KEH gives low lowball offer on my Gitzo GT5561SGT

[Corran]

I work a lot at a music store where we buy and sell instruments. We get at least a couple people in a day wanting to sell instruments.

It's interesting to watch peoples' reaction to what we offer. My boss is more than fair (too fair sometimes) with his offers. But even so we get many, many people who get mad or whatever about what we offer. They seem to think that since they paid $xxx it's worth somewhere around 20% less than that. Which is ridiculous, of course, as we have to 1) repair it oftentimes and then 2) sell it for profit.

Anyway, I'm not saying that you or KEH is in the wrong, but I do think it's silly to complain about it.

[John Flavell]

Give Lensfielders.com a call. Maybe they can do you a better deal.

[Jim Galli]

damn capitalists!

[Eric Rose]

Buy low, sell high. Just good business from their perspective.

[Jim Michael]

I think it was someone from Adorama who responded to a complaint about the used offer price given, saying they bid ca. 80% of what they would sell the item for. I thought KEH's model was more like 50% based on something I read a while back. If it were my money being used to buy for resale I would be taking the turnover time for that class of goods into account since the money would be tied up in inventory until sold. I'd rather be dealing in glass, particularly now with all the folks using old stills glass on their video cameras.

[dh003i]

Give Lensfielders.com a call. Maybe they can do you a better deal.

Thanks for the suggestion; that is certainly an alternative. They do consignment only for 25% commission, meaning you take 75% of the proceeds.

Although I feel pretty confident I could do better here or on the bay.

[dh003i]

Sounds like nobody here has to sell merchandise for a living. KEH needs to at least DOUBLE their investment and turn it over in a short period of time to make business work..salaries and commissions come from profit...

It surprises me that they have as much for sale as they do then, given the existence of eBay. If something can't be sold on eBay, what are the odds it can be sold as used equipment elsewhere? Seems slim to me.

Certainly most photographic equipment can be sold on eBay and I'm sure this tripod could be, although being so high-end, it might be a little illiquid vs. the sub-$300 pods.

I guess I'm trying to figure out the value-proposition here to those with used equipment to the sellers of it, given that we have eBay and even sites like this. I don't need the cash and this is hardly an urgent priority or something that needs to be done ASAP, so the time it would take to sell isn't an issue; but if it was, I'd sooner hold onto the equipment for the time it takes to sell it and take out a loan than sell it at the kinds of rates below market price that are being offered.

I guess these guys are buying from people who need money fast and don't have good enough credit for a loan or who just don't want to be bothered with any of the hassle of selling photographic equipment.

[Frank Petronio]

Probably a lot of it come from dead photographers' estates. What else is an ignorant family going to do with it?

[dh003i]

Probably a lot of it come from dead photographers' estates. What else is an ignorant family going to do with it?

This seems like a pretty good explanation. It is probably good that photographers put and update used-market valuations on their equipment in some document that their family knows about, should they bite the dust...

[Frank Petronio]

Keep it in a folder with your photographer's insurance. If you have a tripod like that, a typical homeowner's policy might balk at covering "professional" equipment.