A thought re the Classifieds

I have a bunch of lenses that I'll be selling in the nearish future to fund my K-3, but I have very little idea what to ask for them. eBay prices are a very poor guide - they can be very variable, and of course are subject to inflation because of the cut that eBay/PayPal take.

I could trade them all in at SRS, but obviously althought it would be very convenient, they'd be worth less to me that way, and a deal in the Classifieds here might therefore benefit both me as seller and also the buyers.

As another example, I'm in discussion with someone here about a possible trade+cash deal, but neither one of us has a good idea of what the lenses in question are worth, so although we both want to be fair, it's tricky.

Many of the classifieds are obviously initially priced above what people are prepared to pay, as witnessed by the frequent dutch-auction style bump-bump price reductions that we see all the time.

So, a suggestion: why not put the final sale price at the end of each auction? If buyer and seller are happy with the price, there's presumably no reason to keep it secret, and it would be a useful guide (no more) to future buyers and sellers.

Just a thought. What do people think?

When you say "eBay prices are a very poor guide - they can be very variable" if you look at the prices of completed auctions, they are what people are prepared to pay. Similar, in a way, to your end of trade price suggestion

Yes, without the crazy variations that go with the BINs, and without the inbuilt allowance for the fees.

It just struck me that given the somewhat more knowledgable population of buyers and sellers here, the variations would be less wild, and also more representative of what people here are prepared to pay.

I may be wrong, but I suspect there'd be fewer outliers here than on eBay.

It was just an idea that I thought would benefit buyers and sellers here. If people prefer to keep everything secret it obviously won't fly.

I guess this is kind of what the lens review section on the US forum is trying to do which seems to track what people have paid over time (not sure if there are enough data points though). It's difficult though, especially for uncommon or out of production lenses (sorry '@@RARE@@'...).

A lot of ebay prices go for far more than you'd see in the classifieds in the back of AP. Whether this is because you can show off a photo on ebay, or because it offers a worldwide market I don't know (the reverse is also often true). I recently bought a beautiful lens from the used section of a proper camera shop, almost mint, for half the price it probably would have fetched on ebay.

When I've bought from the classifieds, I haven't always known whether I or the seller got the best deal - but I've never been disappointed unlike some ebay purchases.

John.

I think this is the point. Whether I'm buying or selling, I'm more interested in accurate desriptions and pictures, careful packing, and a fair price, than managing somehow to buy something for a song, or sell for more than the item's worth.

No end-of-trade price is ever going to be perfect - sometimes people will be prepared to pay more than at other times, other times people will be in a rush to sell. I'm not suggesting the idea is a panacea, just possibly something that would suit the style here.

It would be a guide, nothing else. If people, for any reason, wanted to ask or offer, less or more, than the moving average, that would be perfectly fine as always. Things would still either sell or not.

It's worth talking to Chris@SRS re trade in, I recently traded in several items against my new K5 ii and the prices he offered on most things I considered very fair, in some cases generous. Certainly after taking fees into account I ended up getting more than I would have on eBay.

Yes, agreed, I'll certainly be doing that. I have some quotes from SRS, which I'll ask him to review in due course; obviously it wouldn't be appropriate to publish them here, but my impression was that they were fair, given that he has a profit to make.

Couldnt agree more, I was delighted with the deal I got on my 645 and lenses.