Idea of how to buy PSone screens cheaply on ebay...

[icarus]

The only problem is that we aren't the only ones after psone screens. There are the members on benheck and random other people that may just want the screen to use for their psone that we have to compete against also.

 

[Basement_Modder]

Or, if you want to, buy a $40 screen/ console/ controller combo unit, and sell the console/ controller/ etc. separately. viola! screen for ≈$15

 

[snowpenguin]

I don't know that your idea would work bac, as we're not the only ones buying these. There are what, 5000 members at benheck, and 100 here? I konw that a good few thousand at benheck probably don't even post, but still, I think even if we were to try and do this we would not be changing anything, just knocking a few potential bidders from the swarm away.

BUT, Palmer did have a good idea yesterday, to have a Modretro store where the admins/etc. would buy large lots of items, and sell them at minimal profits in the store. Sound like it could work out well, remember the 100 or so zenith screens that one time?

The only other thing I can think of to do really should not be done under any circumstances, and that is this: A group of people decide they want an eBay item or they want to help buyer A get that item cheaply. They all use eBay accounts they can afford to lose. Buyer A puts in a bid for the minimum. Then all the other buyers put in large bids to jack up the price to more than anyone wants to pay. Nearing the end of the auction, they all retract their bids, thus leaving the minimum and not much time left for it to go up. There are flaws though, like if eBay were to deny the bid retractions. After all, you do have to come up with a good reason to retract your bid, and it isn't supposed to happen very often.

That last idea shouldn't be done, IMO, it's cheating!

However, bac's idea seems fair enough, but hard to accomplish IMO.

 

[snowpenguin]

But do you remember when Skyone bought that massive lot of systems? He put up the thread and they blew out of there, quick. I was very lucky when I showed up to have there be 2 n64s left, and there must be a great amount of profit for Skyone even though we only paid $8 an n64.

 

[Zero]

I'm afraid this wouldn't be that simple bac.

Although its a very creative idea and ideally we would all get cheap screens, it is nearly impossible just based off the way ebay (and economics) work. Say, we do decide to test this out, and let's just say that it is working perfectly and its the last day with only $15 as the max bid. Due to the price, more people will be attracted to the auction, including people who have no use for the screen but only want it to resell for a profit seeing this good deal, people who can now afford it at the cheaper price and now have an interest in bidding, and people who were originally interested in other screens but have set their sights on this one now because of the price. This would all be in an ideal situation as well, throw in other modders and people who just need a new ps1 screen bidding from the very beginning and you can predict how the auction will turn out. I'm going to have to agree that it would just make more sense to just buy a huge lot and resell them, as those are likely to have much less bidders.

 

[snowpenguin]

Don't forget quantity pricing Zero!

 

[samjc3]

the one biggest issue with the "modretro store" is that nobody has enough dough to front the project. most of us are either kids or poor college students, so theres not alot of stagnant money we can afford to invest.

 

[snowpenguin]

Well, it would be a group buy of course...

And don't forget, PalmerTech has massive stores of money somewhere! He's always buying expensive stuff...

I don't know. It was his idea.

 

[samjc3]

Well, it would be a group buy of course...

And don't forget, PalmerTech has massive stores of money somewhere! He's always buying expensive stuff...

I don't know. It was his idea.

well, look at some of the attempted group buys. they have all failed. nobody ever has the right amount at the right time. what we would have to do, is have a fund people can contribute to, then, that way, when a big lot of stuff comes up, we would have the money in storage. then, the donors would have to be payed out of the profits, or the items.

we would need someone to inventory and recieve all the large buy's. someone trustworthy. then, we would also need a common funding source. a modretro paypal or something. then, we would need some kind of "store" mod for phbb3. theres no way just posting a modretro store thread would work. threads get way too cluttered.

it could work, it just wouldnt be easy.

ps, we should probably get insurance too. think how bad it would suck to get 3700$ worth of psone screens stolen?

 

[βeta]

My vote says TOO MUCH TROUBLE.

 

[Basement_Modder]

And don't forget, PalmerTech has massive stores of money somewhere! He's always buying expensive stuff...
.

He has a job...

You should get a job. Jobs are cool. They let you buy stuff.

 

[PalmerTech]

I have a job, and I save about 80% of what I make for college. I spend the rest on toys.

PHPBB mod is lame, but there are easy to set up webstores. I might do that for other reasons, could be cool.

 

[ShockSlayer]

I like MR store.

SS

 

[Basement_Modder]

Other option is to remove all the topics in the Junkyard section and replace with topics like "N64 controllers", "SMS controllers", "SNES consoles" etc - one topic for all items possible. Then, anyone who has some for sale, puts "I have 1, here's a pic, $3 plus postage" or whatever. When sold, poster puts "sold" in big red text, when an Admin/Mod sees it, deletes the post to keep it clean.

Easy. Like the idea? Saves trowling through lots of individual threads for something that may or may not be there.

This. Is. GREAT!

 

[βeta]

A designated mod for that would make it possible.

 

[XCVG]

Other option is to remove all the topics in the Junkyard section and replace with topics like "N64 controllers", "SMS controllers", "SNES consoles" etc - one topic for all items possible. Then, anyone who has some for sale, puts "I have 1, here's a pic, $3 plus postage" or whatever. When sold, poster puts "sold" in big red text, when an Admin/Mod sees it, deletes the post to keep it clean.

Easy. Like the idea? Saves trowling through lots of individual threads for something that may or may not be there.

No. I hate it. It would be a pain to deal with, because there would be a lot of topics that would have many posts in them. It would also be a pain because instead of posting one trading thread, you would have to post a bunch of posts for each part.

A store would be cool, but an unnecessary middleman to raise prices.

 

[snowpenguin]

I really don't like bacteria's latest idea up here. I agree with XCVG 100%, it would create more competition among sellers and reduce our income on these things we're selling. You'd never ba able to fit in everything that will be sold, and instead of making one for sale thread erach, you would have to make like 50 posts for each seller.

I like the way the junkyard works now, each person gets one thread to sell stuff, once it's all gone, the thread gets buried. If they get more to sell it, sure, go dig it up and put in some new stuff. It works just fine IMO, no need to over-complicate it.

 

[Zero]

Other option is to remove all the topics in the Junkyard section and replace with topics like "N64 controllers", "SMS controllers", "SNES consoles" etc - one topic for all items possible. Then, anyone who has some for sale, puts "I have 1, here's a pic, $3 plus postage" or whatever. When sold, poster puts "sold" in big red text, when an Admin/Mod sees it, deletes the post to keep it clean.

Easy. Like the idea? Saves trowling through lots of individual threads for something that may or may not be there.

No. I hate it. It would be a pain to deal with, because there would be a lot of topics that would have many posts in them. It would also be a pain because instead of posting one trading thread, you would have to post a bunch of posts for each part.

Exactly. I completely agree. I don't want to have to dig through a bunch of posts just to find someone who is selling one for a good price, and it wouldn't be a good idea to delete the completed posts because sometimes they do have valuable information (I believe this part of the discussion was had at bh as well, when they were considering deleting posts after transactions were done). Also considering many sellers consider it really annoying now when someone pops in to their thread and steals a sale, imagine how bad it would be when people are in the middle of a transaction in this proposed idea. I vote we keep it as is, the old threads will stay archived and the new stuff thats still for sale will be at the top of the forum anyway.