eBay!

My favorite haunt for recreational test equipment buying these days is the eBay auction site, especially the test equipment   category. If your goal is to fill up your basement, this is the way to go. Some observations:

Prices:

• Equipment that is highly obsolete, has an obscure function, or a less popular brand often goes begging. It is common for items to go for less than the shipping cost. This also happens randomly for not so obscure items due to lack of serious bidders.
• The other side of the coin is that items which appear frequently and are generally useful tend to have a well established price. One of the equipment markets that seems the most economically efficient is Tektronix scope stuff. These items seem to generally sell for perhaps 20% to 30% below reasonable dealer prices.
• There are numerous professional buyers operating on eBay who keep the prices for obscure but expensive stuff such as metrology standards from going too low.
• Much of the bidding takes place in the last 24 hours, so at any given time most of the items will have a high bid well below the final sale price. See my bidding strategy below.
• If you don't know the market, you can also end up spending more than the going rate from established dealers. Prices on the same item can easily vary by a factor of three from one week to the next, so it is worth making a low bid and sticking to it. If you don't lose a lot of auctions, you're bidding too much.

Logistics

• Following the auction is a lot of work if that isn't your idea of fun. Thousands of items are sold every week in this category. I use searches mainly to look for particular brands. Searches can also find stuff in other categories. Any given listing is in only one category, and it is somewhat of a crapshoot which category is chosen by the seller.
• Typically payment is requested via PayPal, which electronically delivers payment from your credit card. Some may ask for a postal money order.

Terms of Sale and Disputes

• Items are generally sold as-is, in many cases by people who don't know what they are. "I plugged it, and lights came on." However, many competent instrument dealers also sell on eBay.
• Be skeptical about items that "work", but are sold as-is. It is often clear that the seller is clueless, and has no way of evaluating whether the item works or not. The most charitable assumption is that they bought it from someone who said it worked.
• Ebay has some conflict resolution procedures, and I think also guarantees delivery of purchases under $100. I've had a few problems with items that didn't match their description, but the only time I complained the vendor promptly offered to refund my money. b.t.w., I negotiated a rebate with me keeping the equipment. Dealers will go for this because it avoids the issue of return shipping and eliminates the need to sell it again. eBay does have a reputation database which I consult before any sizable bid.

My eBay strategy

I believe my strategy is a rational and ethical response to other's irrational behavior:

• I do searches and bookmark items that are intesting. I have different folders for items that I have bid on, items that I may bid on, and items I'm just curious about how much they sell for.
• For items that I don't have a passionate desire for, I wait until the last convenient time before the sale and put in a single low bid. If I don't get it, too bad. If I do, it gives me a great greed rush (this is the larceny at heart part.) Trust me, even if you bid unreasonably low, you can easily fill up your basement over a year or so.
• For items that I really want and are over say $75, I wait until the last possible minute, and then put in the highest bid that I would be happy paying. For best results, wait for the last 30 seconds, as others know this trick too. As long as there isn't time for others to see your bid and raise theirs, it forces everybody into a virtual sealed bid, which avoids bidding wars. It is true that this is gaming the serious bidders who gave into their larceny of the heart and didn't bid as high as they really wanted to go. However, after it happens a few times, they'll start to think harder about their true value on the item.
• In case this isn't entirely clear, the point behind bidding late is that is long as the lead bidder thinks they are winning, they will just be sitting around having warm fantasies about how great their purchase is going to be, and not coming up with rationalizations about why it is worth more than their current bid. When any bidder is kicked out of the lead, it is natural to think of raising the bid, and the more time the bidder has to think up reasons about how badly they really want this item, and how it can fit into their budget, the higher they will rebid. If you keep your value secret by not bidding till the very end, then competing bidders don't have time to rationalize a higher rebid.

eBay selling

Since some people have asked, I have some suggestions to sellers. I'm not a seller, and I don't guarantee that this approach will maximize your income, but you at least won't irritate buyers. One tension is how much psychological gaming with starting price, reserve and shipping fees is desirable. Sellers obviously believe this stuff increases their profit, but it exploits buyers to some degree.

• Condition is crucial. You must have a picture, and you will gain credibility if you give any additional info about dirt, dents, whether it powers up, whether it is believed to work or not.
• I suggest setting a starting price which you feel will recover your costs in obtaining and listing the item, and your effort in closing the transaction and in shipping it. You can try to build some profit into the starting price, but this risks turning off bidders with larceny in their hearts who will bid that amount once they have started bidding, but won't start at that price.
• Reserve is basically a secret starting price. Sellers feel that it avoids the psychological hit of a high starting price while insuring against selling at a loss. Buyers however hate reserves because they waste their time bidding on an item that they aren't going to get. It also turns off buyers because they know they probably aren't going to get a steal.
• I suggest charging the actual shipping cost for heavy items. It is becoming a common practice to specify a fixed shipping charge in advance, and this seems reasonable if the item is small enough that the fixed charge can be low. I can see that it saves the hassle of determining the precise shipping before negotiating payment. It irritates me when sellers try to build a profit guarantee into "shipping and handling" because this means I have to mentally estimate the excess fee and add it to the base price. I realize that with items that you got for next to nothing and go for 30 bucks, "handling" may seem like your main cost, but I prefer to see that built into the starting price.

Last update 13 July 2002