Hey, it's a free country. Whats your beef?

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I don't have a problem with it, its how I make my spending money, buy low sell high it's capitalism. I buy old sewing machines fix and/or clean them and sell them for twice or three times what I bought them for, sometimes I don't have to do anything to them.


TA

My mom has about a dozen old sewing machines she has picked up over the years at various garage and estate sales. Some are absolutely beautiful. Some she uses, uspecially the little ones for traveling. A lot of people have no idea of the value of these things, especially a younger generation selling one off at an estate sale. She has got some great deals.
 
My mom has about a dozen old sewing machines she has picked up over the years at various garage and estate sales. Some are absolutely beautiful. Some she uses, uspecially the little ones for traveling. A lot of people have no idea of the value of these things, especially a younger generation selling one off at an estate sale. She has got some great deals.

I still use my grandma's Singer, it's older than me. Just clean and oil when you use it and they last forever. I've cranked out a lot of parachutes on it, some big one, too ;)
 
There's a sense in which anyone who is willing to buy something without doing a quick Google search deserves what he gets.

It's called "paying for convenience".

Someone that doesn't watch the Estes site for sales but wants a rocket kit will end up paying more than the sale price for that kit. But he'll still pay less than the regular price. I guess he deserves what he gets.

If someone wants a coffee cup and doesn't look around much and spends $50 for a cup he could buy for $5, but he's willing to pay that price because he doesn't have time or the willingness to look around for a better deal, he's happy. It seems like some people here would call the person that sold a coffee cup for $50 a jerk but why?

In the case of the rocket kits the seller is risking his own money buying the kits and trying to sell them. If he prices them too high then they won't sell, and he's stuck with kits he doesn't want and no money. His reward for taking the risk is the profit he makes. It's Free Enterprise, it means that both parties freely agree to the exchange, and it works great. It's one of the reasons this is the greatest country in the world!
 
So imagine that your surfing Ebay for bargains and suddenly stumble upon an item that you been searching for but which has always been priced beyond your means in the past. But today, you not only find what you've been looking for but that the seller is offering it "buy it now" and at 10% of what you know is a fair retail price. The seller has excellent reviews and even offers free shipping and returns. What do you do?

:confused2:
 
So imagine that your surfing Ebay for bargains and suddenly stumble upon an item that you been searching for but which has always been priced beyond your means in the past. But today, you not only find what you've been looking for but that the seller is offering it "buy it now" and at 10% of what you know is a fair retail price. The seller has excellent reviews and even offers free shipping and returns. What do you do?

:confused2:
Good point. If you find and take advantage of the seller's lack of knowledge of the "true" worth of the product (note that "true" worth may be a fictional concept) and buy the item for significantly less than (you think/know) it is worth, it is not that different from the above seller taking advantage of a buyer's lack of knowledge of the "true" worth of the item.
 
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