Brian Chase wrote:
Mostly, I feel it comes down to personal decisions based on any number
of factors, some of which include: amount of expendible income, the
amount of free time, location, and interest in the item in question.
If I didn't have a job and instead had plenty of free time, I'd
certainly be inclined to spend a lot more of that free time hunting down
bargains. But I don't have that sort of free time because I'm employed
full time. What I do get instead is a decent income in trade for that
time, and I can spend that income on equipment made available through
eBay. I'm willing to pay more money for items on eBay because it saves
me the time of hunting down the equipment on my own. When I look at the
opportunity cost of doing my own hunting, the cost of aggressively
hunting doesn't make any sense for me. I'd actually be losing lots of
money by doing it. Time is money. Great, so I find a $10 computer in
the wild that would've cost me $50 on eBay, but I spent two hours
finding it at an opportunity cost of $100 of lost wages. By doing
this, I've just shot myself in the foot. Instead of paying $50 for it
on eBay, I've effectively spent $110 for it.
I think your point of opportunity costs is a great one that is missed by
a lot of people in all lines of work, not just ebay. For example, some
things are more common in certain geographical regions than in others.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to spend a small fortune in travel costs
to save a relatively smaller amount of money ... at least if money is
the concern :). Some people knock the ebay prices without knowing the
background or motivation of the buyer. Your post starts to put some
perspective on that!