Lowballers and Resellers

[The Ouzo]

33 minutes ago, ChrisF said:

 

Sadly THIS is an all too common practice now.  Well, not the R5 on the counter, but a series of emails ... "match this offer" ... nope, "IMPROVE on this offer" .... and tomorrow yet another email from the same person, now wanting a discount on the discount of yesterday's discount ...

 

Tyre kicking and a handshake seems a thing of the past .....

and then usually its these ones, that you've bent over backwards for to give "best price" , are the most problematic customers with continuous come backs. 

[Shebeen]

36 minutes ago, bleedToWin said:

Humour me this.  

Your fair sale of 30k was possible because a few sellers sold similar bikes for a too low price (their reasons should not matter to you) and resellers then flipped it for profit. The free market was able to reflect fair price for similar goods and your buyer was willing to part with 30k for your bike.

This benefit was awarded to you for the low low low price of ignoring two offers from one of the resellers.

Are you smoking the same nyaope these resellers have with their coffee?

The resellers do not set the market price. They are a tiny fraction of it.

 

 

[droo]

34 minutes ago, The Ouzo said:

and then usually its these ones, that you've bent over backwards for to give "best price" , are the most problematic customers with continuous come backs. 

If you roll over the first time, you create the expectation that you'll do it again.

 

[MORNE1102]

Hypothetically (Humor me here); What about a community evaluated price or price range for listings as optional? The same with any offer on your add, It will need to be within a evaluated price range. This will instantly kill this behavior. Obviously you can either opt in or list the item at your own price. 

Any case, wild wild west here. Enjoy! 

[Mike Dewing]

7 minutes ago, MORNE1102 said:

Hypothetically (Humor me here); What about a community evaluated price or price range for listings as optional? The same with any offer on your add, It will need to be within a evaluated price range. This will instantly kill this behavior. Obviously you can either opt in or list the item at your own price. 

Any case, wild wild west here. Enjoy! 

Ooooh what about an online auction.?? You can list it at your price or wait and maybe once a month or if it’s popular more frequent and you can auction it if you unsure of value 🤔 or just an eBay type bidding system🤔.. might be a cool option for sellers and buyers 😃

[MORNE1102]

1 hour ago, Mike Dewing said:

Ooooh what about an online auction.?? You can list it at your price or wait and maybe once a month or if it’s popular more frequent and you can auction it if you unsure of value 🤔 or just an eBay type bidding system🤔.. might be a cool option for sellers and buyers 😃

Mike Dewing, does the hub reward you for being a utter drol in the forms? Perhaps someone should introduce you to X, bet you’d get a kick out of it. &nbsp
 

(Apologies if your comment was meant to not be sarcastic. Like i said wild wild west here..)

Edited Tuesday at 01:47 PM by MORNE1102

[BuffsVintageBikes]

Seller should be using this website as a guideline and adapting their prices to the Rand, it would probably make things more fair all around.

https://www.bicyclebluebook.com/value-guide/

[Akon]

3 hours ago, Shebeen said:

Are you smoking the same nyaope these resellers have with their coffee?

The resellers do not set the market price. They are a tiny fraction of it.

 

 

 

 

[David Marshall]

1 hour ago, MORNE1102 said:

Hypothetically (Humor me here); What about a community evaluated price or price range for listings as optional? The same with any offer on your add, It will need to be within a evaluated price range. This will instantly kill this behavior. Obviously you can either opt in or list the item at your own price. 

Any case, wild wild west here. Enjoy! 

We used to have it when you could comment on the classifieds.  You wouldn't dare to post a bike add without a couch in the background, let alone making a mistake on your specs or price.

[gerriemtb]

I

[cadenceblur]

Imagine a world where comments are once again allowed on ADS.

You sell your bike for xxx to one of the resellers only to see it advertised for xxx + 30% the next week.

You then comment as such on said ad and all hell breaks loose! LOL 

 

 

[RobynE]

Let’s use my example here on my purchase of a bike for my kid. 

I bought a bike from an acquaintance. Typically stand-up guy (and I do still think is a stand-up guy). I didn’t lowball and I believe I paid a market-related amount based on the apparent condition of the bike and the specs. 

A few rides after getting the bike we picked up that the rear wheel is making “a bit” of noise. Nothing gnarly, just not sounding quite right, but intermittent. Note: it sounded fine when I got the bike. We note that the spokes are touching the cassette sometimes and the cassette can be rocked from side to side. 

