ebay vs loot

I've put a few things on Loot and not had any response. Apparently things go quite quickly on ebay.

I advertised in Hi Fi World magazine and got a very good response, selling my last item for very nearly the asking price.

I believe Loot shot themselves in the foot last year by certain changes they made in the pricing structure. Prior to the changes a potential buyer needed to purchase an 'early-bird' token to view the contact details for any item less than 4 days old. Following the changes it is now impossible to view even the full item description without buying the token and the time limit has been extended to 7 days.

As a result, I think Loot has become less attractive to buyers and by extension to sellers as well. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems there is far less Naim items advertised on Loot than prior to the changes. I no longer even bother to look on Loot. PFM would be a good place to advertise. It costs nothing and gets regular attention from the Naim user community.

David

"Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours." :Carl Sagan

Buy from Loot. Sell on eBay.

Steve Margolis
defy convention - make music

Ebay is good for selling: Have you got a digital camera. Gear sells better with a picture.
The completed items search should give you an idea of which models have fetched what recently.

HiFiForSale also well worth it as is Pink Fish.

Loot: absolutely lost the plot. As per above thread, people have to pay just to see your advert ! I tried it once, it took ages just for the advert to appear and I had no calls.

All good food for thought.

Thanks everyone.

Nick

One of the other things I've found looking with Loot is that a lot of the adverts are predominantly London or SE based.

Whereas you'll find that eBay tends to be UK wide advertisments.

Shame you weren't selling the 140 a few months ago, as I'd probably have taken it off you then

Roy.

I think Naim ought to start up a free ad service for Naim kit for sale and wanted like Tag have got!

Simon,
We've all been down that road before (some of us several times!) - the powers that be in Salisbury just won't consider it, mainly I think because they perceive it as undermining the dealers. But then again I think we're better off with a site like PinkFish anyway, because it's multi-make

David

In fairness loot started in London so is probably better known.

I would never use it though, I have had better sucess selling stuff on the tescos free board!

I have bought and sold Naim sucessfully on Loot, although some time ago before the early bird business started.

E-Bay I think is good for transacting postal deals, - I would always want to see the goods in person if spending multi £'00s on gear.

Try pfm ?

DS

ITC - BBE - Flash remixes

I have bought and sold equipment on eBay and always been very happy with all the deals.

There do seem to be scams going though - I would never buy any equipment if there was no picture of the actual item, if the description was lifted from somewhere else on the web or if the seller made wild claims like 'Hi End' or 'Top of the Range' for something that wasn't.

Several of my deals have been local so I have been able to meet the seller or purchaser. In all cases they have been totally OK people to deal with, enthusiasts like myself who don't want to be ripped off.

JB

I have purchased from both Ebay and Hififorsale - good results

Mike

quote:

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Originally posted by David Stewart:
I think Loot has become less attractive to buyers and by extension to sellers as well.

I no longer even bother to look on Loot.

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Likewise here. I think Loot has become more greedy. Go Ebay - I've had some fantastic buys in the past year.

Another drawback with Loot is people responding to adverts and wanting to make really silly offers, like 50% of the asking price. These time-wasters obviously aren't an issue on eBay. I bought my CDP off Loot and got a good deal, so it can be good for buyers, but that too was before the 'early-bird ' thing got out of control. Trouble is, to be succesful Loot needs to work for buyers and sellers alike - I really don't think it does any longer.

David