Pricing?

[johhern-2332]

During the Amazon boycott do you Price match?

Thank you,

[jg.mason]

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@johnrj1226 wrote:

  IMHO boycotts tend to be very useless.

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InBev might disagree with that statement. 🤣

[fbusoni]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

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Just one of those all around, not gonna do that again.  But I'm sure if you do it on the daily, it's ez as pie.  Happy to help.  

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@simply-the-best-for-you 

Thanks... in 26 years of selling here I had only one passing interest in perfumes... a few months ago a shop that I frequent bought a storage locker that had been filled with crates of fancy perfumes.   Big Italian and French names, all sealed in plastic.

They were displayed prominently on a shelf and I was intrigued so I examined them.   I searched with Google lens and with the ebay app and could not find a single exact match.  There were ZERO matches for the UPC codes on the back of the boxes.

Looking for any further identifiers, I turned the box upside down and noticed that the product information was printed in three languages: English, Russian and Arabic.

I didn't drop the box like a hot potato, but almost.  😁

[simply-the-best-for-you]

@fbusoni  Probably for the best.  Some can go for big bucks, esp if they're discontinued, but fragrances degrade over time & IMO you're asking for trouble selling old, even sealed ones.  I took 3 from my mom's house that were still sealed, but not sure I want to bother.  Maybe if I ever get around to using FB Marketplace & someone can just come pick them up.   BTW, Arabic scents are some of the most sought after, but with the degradation factor, I wouldn't risk it.   Of course the ones you came across may not even have been legit to begin with. 

[lb23cavaliersmvp]

Regardless of who is boycotting one large platform isn't the price you list any item for based solely on condition and availability?  As discussed here many times it is pointless for a small-scale seller to try and compete with Amazon or anyone else on mass produced items. For instance I routinely see people at yard sales and thrift stores scanning 100s of used books, in less than like new condition, buying copies that are readily available for a few dollars everywhere. Ignoring fees of ~ 15% and responsibility issues, what is the point?

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@johhern-2332 

The Amazon "boycott" began on the 7th and ends tomorrow, according to news reports. I doubt it has had much impact on Amazon. It had had no impact on my pricing.

[gator08041971]

To be fair, I never answered the pricing question, but then I don't sell high volume new items that would be considered for it.

Short answer:  No.  I wouldn't price match.  My items often already have options for making offers, if someone wants to try to get a lower price.

There is nothing about eBay that would suggest we should be trying to price match anyone for any reason.  This is essentially a giant flea market/garage sale/3rd hand discount shop.

If you want a better price, you search and sort by price, or find another place to shop instead.  This is why when I buy stuff for PC builds, I shop a couple different websites and choose from the one with the best deal.  Most of the time that's between NewEgg and Amazon.  I use NewEgg for an example, as I can trust them to honor the warranty far better than Amazon, as the seller you might get the item from there may be like here where they aren't authorized to sell it, thus the warranty is void.   But no one thinks of that at the time, because its "Amazon".   But you have to be careful shopping there, just as here, or anywhere else to be sure the seller is an authorized reseller of a product.  Not to mention the search filtering on NewEgg is a 100 times better.

At least there, when I tell it to search by price, it doesn't drop 90% of the items that were in the search results when it was on "Recommended" like Amazon does.  Man that drives me nuts.   eBay works like NewEgg at least in that regard, but then you have to watch the seller and see if they are authorized.  Here at least they have a verification tag for a seller that is.  I buy Milwaukee tools here once in a while, but only from authorized sellers.

But yeah, most of the items sold on eBay are going to not have a warranty, and could be second hand/used.  So pricing matching that?  No.

[mam98031]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

@fbusoni  Probably for the best.  Some can go for big bucks, esp if they're discontinued, but fragrances degrade over time & IMO you're asking for trouble selling old, even sealed ones.  I took 3 from my mom's house that were still sealed, but not sure I want to bother.  Maybe if I ever get around to using FB Marketplace & someone can just come pick them up.   BTW, Arabic scents are some of the most sought after, but with the degradation factor, I wouldn't risk it.   Of course the ones you came across may not even have been legit to begin with. 

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This is very true, they do degrade.  I use to sell perfumes, low in and high end for years.  Storage is of the utmost important to how long they will last.  They don't like sunlight and fluctuating temperatures can be disastrous to perfumes.  They need to be in a climate controlled area for the longest life.  It is unlikely the storage unit offered that.  So I agree, likely pretty risky with these perfumes.

