XYZ thread: good or bad?

[Kona Paul]

Or perhaps I should ask "useful or not"? Whereas I think the idea is great, I now have to say that with a 77 page thread, it's quite difficult to get an appraisal. Is it because nobody bothers to look there? I know it doesn't occur to me very often to see what's soon to be for sale, and I'm wondering what other user's impressions are. I've used it a couple of times without any response, and I'm not sure if it's because no one sees it, or because no one has an answer, or maybe my stuff simply has no interest.

The biggest problem is the catch 22 the thread creates, as I can't post for sale until I have a price, and I can't get a price, seemingly, until I post something for sale...which requires I have a price.

 

[The Ken]

I agree it doesn't work very well. I used to try and help but my scope was limited.

But what we have is a lot better than having the main threads cluttered by people you have joined the site simply to sell stuff and wanting to know what to set their ebay reserves to.

An improvement might be to go to a subforum for valuations but I don't know if that will add to the admin costs or cause more hassle for the mods in an area that they simply aren't interested in (and who would blame them).

 

[coomber]

I look at it a lot but rarely post on it. I think it's hard to post a price sometimes as it's only an opinion though. What one person thinks it's worth and what it actually is may be completely different.

Best way to value something I think is the value you are willing to sell it for to be worthwhile and / or to gauge a value by looking at Ebay.

See your point though, a lot of unanswered posts on the thread.

 

[coomber]

Ken has a good point, there's already loads of misposts in threads where people hijack and ask "how much is this worth I have one of these" etc etc.

May not work well but may be best you can do.

 

[Kona Paul]

Agreed it's better than before, or at least that something needed to be done.

Not everything can be found or valued on ebay or even here, thus the need for the thread on occasion. Plus the value being what people are generally willing to pay counts as much as what you are willing to sell for. There are also sometimes "experts" in certain areas or with certain brands (Anthony and Kona for example, where he has his thumb on the pulse and knows what prices frames usually fetch.) A big part of the problem for me is location. Danish prices are radically different than UK prices, and there is virtually no retro scene here. My explosive frame would be "worth" about 20 quid for someone who would make it a commuter that they could leave outdoors year round and never service. I would rather it found a good home and would be appreciated and ridden off-road.

 

[Kona Paul]

Ken has a good point, there's already loads of misposts in threads where people hijack and ask "how much is this worth I have one of these" etc etc.

May not work well but may be best you can do.

You might be right. Admittedly, I haven't got a better solution.

 

[stew-b]

never looked at it,i cant see the problem with individual posts for info?

 

[Kona Paul]

never looked at it,i cant see the problem with individual posts for info?

In theory, there shouldn't be, but for a time we got the mtb forum (when there was only one) cluttered with posts from people using retrobike as a price guide for the old crap they found in their garage.

 

[Iwasgoodonce]

It's always going to be one of the most commonly asked sort of questions. The problem is that you don't know what's being asked until you get to the end of the thread. As it has got so huge, perhaps the way forward is to have a separate discussion forum. Then folks could put whatever they were asking about in the title of the thread and maybe garner a bit more interest?

 

[Makrie]

I think what would be helpful (dodging the question of the xyz thread) is for people to post in their 'for sale' posts the prices the things they sold actually went for. This would create a searchable record of sale prices over time. It's what I've done , as evidenced here.


The downsides? Perhaps embarrassing to seller or buyer? Could create false expectations if someone pays crazy money for something (high or low)? Open to abuse if a seller decides to lie about the prices they sold things for? In spite of those possibilities, I still reckon this is the way forward.