Audio & Internet & Rants Wojtek on 06 Jul 2007 11:27 pm
Polish audio gear sellers
This is just a short rant in which I’d like to say what I think about the pricing policies of guys who sell audio equipment online here in Poland.
Oh and yes, it’s a rather negative rant and it kinda involves national economics, so don’t say that I didn’t warn you…So, what’s the problem you ask? After all, people sell stuff online all around the world. The prices for each product in most cases vary from country to country, from continent to continent, mostly according to their age, availability (or in some cases rarity) and the national economy state (e.g. when the economy’s growing strong, prices of products often go up, simply because people can afford it and the opposite when the economy is weak). That’s normal and of course in Poland the same simple pricing rules for used goods exist… except, in my humble opinion, for people who sell audio stuff, especially the vintage kind.
So, what do they do? I’d divide Polish audio sellers into 3 groups:
The first one respects the price rules as for any other product. They’re OK.
The second one are guys who have bought their precious items personally abroad a few years back and now they won’t sell them for less than half the price for which they’ve originally bought them and boast in the item’s description something like: “I’ve payed for this 2000 marks/franks/rubles!”. In most cases these people omit commenting at since when they actually own the item. These people also don’t seem to know anything about inflation and similar economic mechanisms.
The third group is what I’d like to call the “genius group”. Those are guys who are virtually changing the country’s economy for the better, bringing it up to the same level as Germany, the United Kingdom or even the United States. How do they manage to do that? Simple. They first check how much they would get for their stuff if they’d live in, for example, the USA. Clickety-click they go online to ebay.com and others to check the prices. They look at the maximum possible amount. Never mind if the sold item is like in mint condition or comes with the original manuals and packaging and all that extra stuff, in most cases the Polish seller’s item doesn’t meet any of these qualities. They also check the prices at places in other countries, just to make sure if they really found the highest possible price. Then, when they’re satisfied with the prices of the foreign sellers, they convert the highest price to Polish currency (the Zloty) and put it on an online auction in Poland for that price. Makes sense? Not the least in my opinion.
Sometimes the “geniuses” start out by playing “smart” and set the starting price lower and setting their “foreign price” as the bid criteria. I also have found several sellers who write in their item descriptions statements like this one:
“Many people have been asking me what price would interest me in order to close down the auction/sale early. The price that interests me is the one which I would get on foreign sales websites and nothing less.”
So what should the potential buyer do now? Should he/she him-/herself check-out the prices on the mentioned “foreign sales websites” before bidding? Probably so, if he/she finds himself with such a lazy and sneaky seller.
I hope that you guys catch my drift here about this issue. I can understand the guys from the 2nd group, but I seriously despise of the “geniuses”. They seem to live in their own imaginary world where Polish average wages and salaries are equal to those earned by wealthy Western countries, cause only if we take such a thinking scheme into account do those “price huntings” make sense. Unfortunately, Poland is not and for a long time (if ever) won’t be in the top ten GDP countries list, so such a pricing policy is nothing less than smart-ass stupidity.
I’m not saying that those guys don’t sell anything, they do, because people in most cases don’t know how much in Polish money is the given item worth, so they trust the seller’s pricing policy and judgment. I know this is unfair, but do people have a choice? In most cases, shipping from foreign countries is pretty expensive by Polish standards, thanks to which the Polish audio sellers can easily setup an oligopoly, meaning that there is small competition and they can dictate unfair prices in their specific market.
That’s all I guess. I know that most people who visit and read my blog are not from Poland so I’d like to ask you guys this: Have you ever observed or experienced such or similar selling behavior in your country? I’m asking not only about audio stuff here, any kind of item market would do good as an example.
Also, maybe I’m wrong in my opinions and what the “geniuses” do is perfectly normal and understandable? If that’s the case then please correct my reasoning.
PS: Till this moment I was sure that the proper spelling of the word judgment is “judgement”. It’s good that my web browser has a built-in spell checker. Thanks spell checker!