" - but I'm certainly not insane, imagining a conspiracy of eBay corporate-employed shill bidders.
I don't necessarily agree with eBay's reasons for masking bidder identities, but I certainly don't believe that there is even a remote chance of your conspiracy theory having even a micron of truth to it.
Whatever meager profits eBay could reap by doing so are massively dwarfed by profits realized from them exploiting "loopholes" in tax laws, and lobbying to avoid paying sales tax in states they do virtual business in.
Ever looked at the pattern of other bidders bidding against you, especially in the last few moments of an auction? Who said anything about employed shill bidders? Computer systems can do it much more accurately, and they dont talk after leaving or being fired. You think it takes being insane to imagine a giant corp thinking it wont be caught padding sales for massive (not meager) profits? Why cook books which leaves a trail, when random, anonymous "bidders" raise the final value fees of most auctions up front, and are virtually untraceable in plain sight? Many many thousands of auctions a day with a little extra profit on each one, and you think thats meager? You are obviously either an internet troll who argues about anything just to argue in a safe anonymous way, or are a sheep that has no imagination, and doesnt pay attention to the news where things like this are exposed on a weekly basis. I'm absolutely sure their legion of bean counters takes full advantage of every loophole to avoid taxes. In fact, they may be one of the many corps that not only does not pay income tax at all, but actually gets millions in subsidies as well, google being one example. Baa baa baaa. If this were the matrix, I know which pill you'd be swallowing...
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rob1200
Well-known member
The trouble with shill bidders, whether on eBay or a live auction, is sometimes the shill bidder ends up being the final bidder and wins the auction.
If eBay is using computers to shill bid, what happens when they win the auction? Do they have a huge warehouse of "stuff" somewhere?
If eBay is using computers to shill bid, what happens when they win the auction? Do they have a huge warehouse of "stuff" somewhere?
jml93
Well-known member
Seller probably has the option to relist the item. On multiple occasions I have seen the same item for sale a week or two after it's original sale where it was said to have sold. Makes things seem kinda..ehhhh..
kythri
Well-known member
Step out into the light- it won't hurt, really.
The whole world knew the earth was flat, and anyone that said otherwise was plain nuts.
Until, one day, it wasn't.
ENRON wasn't stealing. Until they were.
Nixon wasn't lying- the President was above suspicion. Until he wasn't.
GET A CLUE.
Sadly, your club has many, many members.
Underhanded business practices aren't a conspiracy- it's the new playbook to increasing profits and endless greed at all costs. You cant outsource and downsize forever- winning the greed game takes non-linear thinking.
I'll let you have the last post, since it's obviously very important to you.
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Loscaldazar
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2013
- Messages
- 2,385
I'll bite.
What evidence do you have eBay is shill bidding? Anything solid? Or only circumstantial?
Continue on in your anti business rants now....
Is there some way in eBay bidding for a 'shill' (maybe there's a better word) to push up prices without breaking your max?
It seems to me that if someone bid $12.01, and the item goes up by 50 cents each time, you could up it by 50 cents until the price hit the bidders max. I swear I've had this happen, but I'm not sure.
It seems to me that if someone bid $12.01, and the item goes up by 50 cents each time, you could up it by 50 cents until the price hit the bidders max. I swear I've had this happen, but I'm not sure.
kythri
Well-known member
See, eBay is a corporation - therefore, he doesn't need any evidence. Corporations are evil horrible thieves, therefore, eBay has constructed an elaborate system to make a penny here, a penny there.
It's like the plot of Superman 3 and Office Space.
Also, beware of any tools you buy from a corporation. What you don't realize, because you haven't become one of the enlightened few (I think there's some special grape Flavor-Aid you need to drink, first) is that all of the tool manufacturers are part of a secret cabal, and at night, when you're sleeping, your tools assemble themselves into a robot that sneaks into your house, steals a couple of your empty soda/beer cans, returns them for the deposit, sends that money to the Illuminati, then disassemble and put themselves back into your toolbox.
When you aggregate that amongst all of the tool users in the world, these nefarious shadowlords are making HERPDERPAGILLIONS of dollars!
