posted on January 18, 2010 05:54:44 PM new
My "sprockets" used to sell for $50... but now I'm lucky to sell the same "sprocket" for $25... yet at the mall the exact same "sprocket" sells for $60. Ironic, I also get bidders making outlandish offers of $5 for said "sprocket".
So what happened??? Oversaturation? Devaluation? Why is it I can't even get 1/2 of retail, and why am I paying almost 25% more in listing fees for such items? What happened to the buyers of such sprockets... at least on ebay?
Maybe the answer is that the item was never worth $50, let alone $60 to begin with. For example, look at how much you can buy a brand new DVD or CD on ebay vs. the mall. There is a HUGE difference in pricing. Sure, you get instant gratification buying in person... but is that $20 DVD really worth it, or is it really only worth $8? How much did that DVD cost to manufacture in China? 10 cents? Sure, there is market research, development, advertising... but what is that dag gum sprocket really worth?
About 3 years ago I started looking at "sale" prices differently. I began noticing that "sale" prices are often "retail" prices and that those "sale" items are always 25% off. When it goes on clearance, the same thing. If it didn't sell for $30 on sale, and it sat on the floor for a full season, it gets marked down to $20. It may sell at $20 or it gets marked down again.
The bottom line is that the value is what someone is willing to buy it for. Ebay has pushed sellers so hard to offer the lowest price that all it takes is one seller to screw the whole "value" system up b/c they found a good deal elsewhere. Just my thoughts as I am bored and about to close the store for the evening.
posted on January 18, 2010 06:04:00 PM new
I think you hit on a part of the problem...saturation of some markets in part caused by EBay and it's past popularity.
I sold thousands of items of fine china over a period of about 6 years and all for very good prices.
About 12-18 months ago the market changed and I finally sold my last dozen or so cups & saucers for rockbottom prices a few weeks ago. I was loathe to do it but I was so tired of looking at them and moving them around.
We have noticed the same thing at our real live Auction house in town. Last week a full dinner service of beautiful classic gold and white Wedgwood sold for $375.00. The man whose wife had sent him to buy it was mighty pleased by the look on his face! I am sure the Consignor of the china was not happy though.
Markets change and the true definition of Market Value is 'What a willing Buyer is willing to Buy for and a willing Seller is willing to sell for with neither being under undue pressure'.
When you are bored you write some thought provoking things...
posted on January 18, 2010 07:16:46 PM new
On auctions, the value is determined by what 2 people are willing to pay. All too often, I have 6 bids on an item, all from the same bidder, upping his bid. No one else bids, he gets it for opening...sigh. We can't take the economy out of the equation. Some of my favorite buyers are in the retail sector. I bought items specifically for them. One still buys under numerous new user ID's, then doesn't pay and is NARU'd. The other caps his bids at $30, much lower than before.
posted on January 18, 2010 07:21:22 PM new
Call it saturation or deflation,houses have come down in value so why not everything else??
Stores are struggling to stay alive,10% off,20% off,not a problem,so your sprocket may have a price tag of 60 ,how many customers show up with a store coupon.
These days shrewd shoppers dont leave home without SEARCHING for coupon first online.
But buying new dvd on Ebay,sometimes you have to put up with KOREAN SUBTITLES!
Like I told my friends,no need to go to Walmart,every store is now a Walmart store !!
*
There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on January 19, 2010 06:39:41 AM new
I think the economy has everything to do with it. Some sellers are willing to take what they can get for an item - just to feed their family.
I'm sure many people who have lost their jobs are selling on ebay for the first time.
posted on January 19, 2010 09:00:37 AM new
Though the economy has something to do with it, I also think too many items are being mass produced well beyond demand. People are led to believe something is worth $50, but in reality it is worth much less. Certain items, particularly technology and electronics change so quickly that what is hot today isn't tomorrow.
I used to be a sports card show promoter back in the late 80's, early 90's. At the time there were 3 major manufacturers: Topps, Donruss, and Fleer. Then came Upper Deck. Each company would produce one set for each sport.
