Hundreds upon Hundreds of Ebay Scalpers

[kovey]

I'm "selling" a pre-order for a price I don't expect to get to make the fiancee happy as she thinks I pre-ordered only to make money. I have no intentions of selling it, which is why I listed it so high. So when it doesn't sell, I'll say "oh well, gotta keep it now!".

I know you're somewhat kidding, but this is a deceptive way to spend money. You two should agree that you're allowed to buy a luxury/fun item if you can afford to do so. If the money is coming out of what should be going towards eating or housing, then you've got an issue.

 

[bunnicula]

I'm "selling" a pre-order for a price I don't expect to get to make the fiancee happy as she thinks I pre-ordered only to make money. I have no intentions of selling it, which is why I listed it so high. So when it doesn't sell, I'll say "oh well, gotta keep it now!".

Why wouldn't she be okay with you just buying a watch?

 

[matrix07]

I was curious about how many people may have pre-ordered the Apple Watch to scalp so I checked Ebay.

I was astonished to find that there are hundreds upon hundreds of listings for watches that people have preordered within the first couple of minutes that the preorders went live.

Given that it appears that there was a very limited quantity available for initial pre-orders, if it turns out that there isn't nearly as many people wanting to purchase the watch for themselves (compared to scalpers) and the eBay listings go unpurchased, then we may actually see a significant number of watches available in stores as scalpers come back to return watches that they can't sell.

Similar things have been noticed with previous iPhone and iPad releases where scalpers purchased tons to try to resell and then lack of interest in overpaying resulted in tons of returns.

Given that this is a new product launch and there is very limited quantity, people may purchase from eBay. Who knows what will happen but it is interesting. Personally, I wonder if the number of scalpers is like 50% of total pre-orders.

1200 to be exact.

 

[macguy360]

Just watched a 42mm SS w/ Link & AC+ sell for $1400 on eBay with 2 bids. With those numbers, the scalpers aren't having much success at this point. The cost of the Watch with AppleCare+ and taxes would be around $1130, then if you add whatever eBays cut is into the equation... they barely made anything for the effort.

Yeah, doesn't Ebay and paypal take about 10% after all is said and done? So from $1400 your looking at $1260. So $1260-$1130 = $130. Then include the fact that the seller has to ship with insurance included to cover the $1200 watch, which should be about $30 for expedited shipping (after all, who is going to buy a $1400 watch from an eBay seller and be happy with 3-5 day ground shipping).

So potential profit of about $100 give or take $50 after all is said and done. Sounds like a big waste of time if you ask me.

 

[twisted-pixel]

another point, the people with watches on ebay haven't even paid for them yet...so if I 'win' an auction and have to pay within a couple of days, that person has has my money, before they even have to pay for the watch.

I wonder how many of those listings are where the person doesn't even have the money to buy the watch and is hoping to make $100 without even having to outlay any of their own money.

Either way, I hope they get stuck with them and are unable to make any profit at all