Gunbroker. Looking for the one uneducated buyer?

^^^ greed... simple greed ^^^

They are, but if you're looking for something specific and hold out for it you can usually find something at a low starting bid with no reserve, at which point the market will indeed set the price.

It does get annoying having to wade through the inflated listings that have been relisted 3 dozen times and will likely never sell, but that's all part of the game. If you hold out, you can get a good deal.

In my humble opinion...I lose interest real quick in that style of auction.

Way back when I sold old cameras on feeBay I set my reserve price reasonably and my BIN price at the slightly high side. The balance worked well for nearly all my auctions. I like money as much as most folks but I tried to be savvy regarding realistic market value. I also liked to move product and save time. Some folks just don't "get it".

Why I prefer GunsInternational.com - NOT an auction site, just a sales site, with many of the best reputable companies repersented

It does get annoying having to wade through the inflated listings that have been relisted 3 dozen times and will likely never sell, but that's all part of the game. If you hold out, you can get a good deal.

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You can set the filters on gun broker search engine to only show listings with no reserve. Look under the advance tab.

^^^ Yes but auctions with reserve prices aren't "always" set too high.

What would be nice is if Gunbroker allowed filters like, no relisted items, or no items from sellers with more than X current listings, of course that would probably make the big sellers upset.

Watch several things on there. Being a buyer and seller there I sometimes wonder if the sellers are looking for the one without a clue.

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Yes, there are a number of guns I would like to pick up used, so I tend to haunt GB and track the auctions I'm interested. I've lost track of the number of items I have seen listed over and over again, because the seller has set the beginning price or the reserve higher than anyone is willing to pay. :banghead:

You would think after the third or fourth time an item goes unsold they would realize that its not worth what they want to get, but it seems most of them never do.

^^^ That's right. In my buying/selling days... my reserve and BIN decreased after the second "no sale" listing and continued to drop after each re-listing. "No sales" were fairly rare after one or two price drops. In fact... I don't remember ever having any third price drops.

Manditory 5% reduction for starting price and reserve price for re-listing items would be nice.

youngda9 said:

Manditory 5% reduction for starting price and reserve price for re-listing items would be nice.

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No it wouldn't, it would drive a lot of business, including mine, away from GB. There are plenty of reasons to relist something. I'm selling my custom built M1A. It's not a gun everyone will want, in fact there's probably a very limited market for it. Why should I be forced to sell it at a fraction of what it's worth just because it took a long time for the right buyer to see it? Anything other than Remington 870s and 700 in popular calibers would be hurt by this.

Buying and selling on GB, just like in everything else, is all about patience. Looking for a particular gun? Search for it, filter out the ones with reserves and sort by price. Start placing low-ball bids, most won't pan out, but eventually you'll get one. I wanted a Marlin 39A, and saw them typically going for $500-600. I checked GB once a week, put in a bid for $375 on each one that I could and two months later, I got one in great condition. If you want something right now, you're always going to pay more for it.

^^^ Fully understood but... low production at low profit margin is no way to run a business. Low production with high profit margin may be okay. High production with low profit margin may be okay. But... both low production and low profit margin? Nah... I'll leave that to others with bigger bells and fetter wellets with no need to make a prefit.

free market = free market--if you want to buy it bad enough and if you want to sell it bad enough--done deal. nothing is for nothing.

There are no items overpriced if folks are buying them - the new KSG's selling for almost $2000 with a MSRP of about 800 are proof of that.

The customer ALWAYS sets the sales/market price, and this is a good way of demonstrating it

^^^ True, that. But I thought this thread was dealing with common sense. If "common sense" means making a profit in an open market then the OP has a viable argument.

Gunbroker is great for finding old guns and collector's type guns, but why in the heck would I ever go to an auction to bid on say a GLOCK 17 or Springfield XD or Ruger LCR?

Everyone knows what those guns are worth, so just buy it at fixed price already. I'd rather spend an extra 10 bucks or so and have the gun in hand now than deal with bidding on one all week only to find out i didn't save any money.

just my $.02

It is an aucton! No one is forced to pay the asking price. It is up to the buyer to do his/her homework before buying.

^^^ A seller.

I walked into Kroger today and wanted to buy some avocados, but they wanted too much for them. I didn't complain to the other shoppers about the high price, I just didn't buy any. That's how the free market works.

Now tonight in may walk someone who REALLY wants an avocado realllly bad, and he will pay the price. I won't.

I don't understand why so many are concerned about high pricing, when you can filter it out.

Heck, I wish I could set filters on my newspaper.