Why do you think some online sellers offer bargains that are too good to be true? Are there really some saints out there, or do they all just not have a clue? I ordered a dirt cheap copy of an out-of-print card deck. Maybe there’s some wealthy people out there who like to throw a bone to the rest of us every now and then for entertainment.
Not everyone knows the market value of everything. And not everyone bothers to research - maybe out of laziness, maybe out of indifference, maybe because of the desire to get rid of a lot of extraneous stuff as quickly as possible.
I know I’ve given away a lot of things and some might have been rare and valuable, but I just wanted them gone. And in the end, something is worth exactly what someone else is willing to pay you for it.
Another thing to consider - when you order online, you don’t actually see and touch the item you’re buying till it’s delivered, and until then, you really don’t know what you bought, do you?
Depends what market you’re talking about. Some offers from online sellers seem too good to be true because they’re not true - they exist for no other reason than to take your money and run, or - less commonly - to pass off counterfeit goods as the real thing.
Search for a few random tech gadgets and you’re very likely to find that the cheapest Google Shopping result is from a seller with a name like 1StarSellerShop or SuperBuy1Store - which, when you follow the link, goes to a cookie-cutter ecommerce website with no proper contact details that is probably just a pure scam.
Most of the really good deals I have gotten were on not-the-latest models, or the seller was dropping the product and disposing of leftover inventory.
Tech gadgets are almost as perishable as bananas. A store with an inventory that is not moving well may dump them at cost, rather than be stuck with them when they go out of fashion.
and there is of course always fencing stolen goods.
Also on eBay it’s easy to miscalculate how much you should sell an item for, by the time you take into account shipping, eBay fees, and PayPal fees it’s hard to compete with other sellers and make a profit.
Also the seller could be selling items at cost just to get rid of them or entice you into buying his other items.
When I sell something that I don’t know the value of, I check on amazon, half.com, ebay, google shopping, etc. to get a baseline. Some people do not.
I have had experiences where I bought things worth 3x more than I paid for them. I just resold them (I am a useless middle man but meh).
But a lot of times, at least with electronics, if the deal is too good to be true then there is probably something wrong with it.
Years ago, my ex-wife’s uncle ran a successful little business-he sold personal care stuff (soap, shampoo, toothpaste) by mail. He advertised in local magazines, and shipped by S Mail. His custopmers were mainly in rural areas, in places not served by big retail chains.
The same may be true of on-line sellers-if you live in the wilds of Wyoming, it might be a lot easier to buy stuff online.
A while ago I tried to order a grey market camera at what seemed like a bargain price, figuring I could do without the warranty, 32MB memory card, and AA batteries. I ordered online and a day later saw my order status was “Pending, manual intervention requires”. A salesman called me putting a lot of pressure on me to order the retail kit at a price higher than some of the competators. I told him to f— off and cancel the order. I looked online and saw dozens of reports of that company doing that to people.
Sometimes you can get a deal when something scared buyers away. I got a Hornby Harry Potter train set for the minimum bid price. It’s considered to be better made than the US sets and being the UK edition is more unique in the US. I don’t know if people weren’t searching under “hornby” or if the thought never occured to them they could make it work with a $15voltage converter. I may even have a wall wart in my box that would work.
I received the goods as promised from an Amazon third-party seller, and I believe the seller thought the Amazon “will usually ship in 2 to 3 weeks” line was for real, so he thought it was actually selling on Amazon for about $10, although it’s really worth over $100 now because it’s out of print. But it would be nice to think that there’s “internet fairies”, wealthy people who like to randomly share their wealth to make someone happy. 