Guitar Prices

Bod1

I've been using Adverts for a few years now. I've bought and sold and dealt with a lot of great people. I've noticed over the last while that sellers are generally looking for completely unrealistic prices for instruments. This is in the context that on-line prices are coming down or are stable and the qulality is superior. I've bought a lot of stuff on the net and felt I've gotten a good deal.

Some might say well, buy on-line and don't use adverts or purchase in Irish shops but for me it has always been great to meet like minded people, support local businesses and generally enjoy the whole "do you want to try my other git/amp/pedal". I do recognise that there are still genuine local sellers but the amount of dreamers seems to be getting larger.

I'd be interested in other people's perspectives.

feylya

It has an awful lot to do with Irish people believing that the recommended retail price is the actual value of the guitar along with the idea that what they paid for the instrument is what it's worth. Generally, people want to try not to lose money on selling an instrument and if they make money, all the better.

Don't forget that international purchasing hasn't been very prevalent in this country for a long time. It's only really taken off in the last 10 years or so and there are a lot of people who will have bought from Irish shops in the 90s looking to sell. Now while they may have paid top dollar to the shop who were charged top dollar by the distributors due to shipping costs, tax, etc., the advent of online shopping has meant that purchasing from American, Europe or Japan has undercut the Irish seller by quite a margin.

Grolschevik

Plus, the nature of something like Adverts encourages people to add a couple of hundred on top of their real rock-bottom price to give some haggling room. Many offers are pitched considerably below the official asking price, so if you inflate the asking...

Also, as Feylya implied, there's this scenario:
"This cost me €2000 in Walton's five years ago, so it's got to be at least saleable at €1750 now; ah feck it, Thomann have the new model at €1700, so I'll spin mine as being the older and better version and ask for €1650".

Fingers Mcginty

Some great value on adverts. I recently picked up an SG standard for 580 in great nick. I remember selling a similar guitar for 1100 punts so the prices are definitely coming down.

PaulieBoy

Totally agree with the OP. Not just in guitar prices but other instruments as well, in fact in lot's of adverts.ie adverts. I could go grab as many ad's as you like where the asking price is totally off the wall.
You could suggest that this is the asking price, but I've seen many ad's where the seller is not for moving on the price even when it's clearly pointed out that the asking price is GREATER than the retail price for the exact same item, brand new!
This is a regular event on adverts.ie, and fun to watch!
There was one guy asking three times the going rate for an item, when this fact was pointed out in the thread it was "cleaned up" by a mod. So don't expect sympathy from anyone official here as they make money from adverts.ie.
Also this is not stuff bought back in the days, this is fairly new stuff that was bought recently and in many cases bought online in the first place.

Buyer be very aware when dealing with adverts.ie , I've got many good deals but there is a great amount of chancers on there!

Knifey Spoony

Fingers Mcginty wrote: »

Some great value on adverts. I recently picked up an SG standard for 580 in great nick. I remember selling a similar guitar for 1100 punts so the prices are definitely coming down.

Damn! I picked up an SG Standard myself a couple months ago off Adverts and paid €680 for it. Probably could have held out for less, but I thought and still do think that it was a bargain considering that a new model goes for well over a thousand in Irish stores and just over a thousand online. So, there are bargains on Adverts, just have to wade through the crap to find them.

Fingers Mcginty

Knifey Spoony wrote: »

Damn! I picked up an SG Standard myself a couple months ago off Adverts and paid €680 for it. Probably could have held out for less, but I thought and still do think that it was a bargain considering that a new model goes for well over a thousand in Irish stores and just over a thousand online. So, there are bargains on Adverts, just have to wade through the crap to find them.

gotta love those SGs

spiderjazz

As much as I love adverts as both a seller and a buyer, it can be frustrating from both sides.

Was looking at a Squire Vintage Modified bass there recently, these are 300 brand new from Thomann, seller wanted 300 for it, wouldn't accept anything else. It was hilarious watching him turn down great offers that were very reasonable (I'm talking about 250 euro with the buyer collecting).

On the other hand as a seller, I try to set reasonable prices on stuff I sell, yet every ad results in so many stupid offers. I sold a lot of my rig recently, and I'm not sure if it's just the instruments section, but every second offer was trades despite putting in no trades in the description. To be fair, you see it in nearly every ad in the instruments section.

PaulieBoy

Unreal ! A guy on adverts now selling a secondhand instrument he bought from Thomann for more than it cost new. When pointed out he offered to "match" Thomanns price :-)
This is fast becoming the norm, and really not a good advert for adverts.ie!

-Chris-

That's a reflection on the seller rather than Adverts though, Adverts can't stop people naming their own price.

Rigsby

-Chris- wrote: »

That's a reflection on the seller rather than Adverts though, Adverts can't stop people naming their own price.

I agree. No good shooting the messenger. It is up to potential buyers to remind sellers if they are over pricing, ( maybe by posting a link etc ), then to sit back and wait for the price to drop. If people do pay over the odds, then they only have themselves to blame...not "Adverts." Having said that, I think the majority of sellers are willing to haggle within reason.