So, we get the wheel off and fit a small spacer but now we can’t get the cassette locked on. So, we open up the apparently Novatec freebody and there’s a clump of ball bearings tucked away in a corner. Like a lot of bearings, all in a bundle. So, we remove them, clean them, put them back in as they should be but there’s lots of play and we realise something, somewhere, is missing. Perhaps some sort of cap or seal or something. So we MacGyver it but it doesn’t work out and I start googling. The hub in question should have a freehub body and axle as a single piece. It does not. The freebody should have sealed bearings - it does not. It should also have a spacer (and comes with one) - it does not. This particular hub is also discontinued and there are no spares available for it. 

If I bought the bike from a shop/dealer I would be back there with it showing them the findings and insisting they make right. 

But, I bought privately, and so I am waiting for a new hub to arrive so LBS can do a rebuild and get the bike rolling properly. I don’t think the seller knew about the hub business but if I’d bought it from a shop I would have expected them to know. 

NB the bike is ridden by my 40kg daughter and has done nothing in terms of gnar since we got it - I don’t think it’s done 50km yet. 

This will be the second wheel build in 2 weeks because it already got a new rim in March when kiddo had a flat and on stripping the Sunringle wheel we realised it was corroded and beyond “patching”. There were no outward signs and I don’t think private buyers will ask someone to remove tyres so they can check if rims are corroded. 

So, I’m in for a new rim and hub (just the parts) and labour for the work (x 2 wheel builds). No-one to blame in my opinion except the person who at some point stuck a freehub on that “sorta” fitted and said the bike was cool. The rim - well, it’s what rims do. I know that now but that knowledge hasn’t come for free. 

If a dealer had bought the bike sight unseen and before purchasing hadn’t removed the tyre and seen the rim corrosion and heard the intermittent noise, then the dealer would have been in for the cost of probably 2 equivalent new rims (so they would match, which mine currently doesn’t) as well as matching tyres and a hub as parts, before they could sell the bike on.

This bike has a retail value of R8,500.00. I paid R8,500.00 including delivery from another province. I have since purchased a new back tyre(original one was patched), rim and now hub, plus the labour for the wheel builds. So my R8,500.00 bike is a R12,000.00 bike if I factor everything in. If a dealer paid R4000 for the bike they may have ended up making a grand on the bike selling it at R8,500.00. 

Sure, they may have paid R4k and ended up with a squeaky clean bike and flipped it with a wash and lube and sealant top up.

The same economics apply whether it’s a R8k bike or a R80k bike. If the 80k bike had a corroded rim or trashed suspension or cracked frame or poked brakes or whatevs, there would be outlay relative to the spec, and they may or may not have good used components on hand to remedy the “niggles”. But somewhere in that 80k is the money for the 8k bike, and another 8k bike, so lots of us can buy 8k or 20k or whatever bikes. Peter/Paul scenario. 

Risk and reward. Win some, lose some. I think dealers win and lose all the time and somewhere the scales need to balance. It’s impossible to keep everyone happy, all of the time. The bike that got snapped up under your nose by a dealer - there will be another one. Or, just buy that bike from the dealer and inspect it with a fine toothed comb, and you have recourse if you have a poked rim/hub/frame/brakes/etc. Hold them accountable. They must walk their talk. 

But - if the dealer won’t offer you some sort of guarantee or assume responsibility for poked things that fail shortly after you get the bike (crashes aside), that’s a whole other story, and then they deserve aaaalllll the shade. 

[Mike Dewing]

1 hour ago, MORNE1102 said:

Mike Dewing, does the hub reward you for being a utter drol in the forms? Perhaps someone should introduce you to X, bet you’d get a kick out of it. &nbsp
 

(Apologies if your comment was meant to not be sarcastic. Like i said wild wild west here..)

For once I wasn’t being sarcastic.. just an idea that didn’t seem so bad and maybe add value to the hub.. 

sorry, it seems to have came across differently.. 🤘🏻

 

[Shebeen]

50 minutes ago, Akon said:

 

 

Thanks for your contribution. 

[The Ouzo]

8 minutes ago, RobynE said:

Let’s use my example here on my purchase of a bike for my kid. 

I bought a bike from an acquaintance. Typically stand-up guy (and I do still think is a stand-up guy). I didn’t lowball and I believe I paid a market-related amount based on the apparent condition of the bike and the specs. 

