Originally posted by Igilligan
The point of my clown story was not the free market did not work, but the "free" market could not work. It did not know what was paid for the lens, because it became a Private message bidding war. Since there was no final price reflected for all to see, all that anyone saw was the HIgh asking price. That then became a price indicator helping set the new 'free' market price when the thread was marked 'Sold'. Even the corrupt ebay bidding system shows what the final price was in their bidding wars.
A free market needs information/prices to adjust itself freely... there will always be rich folks who can pay anything for a lens... but a 'free' market price is not detirmined by what a few rich folks can pay... never has been, never will. Almost every company would go out of business if they priced their products only for the top 5% of the economic ladder.
The market place resellers are always attempting to push prices higher... that is the nature of a 'for profit' reseller.
This market for the most part a year ago was "hey I tried this lens but it did not work for my shooting, anyone want to buy it?" maybe we took a little loss on it. No big deal, somebody else got a chance to try it to see if it worked for them.
Now it is about, hey the last FA 35 sold for 400, I will ask 450... It is a very different place now IMHO.
That is why I dont shop much anymore. They can take their paypal fees and shove em'!
I agree with Gus that the marketplace is no longer a place to get used equipment at a "market" price. I'm just glad I got what I wanted before prices went nuts.
But in the interest of experimentation, if you want to beat the re-sellers at their own game, I bet that if a lot of "
close" members here started to sell each other "
choice" glass at reasonable prices & kept posting these "
bargains" that lens prices will eventually will come down over time. Kind of like rigging the stock market with sell orders. Though I would have to say the members here have too much integrity to do something like that.