PTO

I'm a big fan of adverts and use it for most of my gear buying nowadays as I prefer the 'lived in' feel of a 2nd hand guitar than that of a brand new one.

I've sold a good few things on there too and I am guilty of purposefully putting a high price on stuff that I'm selling (not over the price of what it costs brand new of course!). But my reason for it is that if I decide that I want to get 200euro for a piece of kit, I'm not gonna put it up for 200 cos noone will offer it! The website seems to work on a 'ono' basis so to be sure that someone will offer me 200....I put it up as 250 or 275. Maybe others are doing the same thing which is why it seems so pricey?

Hayte

Adverts fan here too. Occassionally theres a few crazies but for the most part buyers and sellers in classifieds start from a pretty ruthless position. Most sellers will ask for more than they expect to get and then be constantly seen to give ground by slashing the price. Makes them look like the one who is being reasonable. A clever haggler will barter his way down to a price thats just a little bit more than they expected to get.

Me? I'm a terrible haggler and I'm not doing it to make a quick buck off a sucker. So I had the opposite problem on Adverts when I sold a Sony VAIO F12 custom notebook (which isn't even available in this country). I listed it at several hundred less than what I paid for it despite it being only 54 days old, in pristine condition with box, receipt, manuals, everything. I got low balled straight away.

Ended up selling it for 500 euros less than what I paid for it because I needed the cash right away. The buyer flipped it on Adverts 2 weeks later for 400 more than he paid for it.

Folks are just trying to get a deal or make a buck or flip it so they can afford the next model up. Thats just the way it is.

Hayte

Adverts fan here too. Occassionally theres a few crazies but for the most part buyers and sellers in classifieds start from a pretty ruthless position. Most sellers will ask for more than they expect to get and then be constantly seen to give ground by slashing the price. Makes them look more reasonable.

I have had the opposite problem on Adverts at least once when I sold a Sony VAIO F12 custom notebook (which isn't even available in this country). I listed it at several hundred less than what I paid for it despite it being only 54 days old, in pristine condition with box, receipt, manuals, everything. I got low balled straight away.

Ended up selling it for 500 euros less than what I paid for it because I needed the cash right away. The buyer sold it 2 weeks later on Adverts for 400 more than he paid for it.

Folks are just trying to get a deal and unfortunately this type of thing is just how it goes. You can't expect good faith when theres money in it (it really is the root of all evil).

edit: Actually the guy that bought my Access Virus B also flipped it a few weeks or months later for more than I sold it to him. Thats fair enough. But I got the impression that these people spent more time bartering and gaming classifieds than they did actually making music. They were like professional hagglers that just go through musical instruments and computers like a cookie monster, flipping them along the way and never owning anything for long enough to really use it.

Grolschevik

Hayte wrote: »

They were like professional hagglers that just go through musical instruments and computers like a cookie monster, flipping them along the way and never owning anything for long enough to really use it.

Yeah, you get to recognise the names, and you can even track the gear moving around the country between the same few names!

Rigsby

Hayte wrote: »

They were like professional hagglers that just go through musical instruments and computers like a cookie monster, flipping them along the way and never owning anything for long enough to really use it.

Grolschevik wrote: »

Yeah, you get to recognise the names, and you can even track the gear moving around the country between the same few names!

I dont see any problem here lads. If people are buying and selling, no matter if it is the same few people, they obviously believe they are getting a bargain. What they do with their purchases afterwards is entirely up to them.

You may be missing the point here, as the thread is about prices.

Grolschevik

Rigsby wrote: »

I dont see any problem here lads. If people are buying and selling, no matter if it is the same few people, they obviously believe they are getting a bargain. What they do with their purchases afterwards is entirely up to them.

You may be missing the point here, as the thread is about prices.

I've no problem with it at all. In fact, fair play to them. In the cases of the recognisable names, there's no question of profiteering as far as I can see. It was just an observational aside about the nature of Adverts that arose from someone's comments about goods being flipped within a short time-frame.

Hayte

Rigsby wrote: »

I dont see any problem here lads. If people are buying and selling, no matter if it is the same few people, they obviously believe they are getting a bargain. What they do with their purchases afterwards is entirely up to them.

You may be missing the point here, as the thread is about prices.

How can the process of flipping for profit not influence prices? There was an F12 on Adverts for 1050 euros when I listed it. A couple of weeks later the same laptop minus the really fast hard drive was relisted for 1400 euros. If everyone does that, nobody gets a bargain. If you want to know why some guitars are listed at fruit cake prices, you may want to go through the sellers buy/sell history. Sometimes you can see the same instrument flipped a few times with the price going up each time.

Nobody wants to make a loss so even the guys who got a bad deal are intent on recouping the money they put down on flip merchanting.

But yeah you are right in some sense. What happens after you sell up is largely irrelevant. Nonetheless, I still find Adverts a decent place to sell stuff. But buying is another matter.

-Chris-

Something is worth what someone else is prepared to pay for it.

