That’s funny, whenever people do that, I just assume they wouldn’t sell without making a profit. And unless it’s immediately valuable to me, I don’t buy.
There is normally a large spread between retail and used price of consumer goods, especially if it’s not a hot commodity with a big resale market. The explanation in the comic is at least plausible; if someone got something as a gift, but they want cash instead, their only option could be to sell it at a significant discount. Same goes if they bought it themselves at some point but need to come up with money quickly.
Exactly. And if for some reason they truly were selling it for less than it was worth (doubt), there’s only two assumptions I’d have:
There is something wrong with it, which is why it’s being discounted.
The product is unappealing, they produced way more than there was demand for, and it should probably be worth even less.
I don’t like approaching economics with the idea of “everything is a scam”, but capitalism makes it so that people charge whatever they think they can get away with. Everyone selling you something is trying to maximize the amount of value they can extract from you, and so there is always some angle being worked. Hence why one must always question what it is they aren’t saying.
That’s funny, whenever people do that, I just assume they wouldn’t sell without making a profit. And unless it’s immediately valuable to me, I don’t buy.
There is normally a large spread between retail and used price of consumer goods, especially if it’s not a hot commodity with a big resale market. The explanation in the comic is at least plausible; if someone got something as a gift, but they want cash instead, their only option could be to sell it at a significant discount. Same goes if they bought it themselves at some point but need to come up with money quickly.
Exactly. And if for some reason they truly were selling it for less than it was worth (doubt), there’s only two assumptions I’d have:
There is something wrong with it, which is why it’s being discounted.
The product is unappealing, they produced way more than there was demand for, and it should probably be worth even less.
I don’t like approaching economics with the idea of “everything is a scam”, but capitalism makes it so that people charge whatever they think they can get away with. Everyone selling you something is trying to maximize the amount of value they can extract from you, and so there is always some angle being worked. Hence why one must always question what it is they aren’t saying.