In a very short period (a year or two) it became a rat race for dealers to keep up with how many different sets each company produced for each sport. One company would produce 5-8 sets for baseball alone. Collectors didn't know what to buy that would be "true" collectibles. The market was so over-saturated that many dealers just quit. I was one of them.
You simply couldn't invest in the amount of product coming thru the pipeline. What was hot today was dead tomorrow and if you didn't sell it quick enough you would be sitting on tons of unsellable product. Then came the "appraisal" boom of the mid to late 90s where value became so important that you had to send your cards off to have the condition appraised and sealed in a plastic card protector. Ironic that the same company that created the price guide was also appraising condition for cards.
The only people making the money are the companies who are mass producing this crap and feeding it to the consumer... we are suckers.
posted on January 20, 2010 07:07:51 AM new
Walk down the supermarket aisles,and you see so many brands of shampoo,hair conditioners,detergents,deordorants,cereals!
Thanks to this recession,companies are phasing out some of them.
*
There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on January 20, 2010 06:31:12 PM new
I think the economy has everything to do with it. Some sellers are willing to take what they can get for an item - just to feed their family.
I'm sure many people who have lost their jobs are selling on ebay for the first time.
//////////////////////////////////////
It is sad,some folks have not worked for over 2 years.
It is not that easy to sell on Ebay,after you sell your own stuff,try finding something interesting and cheap to sell which is not already on Ebay!
*
There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on January 21, 2010 01:24:47 PM new
Do you get WorthPoint? Interesting article this week.
Why People Stop Collecting – Part Iby Harry Rinker (01/15/10).
In packing my author-signed book collection, I came across a duplicate copy of the Beginner Books’ edition of “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back” (New York: Random House, 1956, 1986) signed “Dr. Seuss.” I stood in an autograph line at an American Booksellers Convention and watched Theodor S. Geisel sign it, my method of validating all the signatures in my collection.
When the opportunity to obtain a second copy arose, I thought: “Connie Swaim of AntiqueWeek collects Dr. Seuss memorabilia. I bet she would like a copy.” Good intentions aside, the two copies remained together on my bookshelf for more than a decade. I never sent Connie the extra copy predicated on the subliminal assumption that “the book might be worth something someday, and I would be a fool to part with it.” Although I have long professed my collecting has never been about the potential long-term value of my things, I occasionally succumb to the subconscious voice that whispers, “How do you know?”
Harry RinkerPreparing my collections for moving is a traumatic experience—what do I keep, what do I give away, what do I sell (writing this causes me to twinge; thinking about it drives me to edge of madness), and what do I store (an act I swore I would never do, but find impossible to resist)? I am blessed in one sense. I do not have to sell to pay bills or ensure my retirement.
[Author’s Aside: My retirement is in the far distant future.]
I am ready to part with the autographed copy of “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.” I considered sending it to Connie as a surprise. However, I remembered reading or hearing that she no longer collected Dr. Seuss material. Not wanting to waste a perfectly good object on someone who no longer would appreciate it, I called Connie to ask about the status of her Dr. Seuss collection. When we failed to connect by phone, I e-mailed.
Waiting for her response, I started thinking about why people stop collecting. While I have written extensively about why people collect, I have only touched upon why people stop collecting as an afterthought in earlier columns. It is time to deal with the subject in its entirety.
[Author’s Aside: When viewed from a collector’s perspective, what follows in this and its companion columns is very disturbing. I accept full responsibility. While my e-mail to Connie was the catalyst that moved the question to the front part of my brain, the idea obviously has been fermenting in my subconscious for some time.]
I asked Connie two questions: (1) do you still collect Dr. Seuss/Grinch material? and (2) if not, why did you stop collecting? Connie stopped collecting Dr. Seuss/Grinch material six years ago. Her response to the second question reads:
“I was finding it too difficult to find truly vintage items. The Web was being populated by new Seuss items. Once Universal Studios put in a Dr. Seuss theme park, there was just a ton of Seuss merchandise, plus the new Grinch movie also brought a lot of new merchandise. I didn’t want to buy all the new stuff, but then I kept thinking maybe I needed to buy it to make the collection complete, but the shear volume was too much for me. When I did Internet searches (where most of my buying took place as finding Dr. Seuss items in malls was extremely rare), I could never get the searches to bring back truly vintage items with any accuracy. It just wasn’t fun anymore. But, I still have the entire collection. By the time I decided to move in a different collecting direction, my collection was worth about one-quarter (or maybe one-eighth) of what I had paid for it originally. I couldn’t bear to part with it. So, I have about 10 giant plastic totes of Seuss material just sitting in a room. Since I don’t see it every day, then I don’t get stressed out by the fact that it is just sitting there!”