A few rides after getting the bike we picked up that the rear wheel is making “a bit” of noise. Nothing gnarly, just not sounding quite right, but intermittent. Note: it sounded fine when I got the bike. We note that the spokes are touching the cassette sometimes and the cassette can be rocked from side to side. 

So, we get the wheel off and fit a small spacer but now we can’t get the cassette locked on. So, we open up the apparently Novatec freebody and there’s a clump of ball bearings tucked away in a corner. Like a lot of bearings, all in a bundle. So, we remove them, clean them, put them back in as they should be but there’s lots of play and we realise something, somewhere, is missing. Perhaps some sort of cap or seal or something. So we MacGyver it but it doesn’t work out and I start googling. The hub in question should have a freehub body and axle as a single piece. It does not. The freebody should have sealed bearings - it does not. It should also have a spacer (and comes with one) - it does not. This particular hub is also discontinued and there are no spares available for it. 

If I bought the bike from a shop/dealer I would be back there with it showing them the findings and insisting they make right. 

But, I bought privately, and so I am waiting for a new hub to arrive so LBS can do a rebuild and get the bike rolling properly. I don’t think the seller knew about the hub business but if I’d bought it from a shop I would have expected them to know. 

NB the bike is ridden by my 40kg daughter and has done nothing in terms of gnar since we got it - I don’t think it’s done 50km yet. 

This will be the second wheel build in 2 weeks because it already got a new rim in March when kiddo had a flat and on stripping the Sunringle wheel we realised it was corroded and beyond “patching”. There were no outward signs and I don’t think private buyers will ask someone to remove tyres so they can check if rims are corroded. 

So, I’m in for a new rim and hub (just the parts) and labour for the work (x 2 wheel builds). No-one to blame in my opinion except the person who at some point stuck a freehub on that “sorta” fitted and said the bike was cool. The rim - well, it’s what rims do. I know that now but that knowledge hasn’t come for free. 

If a dealer had bought the bike sight unseen and before purchasing hadn’t removed the tyre and seen the rim corrosion and heard the intermittent noise, then the dealer would have been in for the cost of probably 2 equivalent new rims (so they would match, which mine currently doesn’t) as well as matching tyres and a hub as parts, before they could sell the bike on.

This bike has a retail value of R8,500.00. I paid R8,500.00 including delivery from another province. I have since purchased a new back tyre(original one was patched), rim and now hub, plus the labour for the wheel builds. So my R8,500.00 bike is a R12,000.00 bike if I factor everything in. If a dealer paid R4000 for the bike they may have ended up making a grand on the bike selling it at R8,500.00. 

Sure, they may have paid R4k and ended up with a squeaky clean bike and flipped it with a wash and lube and sealant top up.

The same economics apply whether it’s a R8k bike or a R80k bike. If the 80k bike had a corroded rim or trashed suspension or cracked frame or poked brakes or whatevs, there would be outlay relative to the spec, and they may or may not have good used components on hand to remedy the “niggles”. But somewhere in that 80k is the money for the 8k bike, and another 8k bike, so lots of us can buy 8k or 20k or whatever bikes. Peter/Paul scenario. 

Risk and reward. Win some, lose some. I think dealers win and lose all the time and somewhere the scales need to balance. It’s impossible to keep everyone happy, all of the time. The bike that got snapped up under your nose by a dealer - there will be another one. Or, just buy that bike from the dealer and inspect it with a fine toothed comb, and you have recourse if you have a poked rim/hub/frame/brakes/etc. Hold them accountable. They must walk their talk. 

But - if the dealer won’t offer you some sort of guarantee or assume responsibility for poked things that fail shortly after you get the bike (crashes aside), that’s a whole other story, and then they deserve aaaalllll the shade. 

you are absolving the dealer from doing due diligence

when you want to sell your used motorised vehicle (car or bike) it gets put through an evaluation to pick up any of the more common issues, by low balling every ad with a spray and pray approach the dealers are cheeping out on doing their due diligence. Some bikes they'll pick up for a steal where they wash and lube and its out the door and big profits, others they'll pick up and will be lemons.

what percentage of these lemons are fixed to standard before being sold ? How many are sold as is and the dealers hope the new buyer doesnt come back to them when something fails ?

[cadenceblur]

Or stripped for parts across multiple bikes