[fbusoni]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

@fbusoni  Probably for the best.  Some can go for big bucks, esp if they're discontinued, but fragrances degrade over time & IMO you're asking for trouble selling old, even sealed ones.  I took 3 from my mom's house that were still sealed, but not sure I want to bother.  Maybe if I ever get around to using FB Marketplace & someone can just come pick them up.   BTW, Arabic scents are some of the most sought after, but with the degradation factor, I wouldn't risk it.   Of course the ones you came across may not even have been legit to begin with. 

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@simply-the-best-for-you 

The bottles were fresh... the store owner had several opened so customers could sample them.   I jettisoned them because I presumed that they were counterfeit scents... even though the boxes said "Made in France" and "Made in Italy," the Russian and Arabic script was a concern, not to mention the unrecognizable UPC codes.

Then there was the scent itself -- not subtle, delicate or refined, and devoid of the jasmine, rose, and iris that are typically used to concoct such substances. 

In other words, less of a floral bouquet, and more like a sledgehammer.  😅

[simply-the-best-for-you]

@fbusoni  Got it.  I thought you might be hinting they were counterfeit, but wasn't certain.  Good thing you passed!  I think my nose has changed as I've gotten older.  ALL perfume smells way too strong & too overpowering to me.   I don't think my nose even registers delicate or refined anymore LOL.  I was trying on some of my old perfumes & some of my mom's, all of which I know  are not counterfeit & every single one just bowled me over. 

[funfactorychannel]

I treat price match as an offer. if its within my margin yes. if not no.

[gurlcat]

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@fbusoni wrote:

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Then there was the scent itself -- not subtle, delicate or refined, and devoid of the jasmine, rose, and iris that are typically used to concoct such substances. 

In other words, less of a floral bouquet, and more like a sledgehammer.  😅

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Even some the priciest authentic fragrances smell pretty sledgehammer-y until the solvents evaporate.  I think the industry is absurd, I wouldn't be surprised if experts would fail blind smell tests between authentic brands and well-done fakes, just like has happened with wines (did you ever hear of it, where some of the most highly-praised wines turned out to be ones you could get at any grocery store for $20? 🤣). 

That didn't surprise me at all, as wine is another industry I always assumed was way more up-their-own-butts than reality.  But I suspect it even more with fragrances, because here we're talking about a product where THE BOTTLE is a major marketing factor, as well as the brand .... but at least with wines, the brand may come with a long history of wine making, and even the the patch of soil where their grapes are grown has (at least alleged) relevance in the final product's taste.  Whereas perfumes are made by nameless chemists, and the brands are about as far as you can get from companies with reputations for good chemistry formulation.  Fashion designers and pop singers.  Where's the peeing-my-pants-laughing emoji when I need it??

That said, people want what they want, stupid or not, so no it wouldn't make sense trying to resell fake perfumes on eBay, in fact if you even mention the brands they copied you would probably get a Vero.  But if you had a flea market booth or something like that, they could be worthwhile, because people could actually smell them. 

[fbusoni]

@gurlcat 

Yes, the bottle... Lalique made some bottles for Nina Ricci.  I know that how?  😁

Really, everything one needs to know about life can be found right here on the eBay seller forums.

[gurlcat]

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@fbusoni wrote:

@gurlcat 

Yes, the bottle... Lalique made some bottles for Nina Ricci.  I know that how?  😁

Really, everything one needs to know about life can be found right here on the eBay seller forums.

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Or be inspired to look things up.  Like this:  Nina Ricci died in 1970, Rene Lalique in 1945. 
Yet "they" somehow both continue to create stuff to sell, from the grave. 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@gurlcat wrote:

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@fbusoni wrote:

@gurlcat 

Yes, the bottle... Lalique made some bottles for Nina Ricci.  I know that how?  😁

Really, everything one needs to know about life can be found right here on the eBay seller forums.

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Or be inspired to look things up.  Like this:  Nina Ricci died in 1970, Rene Lalique in 1945. 
Yet "they" somehow both continue to create stuff to sell, from the grave. 

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So do Biggy, Tupac, Prince & Elvis 😁

[gurlcat]

You know, if it's not already possible it soon will be, that a combination of AI and vocal pattern simulation will be able to write and perform completely new songs "by" dead musicians like that.   I doubt they would try to actually make money from it because I think it would be rejected by the fans and lawsuits would also ensue.  But I could see it being done just as an exhibition feat of prowess.