My proof? George Noory on Coast to Coast AM interviewed Whitley Streiber who was abducted by three different tool-bots that assembled into a giant uber-tool-bot, took him into the eBay-funded medical exam spaceship, and, after a mild probing, showed him a picture of the face on Mars that was smuggled out of NASA before they had a chance to Photoshop it.
Here's the kicker: The face is actually RICHARD NIXON.
texasfiremedic
Well-known member
I usually wait for a buy it now price to be right. Sooner or later somebody gets the price right. Sometimes a long wait but when you got two weeks of looking What does it hurt?
By the way just popped a bag. Let the show begin.
By the way just popped a bag. Let the show begin.
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kythri
Well-known member
Shill bidders exist. I don't think anyone has claimed that there aren't shill bidders and that there aren't dishonest sellers.
I would question that it's "common practice amongst the big sellers" simply because I think the big sellers do enough volume that they don't need to do this. In my experience, the auctions I bid on from big sellers, I'm the only one bidding. Bid wars don't really ever get crazy unless it's from the "amateur" eBayer.
What's being claimed is that eBay's has integrated an automated shill bidding process into their system that jacks up bids in order to maximize their profits - that the entire system is inherently corrupted and dirty - because corporations are evil.
This is where I'm calling hogwash.
While I will admit that it would be technically possible to accomplish, I don't believe for a minute that eBay would do such a thing. It's not that I think eBay is some bastion or paragon of virtue, but simply, it's not necessary, and they'd get caught. Some disgruntled programmer or accountant would blow the whistle on it, and it would undermine their entire business for a few pennies.
They control the online auction world. They don't need to do anything nefarious.
You argue pretty vehemently against something you're positive could never in a million years ever exist.
People like you on forums are HILARIOUS. Such a fragile world view that can't even entertain the possibility that corruption, even on a grand scale, could possibly exist (and this with almost CONSTANT examples in the news-and those are only the ones that get caught!). Going out of your way to babble on and on about how things are always like they seem on the surface, and anyone that looks below the surface must be a nutjob. *sighs* Must be a nice place to live, there in your head.
History is full of people like you, you're in good company. Pat yourself on the back for being unoriginal.
OH, and by the way I never said it was absolutely certain it's being done, just that it would be trivial to put in place, and be untraceable. No accounting games to play, its part of the final payment on each auction so manipulated. A foreign programmer paid to put an algorithm in place- dirt cheap to do. Honestly, they're idiots if they aren't doing it. With no account names in the bidding logs, just 2 letters and asterisks, and a very limited ability to search old auctions, I'd say it's pretty well covered. If you have any programming experience at all, you'd know how easy it would be.
I bet you drive the speed limit in the fast lane on the freeway to make sure everyone is following the rules, too.
People like you on forums are HILARIOUS. Such a fragile world view that can't even entertain the possibility that corruption, even on a grand scale, could possibly exist (and this with almost CONSTANT examples in the news-and those are only the ones that get caught!). Going out of your way to babble on and on about how things are always like they seem on the surface, and anyone that looks below the surface must be a nutjob. *sighs* Must be a nice place to live, there in your head.
History is full of people like you, you're in good company. Pat yourself on the back for being unoriginal.
OH, and by the way I never said it was absolutely certain it's being done, just that it would be trivial to put in place, and be untraceable. No accounting games to play, its part of the final payment on each auction so manipulated. A foreign programmer paid to put an algorithm in place- dirt cheap to do. Honestly, they're idiots if they aren't doing it. With no account names in the bidding logs, just 2 letters and asterisks, and a very limited ability to search old auctions, I'd say it's pretty well covered. If you have any programming experience at all, you'd know how easy it would be.
I bet you drive the speed limit in the fast lane on the freeway to make sure everyone is following the rules, too.
kythri
Well-known member
You forgot to accuse me of being on Big Auction's payroll.
nicksnothereman
Well-known member
True.
Even if it comes from the same credit card I'll forgo the lower amazon price so I don't have to input it AND wait the time regular amazon waits to ship the stuff. I'll order from other sellers through amazon though from time to time.
Amazon prices, however, aren't always cheaper.