Are you ready for a good laugh?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anon
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Anon

I was just killing time on ebay. Out of curiosity more than anything, I
wondered what complete computer systems were selling for on ebay. I ran a
search for completed items only, and ignored systems that had no bid, or
reserve was not met. I found the following:

HP Cyrix 200MHz, 92MB Ram, (no info. listed on hard drive), 52x24x52 CDR/W
drive, Windows XP upgrade CD, HP 17" CRT monitor, Logitech web cam, USR 56K
modem . . . system used, but in great working condition.

(leaving space so you can consider how much you'd bid for it)



























Starting bid: $200
Bids: 10
"Winning" Bid: $510
Shipping: $40
Total: $550

CLOSED 12/21/03!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Darn, what a bargain. I wish I'd have spotted it so I could bid on it.
Shucks. :) -Dave
 
Anon said:
I was just killing time on ebay. Out of curiosity more than anything, I
wondered what complete computer systems were selling for on ebay. I ran a
search for completed items only, and ignored systems that had no bid, or
reserve was not met. I found the following:

HP Cyrix 200MHz,
Click to expand...

Even if you stopped there, it would have been a good laugh.

I just don't get it. About 18 months ago I put a p-233 on ebay
for $50 and did not get a single bid!
I had about ten of them and could not sell them locally for any price...
I eventually gave 6 of them away to college students!

Although I still check out ebay from time to time...
I pretty much stopped ...after finding that most of the computer parts
can be purchased *new* for *less* money...

Go figure!
 
Anon said:
I was just killing time on ebay. Out of curiosity more than anything, I
wondered what complete computer systems were selling for on ebay. I ran a
search for completed items only, and ignored systems that had no bid, or
reserve was not met. I found the following:

HP Cyrix 200MHz, 92MB Ram, (no info. listed on hard drive), 52x24x52 CDR/W
drive, Windows XP upgrade CD, HP 17" CRT monitor, Logitech web cam, USR 56K
modem . . . system used, but in great working condition.

(leaving space so you can consider how much you'd bid for it)

Starting bid: $200
Bids: 10
"Winning" Bid: $510
Shipping: $40
Total: $550

CLOSED 12/21/03!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Darn, what a bargain. I wish I'd have spotted it so I could bid on it.
Shucks. :) -Dave
Click to expand...



and to think I threw a better one in the dumpster last week. My bad
 
Well now it's all about perception, isn't it?
Years ago I had a car in the local paper for sale at a fair price for a good
car. NO nibbles.
A mechanic friend of mine suggested offering it with a safety standards
certificate. For an additional net cost of $25.00 for the safety I sold it
for $500.00 more than my original asking price.
It's all about perception.

Garry.
 
iTsMeMa said:
Well now it's all about perception, isn't it?
Years ago I had a car in the local paper for sale at a fair price for a good
car. NO nibbles.
A mechanic friend of mine suggested offering it with a safety standards
certificate. For an additional net cost of $25.00 for the safety I sold it
for $500.00 more than my original asking price.
It's all about perception.

Garry.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I figure the system was worth about $50 max (for the monitor), and the
other $500 was for the HP brand name. (!) -Dave
 
I don't know about this one, but sometimes there are people who need,
for what ever reason, one of those exact models, and are willing to
pay top dollar for it. For example, while their boyfriend was away on
vacation they smashed their boyfriend's HP Cyrix computer into 1,000's
of pieces because of some email they found on it. Later they cooled off,
and they now need to find an identical HP Cyrix to replaced the one they
smashed, before their boyfriend returns. :)

What gets me, on eBay, are new items which are generally available in
numerous stores and websites, and the starting bid (or reserve) is
the full retail price. And, there are actually people who bid!!! I mean,
who pays $100 plus $15 shipping for something they can walk into any
Circuit City store and get for $75??? These bidders are located in the
USA. Are they just too nieve or lazy?
 
Walt said:
What gets me, on eBay, are new items which are generally available in
numerous stores and websites, and the starting bid (or reserve) is
the full retail price. And, there are actually people who bid!!! I
mean, who pays $100 plus $15 shipping for something they can walk
into any Circuit City store and get for $75??? These bidders are
located in the USA. Are they just too nieve or lazy?
Click to expand...

i hope they're out in the boonies, and for them it *is* a good deal.

but everybody familiar with "the winner's curse"? (*great* book, btw)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691019347/107-6238366-1217353

The idea is most easily seen at an auction. In one classroom experiment,
an econ prof put a bag of coins on a table. He said that the bag had ten
dollars of coins inside. He then held an action to sell the bag to the
class. Over the years the average sale price was something like
$11.25 (IIRC).

It turns out that in any moderate sized group there will be an optimist.
He will think "maybe the coins are rare" or "maybe some are silver" and
he'll risk a small amount (an extra dollar or two) to win the auction and
find out. The curse of course, was that the coins were just coins. The
winner looses.

See also "The Agony of Victory"

http://slate.msn.com/id/21810/


A quote:

"Online auctions worsen the winner's curse by increasing the number of
bidders. The craziest poor sucker in a group of 20,000 bidders on the
Internet is likely to be crazier than the craziest one among 200 in a
Burbank hotel ballroom. That's another thing that experimental
economists have confirmed--the larger the group, the bigger the winner's
curse. There's no satisfactory way to buy rare or one of a kind items,
but online auctions are a particularly bad method."
 
Socks said:
i hope they're out in the boonies, and for them it *is* a good deal.

but everybody familiar with "the winner's curse"? (*great* book, btw)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691019347/107-6238366-1217353

The idea is most easily seen at an auction. In one classroom experiment,
an econ prof put a bag of coins on a table. He said that the bag had ten
dollars of coins inside. He then held an action to sell the bag to the
class. Over the years the average sale price was something like
$11.25 (IIRC).
Click to expand...

The thing that I love the most about selling things on ebay is that I only have to list the
item; a bunch of other people are fighting amongst themselves to get me the top dollar. :)

Jon
 
writes
What gets me, on eBay, are new items which are generally available in
numerous stores and websites, and the starting bid (or reserve) is
the full retail price. And, there are actually people who bid!!! I mean,
who pays $100 plus $15 shipping for something they can walk into any
Circuit City store and get for $75??? These bidders are located in the
USA. Are they just too nieve or lazy?
Click to expand...

No, this happens in the UK too. I gave up trying to get cheap on ebay
over here for that very reason. Not necessarily that the reserve price
is full retail but, by the end of the auction, the final winning bid has
skyrocketed over what you would pay normally.
 
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