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E-bay vs Photo flea markets... |
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Written by Patrick Jan Van Hove
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Monday, 12 December 2005 |
Last week-end I went to a local annual used photographic equipment swap meet, or flea market, call it what you will... What struck me is how much it had shrunk since last year, and how the stuff that had interested me last year was not there this year...
There were interesting things, mind you, a 13x18 Technika, a 30x40 19th century english tailboard camera, countless stereo cards, a nice big brass portrait lens, even one of those nifty casket lens sets. The catch? all of that stuff can be had for less that half the price on E-Bay...
And I was surprised to hear some sellers complaining about how they didn't sell anything, how the maket was bad, etc... But I didn't hear once the name of E-Bay mentioned. It's as if those guys hauling their boxes full of cameras and lenses from market to market live in a parallel universe where they haven't ralised that the used price market is now being set by the buyers, on the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view and buying habits) auction site. Some stores here charge as much as three or four times the price one would pay on the internet for the same item, and seem to wonder why they are stuck with unsold Hasselblads and Nikons.
I know the internet is not to everyone's liking and that that kind of swap meet has a value as a meeting point, an exchange of information, a possibility for discovering new things, and for touching and testing (very summairly) the equipment before spending your hard-earned money on a piece of photographic equipment. However, there is a good argument for the buyer to spend a lot less money by buying online, betting exactly what he wants by choosing through a much wider seller base, and having some kind of garantee and tracability by using "official" auction routes for payment.
I'm afraid the photo swap-meet might be on it's way out if sellers don't adjust their pricing to the international market's... |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 12 December 2005 )
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