Does stuff like this also bother you?

[Grass Muncher]

A younger friend of mine baught a specialized helmet, specialized grips and bartape for next to nothing at a lawnmower shop in Randburg. The owner of the shop told him that they got all the stock from Botswana, everything was ment for development riders in Botswana. I dont know why they have it in their possession and why they sell it for cheap. Its not like its old stock or anything. The whole story sounds unethical to me. 

They had a lot of stock in a picture I saw, so my brother and I went and had a look. There was nothing left when we got there. The owner told us that someone baught everything from them and was going to resell it in his shop or facebook marketplace. 

The same happens here on bikehub. Whenever a good deal comes up, then one of our beloved bikehub tycoons will buy it only to resell it. Ive seen 3 negative reviews before where a seller complains because his bike is being sold for way more than what he originally sold it for. 

Im sure the majority wont agree with me but thats fine. I just want to share with you guys how I feel. 

Edited June 28, 2021 by Grass Muncher

[Super Sywurm]

12 minutes ago, Grass Muncher said:

A younger friend of mine baught a specialized helmet, specialized grips and bartape for next to nothing at a lawnmower shop in Randburg. The owner of the shop told him that they got all the stock from Botswana, everything was ment for development riders in Botswana. I dont know why they have it in their possession and why they sell it for cheap. Its not like its old stock or anything. The whole story sounds unethical to me. 

They had a lot of stock in a picture I saw, so my brother and I went and had a look. There was nothing left when we got there. The owner told us that someone baught everything from them and was going to resell it in his shop or facebook marketplace. 

The same happens here on bikehub. Whenever a good deal comes up, then one of our beloved bikehub tycoons will buy it only to resell it. Ive seen 3 negative reviews before where a seller complains because his bike is being sold for way more than what he originally sold it for. 

Im sure the majority wont agree with me but thats fine. I just want to share with you guys how I feel. 

Business is business.  Checkers buys stock and resell if for more.  A bike shop buys stock and resell if for more.

[Patchelicious]

27 minutes ago, Grass Muncher said:

The same happens here on bikehub. Whenever a good deal comes up, then one of our beloved bikehub tycoons will buy it only to resell it. Ive seen 3 negative reviews before where a seller complains because his bike is being sold for way more than what he originally sold it for. 

 

 

To answer your question, yes it does annoy me when somebody advertises something, gets paid the price they asked, then when the person who took on that risks makes a little profit people whinge about it.

It’s called free markets. Schools should prepare you for this.

There is no room for participation trophies in capitalism.

Edited June 28, 2021 by Patchelicious

[Steady Spin]

Plausible story 

[babse]

spaz items coming from botswana being sold at lawnmover shop? 

interesting....

Edited June 28, 2021 by babse

[Andreas_187]

Grips and bar tape, who cares? 

[Nico van Loggerenberg]

We live in an era of rentier capitalism. 

Extracting profits without adding value. That's the way the state runs, the way many big corporates run, and way down the scale, the way the majority of resellers operate. They add nothing in value and push up prices, but hey, "it's a free market" right. 

[aquaratza]

If someone buys something and then sells it on for a profit, they've profited for a reason. For one, identifying the arbitrage opportunity (profit potential) takes knowledge (and knowledge isn't cheap, takes time, experience and research)

If the seller makes a bad call they could make a loss (so there's risk). The reseller also has to put cash into the transactions to make it work and cash has a time value associated with it.

The reseller may market the item better than the person they bought it from or may be prepared to wait longer for a buyer. It's all really quite reasonable.

I sold a bike a while back knowing that the guy who was buying it from me was going to try and sell it for a profit - no worries, his risk, my convenience.

We all makes mistakes selling stuff, it's how you learn.

*Everything above assumes there isn't something illegal or highly unethical going on - illegality and ethics also have a price

Edited July 5, 2021 by aquaratza

[Mountain Bru]

I wouldn't complain about people doing that on olx or gumtree, so I don't think I can complain about people doing it on the classifieds here.

In the days of old, when the classifieds was a place for "thehub" community to buy, sell and exchange stuff with each other, it would irk me because it would feel like screwing a community member who would give you a good deal if they were making the sale or if they could help you.
But in the new bikehub ecosystem that we live in, admin has been clear that the classifieds are a priority, and the forums (where a lot of the "community" vibes happen) is secondary. And then also removed the comments on the classifieds and shut down any topic that they don't like even when the community disagrees or protests. So in my mind, the classifieds might as well be gumtree with extra cycling filters.

