What is your opinion on selling items on TE for more than their purchase price?

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letmein

letmein

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So Amazon had a 1 Rupee sale going on, and I managed to snag a couple of items that I may offload. Just want to know what your opinion is on selling them here.

The way I see it:

An item is selling for 'x'
I pay an amount less than 'x' for it due to a limited time offer.
I sell it for a profit than what I bought it for (but still less than the market price).
Buyer buys it from me at a premium (from me) but still less than the regular market price.

In the end:
-I win, getting some profit for myself
-Buyer wins since he pays less than current selling price.
-'TE' wins since this deal will take place on it, thus strengthening India's largest tech community [citation needed]

Also, for those who disagree, how is it any different from selling a gift you got.

Thanks.
 
Seems fair enough to me :D

Nobody is forcing the buyer(s) - it's up to them if they want to pay some amount for a product.
 
People should be allowed to sell their item at whatever price they want irrespective of how much they paid for it in the first place. However the seller should clearly mention that it was bought in a deal for the awareness of the buyer. Just my opinion, feel free to disagree.
 
I think its fair enough.

But another tech forum has this big thread about ethics on it and people are saying no to it by hordes. Its a gaming forum. As long as its publicly stated so that the buyer already knows where it comes from, its fine. He is after all getting a good price and the seller is not committing any fraud. its a free market. Demand, Supply and all that jazz.
 
I am not sure why the seller needs to even mention that he got product at discount / free whatever. Seller lists product at a price, it is the buyer's responsibility to assess whether the price is right and whether he is willing to pay for it.
 
raksrules said:
I am not sure why the seller needs to even mention that he got product at discount / free whatever. Seller lists product at a price, it is the buyer's responsibility to assess whether the price is right and whether he is willing to pay for it.
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Saar, you miss the molar poliz peeple. :) :)
 
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There was a big debate on this in the past as well. As long as somebody else is allowed to post the correct price or point to another source where it can be obtained cheaper, It should be fine.

The main point here is that since the sales on these forums are largely based on trust and credibility of the forum as a whole, potential buyers should have the necessary information at his disposal to make an informed choice to buy it at a higher price if he has to.

FYI, a colleague of mine won a Occulus DK2 sometime back and wanted to dispose it as he did not have the hardware to make use of it. He offered it to me for 12k (based on the original $350 pricing), but I was not interested as the final product is going to have different specs. I however told him that Occulus DK2's are selling for a bomb even in US.

So he put it up for sale for 50k on OLX and some guy from Delhi literally booked a train ticket and came all the way to Hyd to pick it up. After he finalized the deal with that guy, he even got another guy who was ready to buy it for 80k, but decided to let the first guy take it since he had already closed the deal. So yes, a product may have much higher market value than its original price for legitimate reasons like scarcity and demand and it may also be fine to sell it at a higher price than you spent (as long as your are not trying to make a business out of it). What should be avoided is trying to keep potential users uninformed in the hopes that they will buy at a value higher than its worth.
 
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raksrules said:
I am not sure why the seller needs to even mention that he got product at discount / free whatever. Seller lists product at a price, it is the buyer's responsibility to assess whether the price is right and whether he is willing to pay for it.
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Have you ever tried to RMA a heavily discounted item in India? I have and it's a PITA. You end up having to explain how you got the item at such a discount. Once in my case the Samsung service centre completely refused to provide service to me as I got the phone at flat 4k off the market price.

Secondly if the buyer decides to sell his device one day locally he will face issues selling it for a decent amount, people will see the invoice and assume he bought it for that price, imagine having to explain a non tech guy why he should pay you more than the amount it was originally bought for.

I feel this way because I have faced these issues personally. Even if there were no possible issues to buyer later, I still feel that it's the buyers responsibility to tell the seller all the information about the product they are selling.
 
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Faraz said:
Have you ever tried to RMA a heavily discounted item in India? I have and it's a PITA. You end up having to explain how you got the item at such a discount. Once in my case the Samsung service centre completely refused to provide service to me as I got the phone at flat 4k off the market price.

Secondly if the buyer decides to sell his device one day locally he will face issues selling it for a decent amount, people will see the invoice and assume he bought it for that price, imagine having to explain a non tech guy why he should pay you more than the amount it was originally bought for.

I feel this way because I have faced these issues personally. Even if there were no possible issues to buyer later, I still feel that it's the buyers responsibility to tell the seller all the information about the product they are selling.
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You are right and this is because in India the first question people ask is "Bill hai kya", to ascertain the genuine-ity of the product. I have seen people do that for iPhones as well and they have no clue that iPhones don't really require bill for servicing.
 
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^^

Tell me about it. When I want to sell my gadgets to my Indian colleagues here in US, I always tell them a fair price. and send em links from ebay, craiglist etc. Still first question to me is, how much I bought it for? Do you have the bill etc. for items OUT of warranty.
 
m-jeri said:
Do you have the bill etc. for items OUT of warranty.
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A lot of people sell out of warranty products without invoice so they can claim the product is just over an year old (assuming the product has 1 year warranty) when in reality the product could be well over 2 years old. They do all this to get more money for their devices. I have seen a lot of people on olx/quickr do this. This is very common with apple devices.
 
Personal opinion.. As long as the issues mentioned above are addressed (esp with regard to availability or lack of full warranty) there's no reason why you should not sell it at your price. Just because you got it for re.1 or free, doesn't mean you should sell it at less than that.
The only issue I have is when someone buys from another member of this forum at price X, and puts it up for sale here again at price 1.5X or 2X. To me, that is a big no.
 
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If you had bought them for the sole purpose of resale or had no intention to use it in the first place.,, it would be in bad taste.
 
Actually if you do that, don't blame the commercial sellers of doing the same ie exploiting gullible customers. This is no less than a fraud. This is exploitation to the power of 'n'.[DOUBLEPOST=1450975753][/DOUBLEPOST]Heck if someone reports this, amazon will blacklist you. This is how grey economy functions .
 
1. From the Forum perspective things should be clear, should we allow selling at a profit or not? I think it should be allowed.

2. Transparency & source of purchase should be clearly mentioned by the seller. If possible proof of purchase at least a Web screenshot should be mandatory. Especially when someone is selling for a profit.

3. I insist on any proof of purchase, (not necessarily a vat paid invoice), whenever buying a used product. It'd give genuine duration for which the device is used. It'd clear the doubt as far as the actual buyer (second hand or third hand etc) & whether it was brand new or refurbished when first bought.

4. Proof of purchase is must to see the authenticity of the device, because buyer is paying whole amount upfront. ( I recently went to purchase a iPhone 5s with a friend from Olx seller ; I couldn't make out from the first copy, without putting it on)

4. Seller at profit should bear the shipping expenses (either way in case of wrong info, deal fallout ) , testing warranty of at least a week should be mandatory irrespective of the device in warranty or not.

5. Ideally depositing a certain amount by seller (for profit selling) with seller's KYC info should be available with forum admin if possible or if feasible.

6. I'm OK with forum charging a certain percentage for profit selling.

I personally don't see anything wrong with any form of profit selling but the prerequisites and restrictions should be on par with commercial websites which allow profit selling at a fee.
 
As long as the seller does not explicitly misguide the buyer by nondisclosure of the fact that he paid less for the product than what he is selling it for, it should be perfectly fine to sell for a profit.

But remember this: :P

the-frugality-of-cats.jpg
 
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