I enjoy checking out AR auctions on ebay, gunbroker, and auction arms but get so pissed when I see dealers like Cheaper that dirt waste my time.  Like 3/4 if all the auctions are businesses that have a high reserve and ridiculous shipping.  

Does this piss off anyone else or what?  I mean I know ebay allows businesses to use their service and I realize that its prolly a good deal for Cheaper than dirt, but don't waste our time.  Most likely anyone who is into ARs prolly knows about Cheaper than dirt already. Since their auctions have a reserve about as high as their normal prices anyway then all their doing is getting some cheap advertising.

It seems everything on the gun specific auction sites are from a small handful of dealers who just keep putting up the same shit.  Nobody seems to ever sell anything, yet they refuse to let it go for less so its just a never-ending cycle with the same stuff coming up again and again.

Worst of all is the damn "KLINTON WANTS YOUR MAGS!!!!"   auctions.  There are always a hundred of these spread out all over the place so you have to try to tune them out, and they never have any bids anyway.
[:(!]

What a joke, thanks for listening to me bitch.

I watch the auctions alot and have gotten some really good buys on mags. About a month ago found 11 20rd. mags in 4 different lots by same seller. Buy price was $10.00ea. They were like 40-60%. When they emailed me they give total price as $160.00. Emailed them back and said the price wasn't right but if they made a mistake and sold them to cheap I would back out as I didn't need them. She said that she mixed me up with someone else and for being a good sport she would see if they had a couple extras. When they arrived I had 14, all Adventureline and Colt for $115.00. If it is a dealer with new or has a reserve I won't even look at it. I figure if you want to sell something you put in the least you will take and go from there.

You are dead on with some of these guys. Same old stuff at a ridiculously high $.

I will bid on some of these things, reserve/starting price or not for what I think the current 'going' price is. I don't care if they take the bid or not. I figure eventually it will sink in, or they can continue to pay the listing fees every two weeks they try to sell the same overpriced thing.

I have had the strategy work, I've gotten e-mails, done a little polite "trading" and gotten a few things I really wanted at a mutual price. Otherwise I don't mind wasting the time and it costs me nothing. :-)

It was definitely easier to get a good deal a year or two ago. Up until about a year ago I had gotten plenty of good stuff off the auction sites at really good prices but lately its been difficult. I hardly even go anymore and when I do find something I want/need and place a bid I know I'll be outbid by someone willing to pay more than somethings worth. I know we've all seen things sell for more than they originally cost new. If I wanted to pay $400 for a Romanian SAR-2 (after all these have just been banned from further importation, and they only imported limited numbers of these things, like only 20 million of them) I'm sure I can find a local gun shop willing to rip me off.

I also find the Cheaper Than Dirt ads annoying as heck.
What really bugs me, though, is when somebody is advertising something as [b]NO RESERVE!!![/b] and then starts the bidding at retail.

The auction sites are definitely a lot more cluttered than they were even a year ago. You can still get the occasional good deal but you have to wade through more crap to find it. I have a lot more to choose from though than I would just shopping locally and I get to see things for sale that I wouldn’t otherwise. I do kind of wish they had a “JUNK” department for the USA mags and all that kind of stuff so I didn’t have to search through pages of useless items. It just takes a lot of time.

Cheaper Than Dirt has a lot of auctions on eBay now. Their reserve is the same price as an outright purchase on their site.

I just bought a holster from them, 15 bucks and change. The damn shipping was almost $8.00.
That might be my last purchase from them.

The online auctions are pretty much the same as gunshows.  There's deals to be had, but there's alot of junk to wade through as well.  The best thing is to know what you want, know what to pay, and now when not to bother.  

Ross

That Damn reserve thing really trips my trigger.  If someone wants at least $20 for something, start the bidding at $20, don't start it at $1.  If I see that it has a reserve on something that I want I won't even bid.

That guy with the "Klinton wants your mags" makes me wonder if he is still back in the 90's or what.[beer]

Delton is another outfit that lives on eBay.

I used to haunt the acutions regularly, bought a bunch of stuff and sold a few things too.  But now I only go there long enough to get pissed - the trips are getting shorter and shorter, not to mention more infrequent.

What gets me is these guys who list thier retail inventory and the starting bid is always at or above retail.  They are the ones who are cluttering up the auciton boards to badly and say stupid things like "Klinton Wants These mags."   The auctions aren't ment to be cheesy classified listings, but that's what they've become.

The reserve doesn't bother me as much - can you imagine listing a pre-ban Colt AR and just having to hope that the bidding doesn't stop at $100.00 for some strange reason?

I have some pretty good auctions.  All of them start at $.99 and there is no reserve.  You set your price.  Here is a link to one of them.

[url]http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1144932993[/url]

Click on "view sellers other auctions" to see the rest.

But guys, it's the "new economy" where the old rules of supply and demand are out the window.  On the Internet, like at gun shows, you have to have a 50-100% markup.