[BaGearA]

Read your economics book more carefully

 

 

So stoked we get to discuss this and not current affairs btw.. 

[Eldron]

Surely it's a bigger problem that parts meant for development riders got stolen/misallocated/fell off a truck than you missing out on a too good to be true deal?

Surely your ethics dictate that not being part of a dodgy sale cycle is more important than someone scalping your bargain?

 

[Skubarra]

11 minutes ago, BaGearA said:

Read your economics book more carefully

 

 

So stoked we get to discuss this and not current affairs btw.. 

Because previously hubbers were forced to only read/discuss current affairs and topics like this didn't exist? ????

Agree 100% with aquaratza. Think admin can just pin his response at the top and close the thread for further comments.

[HOEKVLAG]

7 hours ago, aquaratza said:

If someone buys something and then sells it on for a profit, they've profited for a reason. For one, identifying the arbitrage opportunity (profit potential) takes knowledge (and knowledge isn't cheap, takes time, experience and research)

If the seller makes a bad call they could make a loss (so there's risk). The reseller also has to put cash into the transactions to make it work and cash has a time value associated with it.

The reseller may market the item better than the person they bought it from or may be prepared to wait longer for a buyer. It's all really quite reasonable.

I sold a bike a while back knowing that the guy who was buying it from me was going to try and sell it for a profit - no worries, his risk, my convenience.

We all makes mistakes selling stuff, it's how you learn.

*Everything above assumes there isn't something illegal or highly unethical going on.

This might be the most balanced and well explained comment I've read on this here BikeHub.

[Long Wheel Base]

9 hours ago, Grass Muncher said:

A younger friend of mine baught a specialized helmet, specialized grips and bartape for next to nothing at a lawnmower shop in Randburg. The owner of the shop told him that they got all the stock from Botswana, everything was ment for development riders in Botswana. I dont know why they have it in their possession and why they sell it for cheap. Its not like its old stock or anything. The whole story sounds unethical to me. 

They had a lot of stock in a picture I saw, so my brother and I went and had a look. There was nothing left when we got there. The owner told us that someone baught everything from them and was going to resell it in his shop or facebook marketplace. 

The same happens here on bikehub. Whenever a good deal comes up, then one of our beloved bikehub tycoons will buy it only to resell it. Ive seen 3 negative reviews before where a seller complains because his bike is being sold for way more than what he originally sold it for. 

Im sure the majority wont agree with me but thats fine. I just want to share with you guys how I feel. 

BUUUUUUUUT, you the guy that bought the WHEELER from cosmo city and said that's all you were going to say............ You mos wanted to re spray it and sell it? What ended up happening to this frame?

 

 

[Kom]

8 hours ago, aquaratza said:

If someone buys something and then sells it on for a profit, they've profited for a reason. For one, identifying the arbitrage opportunity (profit potential) takes knowledge (and knowledge isn't cheap, takes time, experience and research)

If the seller makes a bad call they could make a loss (so there's risk). The reseller also has to put cash into the transactions to make it work and cash has a time value associated with it.

The reseller may market the item better than the person they bought it from or may be prepared to wait longer for a buyer. It's all really quite reasonable.

I sold a bike a while back knowing that the guy who was buying it from me was going to try and sell it for a profit - no worries, his risk, my convenience.

We all makes mistakes selling stuff, it's how you learn.

*Everything above assumes there isn't something illegal or highly unethical going on.

Great comment, and really could end this thread in its tracks.

Time is money as they say, i often ponder why i encounter so many rich guys selling their equipment for cheap, i think value hunting is quite relative, what one guy takes the time to buy and resell for a tidy R5k profit might be one guys night out on a Friday. Then there are ads here with little to no savings margin over what a new item costs, yet their are hubbers that will wait for these opportunities without caring to google how easy it may be to have something new and delivered for convenience (my goto example are tires, probably the single best new bang for the buck you can invest in your bike, yet the second hand space is quite active here).

Switching gears slightly, what i find quite controversial is how easy and cheap it is to import new bike parts undercutting local distribution by 50% - we live in a global market, i find it ludicrous that the South African bike market is so over priced.

[Andrew_Smith]

Not unique to just only BikeHub, I am pretty sure it happens on other classified forums as well.

On our forum for tech components, when bargains appear, resellers are quickly on it. We do have a rule however, if we detect a pattern of reselling, you need to buy a monthly/yearly reseller subscription otherwise you will be kicked from the forum.

What I have notice is, the users who don't want to buy a subscription, they simply go over to Scamtree or FB Market to resell.