Wow, talk about fodder for a column or two or three. Using Connie’s thoughts, I began making a list of reasons why people stop collecting. By the time I finished, the number of reasons stood at 16. The list will get longer in the days and weeks ahead.
Collectors are orderly individuals who think categorically. They do this in order to keep track of what they own and where it is located. As I ordered my list, I identified five basic reasons why individuals stop collecting—personal, financial, availability, contemporary material and issues arising as part of the collecting process.
Personal reasons to stop collecting fall into five subcategories: (1) age; (2) divorce: (3) pressure from the spouse or kids; (4) death; and (5) emotions. There are two key questions when considering age: (a) when do collectors stop collecting and (b) when do collectors give serious consideration to disposing of their collections?
The answer to the first— when do collectors stop collecting?—is in their early to mid-1960s. Retirement is the culprit. Few individuals are able to sustain their income level in retirement. Retirement requires cutting back. Cutting back forces the collector to examine his/her discretionary spending, the primary financial source for buying antiques and collectibles. The collector faces questions he/she thought would never be asked: (1) how much more do I really need and (2) can I use the money for a better purpose? Previously, these were questions the collector could readily answer. Uncertainty now prevails.
Few collectors take a cold-turkey approach to ending their collecting. Instead, the process is gradual. The collector devotes less and less time to the hunt. He reaches a high level of contentment with what he already owns. Many of his collecting contacts such as other collectors and dealers fade from the scene. A sense of isolationism arises. His collection becomes his primary companion.
Most individuals retire with a sense of optimism, especially if they planned well. However, time and circumstances change. A sudden downturn in the stock market, increased inflation and other economic woes quickly affect the retiree’s sense of long-term security. Gradually, the collection does not seem as important as it once did and its potential worth the possible answer to a prayer.
The end of collecting does not coincide with the sale of the collection. Collectors reach this point in the mid- to -0s. Like Connie Swaim, collectors have a difficult time letting go. Many collections are not sold until their owners die. Alas, when the collection is sold, it only brings a fraction of what the collector assumed it was worth. The time to sell to achieve maximum return is usually within a very small window of opportunity. Hanging on until he has to sell is one of the worst decisions a collector can make. The truly happy collector is the one who dies with his/her collection intact.
Ask A WorthologistDivorce, especially if it is highly contentious, is a disaster. A forced sale against a preset clock is tantamount to achieving only a fraction of what a collection is worth. I avoid divorce appraisals. The end result is lose-lose, never win-win.
Few spouses, partners, significant others or whatever politically correct term you want to use, collect the same thing. In fact, in most situations one person is a collector and the other is not. The hidden resentment often suppressed by the non-collecting person rises to the surface in a divorce. Forcing the collector to sell his prized possessions is one method of getting back at him or her. Likewise, if each collects the same objects, an “if I cannot have it, then neither will he/she” attitude develops. While hell may have no fury like a love scorned, it pales by comparison to a collector scorned. I have seen couples fight harder for their goodies than their children.
I have just started on this matter. As I look at my list, I am thinking at least two, possibly three more columns are required to fully explore this topic.
[Final Author’s Aside: The copy of “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back” still rests on my desk. I promised Connie I would send it to her, and I intend to keep that promise. The question remaining is: when? It is not as simple as putting the book into an envelope and taking it to the Post Office.]
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REQUEST—I would like your help: What have you stopped collecting and why? I am as interested in your answer to the first part of the question as I am to the second. Send your thoughts to me at [email protected] or Stop Collecting, Rinker on Collectibles, 22 Stillwater Circle, Brookfield, CT. 06804).
[ edited by glassgrl on Jan 21, 2010 01:26 PM ]