If someone else was able to sell your gear for more than you did, then that's more down to your sales/negotiation skills rather than any reflection on the item's value.
If someone buys your guitar for €500 today and sells it for €1,000 tomorrow, then that means you undervalued it. They've done nothing wrong.

Rigsby

Hayte wrote: »

How can the process of flipping for profit not influence prices?

Easy. Everyone ignores the advert till the seller drops his price to a realistic one. Either that or keep haggling till he does so. If he does not drop the price, forget the advert. You will find the seller will soon get the message.

-Chris- wrote: »

Something is worth what someone else is prepared to pay for it.

If someone else was able to sell your gear for more than you did, then that's more down to your sales/negotiation skills rather than any reflection on the item's value.
If someone buys your guitar for €500 today and sells it for €1,000 tomorrow, then that means you undervalued it. They've done nothing wrong.

Agree 100 %.

Hayte

But nobody said they are doing anything wrong. Its just that if you wonder why prices are a bit mad, thats one plausible reason.

geetar

i picked up a 57 reissue strat for €700, which is a steal considering they retail at €1800

it was ten years old and in good nick, so id have to say i disagree OP

Rigsby

Hayte wrote: »

Its just that if you wonder why prices are a bit mad

Prices will remain "mad" as long as sellers expect to get that price. It is up to the buyer to bring them ( the seller and the price ) down to earth. It's a battle of wills.

PTO

geetar wrote: »

i picked up a 57 reissue strat for €700, which is a steal considering they retail at €1800

it was ten years old and in good nick, so id have to say i disagree OP

nice one!!

Doc_Savage

Rigsby wrote: »

Agree 100 %.

i do agree to an extent...

but does it remind you of the over inflated buying and selling that led to the so called property boom?

the muscle memory of that episode will lead to a similar price hike in higher end guitars.... vintage guitars will be unattainable soon.

Rigsby

Doc_Savage wrote: »

i do agree to an extent...

but does it remind you of the over inflated buying and selling that led to the so called property boom?

the muscle memory of that episode will lead to a similar price hike in higher end guitars.... vintage guitars will be unattainable soon.

So, what do you think is the solution ? Personally I cant see one, except what I stated earlier, i.e. people boycotting inflated prices, or haggling for a more realistic one. You are right, people dont boycott inflated prices, and that is how we had the property boom...and bust.

People have the power to keep prices under control. If they choose not to...well, that's capitalism for ya !! Everyone wants to make a profit.

Doc_Savage

a severe attitude change... that's what's needed... and it won't happen for a long time!

the classic car market has come back down a bit in recent years, that has more to do with sellers wanting their cars to go to good homes where they're sure they'll be looked after...

a similar shift in guitar sales would be nice... then again i've never sold any of my guitars and would find it hard to put a price on most of them!

once the prices go to the unattainable lever and people stop paying the extortionate prices then the prices will come back down but i don't think human nature will let it come back down below acceptable levels... only to slightly above it!

-Chris-

Doc_Savage wrote: »

once the prices go to the unattainable lever and people stop paying the extortionate prices then the prices will come back down but i don't think human nature will let it come back down below acceptable levels... only to slightly above it!

Why would prices come below an acceptable level? If the level is acceptable someone will buy it. If it's below acceptable, then someone would have already bought it when it got to "acceptable"!

Rigsby

Doc_Savage wrote: »

a severe attitude change... that's what's needed... and it won't happen for a long time!

the classic car market has come back down a bit in recent years, that has more to do with sellers wanting their cars to go to good homes where they're sure they'll be looked after...

a similar shift in guitar sales would be nice... then again i've never sold any of my guitars and would find it hard to put a price on most of them!

once the prices go to the unattainable lever and people stop paying the extortionate prices then the prices will come back down but i don't think human nature will let it come back down below acceptable levels... only to slightly above it!

-Chris- wrote: »

Why would prices come below an acceptable level? If the level is acceptable someone will buy it. If it's below acceptable, then someone would have already bought it when it got to "acceptable"!

I can see both sides here. It's a case of "one man's floor is another man's ceiling", depending on their financial situations. I suppose, when you think about it, there are no "acceptable levels", other than what each individual sees as a bargain, or can afford.

On the other hand, I have seen second hand basses with some wear, going for around the same price as on Thomann or EBay (sometimes even allowing for shipping). Is this an "acceptable level" ? I don't think so, but others might.

Hayte

Rigsby wrote: »

Everyone wants to make a profit.

I'd rather just make music tbh. All of the stuff I sold on adverts.ie, I did so at a loss (and I was aware of it) because I just wanted it gone so I could move on and do something else.

For people that want to play the trading game thats cool, but to get good at it, you pretty much have to treat it like a job.

Rigsby

Hayte wrote: »

I'd rather just make music tbh. All of the stuff I sold on adverts.ie, I did so at a loss (and I was aware of it) because I just wanted it gone so I could move on and do something else.

For people that want to play the trading game thats cool, but to get good at it, you pretty much have to treat it like a job.

I agree, as I am the same. It seems that with some people the buying and selling is as much, maybe more, of a hobby than actually playing the instruments. To each, their own.