Re: One word: Classifieds

[Tom Franklin <tomf@conic.lmco.com>]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> "        You  know Robert, just a few months ago when people were bitching
> about how unnecessarily expensive some new 1 Gig hard drive from IBM was,
> you were right out there telling people that its worth whatever people will
> pay for it and IBM was justified in selling it for whatever they felt like.
> 
>         Well, it works two ways buddy.  The fact of the matter is that
> computer *is* worth $1200--to someone, even if its not you.  And Evan Brown
> proved it."
> 
> You miss the consistency here. The way I value used stuff is that I compare
> the used stuff to what you can buy new. Sure I understand that someone
> may pay $1200 for that machine, but I wonder if they would do so if they
> knew the comparable new prices available today!

We are now in the "information age" where better access to information is 
worth money.  People on the net have a wealth of information at their 
disposal which creates a near perfect market.  A perfect market where 
pricing information flows freely is a place where buyers should expect 
bargains.

The person that bought the laptop probably had poor access to 
information.  He may have seen the initial pricing on the TP701 and in 
his mind's eye he got an tremendous deal.  That is the best of all 
transactions where both buyer and sell believe they got a tremendous 
deal.

For example, I bought a TP755CX in November on AOL for $2800 and sold it 
last month for $3000 in a local paper.  Now I did upgrade the memory and 
hard drive while I owned it, but that only cost me $400.  So for $100 I 
owned a nearly top of line laptop for 8 months.

This isn't the only time I have done this either.  Time and time again I 
advertize something for a price I wouldn't think is reasonable, I get 
hammered by low bids for a week on the net, when the ad hits the local 
rags it sells very quickly.

Welcome to the information age.