Ranting...
Jeremy Winterberg
Registered Users Posts: 1,233 Major grins
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Jer
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Jeremy Winterberg
Registered Users Posts: 1,233 Major grins
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You were expecting to get 80% in trade-in value? Were you planning to take Uncle Vinnie and Fingers with you?
Seriously, trading equipment to places like Adorama and B&H is typically no different than dumping the stuff at a pawn shop. Plan ahead and sell the gear yourself and you'll be thankful later. There's no sense in storming off from a good photo store just because they're acting like a photo store.
Right!
If you want a good deal from a photo store for your old stuff, best to negotiate while buying the new - just like trading your old car. They can sweeten the deal by giving up some of their margin on the new product, maybe more margin even than doing a deal for cash because it does not show up in the books transparently or, it seems, to the average customer. Best prices likely at the beginning or end of the month when they may be worried about their turnover targets.
A photo store does not want second hand stuff. They trade in it because they have to if they want to make new sales and keep customers.
Or did you already hack the margin by doing a deal for cash and then pressuring them to buy your second hand stuff later. If so you can count yourself lucky they took it off your hands.
Why did you not walk away from the deal? That's not their fault.
DSLRs depreciate faster than GM cars these days. Non-pro level lenses don't hold their "retail" value all that well either.
I wouldn't know why you didn't deal the gear privately via the popular channels, but in essence you are paying a third party to cover those administrative costs and then net some profit. What were you thinking?
M
You might want to check out this thread
Adorama has always been consistent... 70% of market value for used Canon, Nikon, Leica, and other high end brand gear since they have operating costs and have to find an owner for your gear.
As a rough estimate, think about what you can sell it for on Craigslist, and you get about 70% of that. I did a quick look around my local craiglists, a like-new condition, gripped xsi with a lens is selling about $500 (I think 70% is around $350). Pro-level gear (like L lenses) tends to hold value fairly well... non-pro level gear quickly depreciates.
I don't know the exact condition of your gear, but I think Adorama paid you in the ball park of their stated policy if they paid you $430.
edited. fixed typos.
Adorama is a top notch outfit in my book.
LongStreet Photography
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If you don't like their price, try somewhere else, or sell it yourself on Craigslist, ebay, or via your local newspaper. My limited experience is that it is pretty easy to sell photographic stuff via Craigslist or ebay, but then again, I look at other sales to decide what price I will accept. What it "worth" is what people will pay for it, nothing more.
<table id="dgItems" border="1" bordercolor="#a29e94" cellspacing="0" rules="all" width="600"><tbody><tr class="gradeTitle" align="Center" bgcolor="#3e6493"><td>Quantity</td><td>Model</td><td>Description</td><td>Grade</td><td>Estimated Value</td><td>Remove</td> </tr><tr> <td class="copy" align="Center">1</td><td class="copyGrid">CANON DIGITAL</td><td class="copyGrid">REBEL XSI BLACK 12 MEGAPIXEL WITH 18-55 F3.5-5.6 IS WITH CABLES, CD, BATTERY & CHARGER (SD CARD )</td><td align="Center" width="50"> EX </td><td class="copy" align="Right">$335.00</td></tr></tbody></table>
So, it sounds like Adorama is pretty much on target for a retail-store trade-in. If you didn't like their offer, fair enough, but why didn't you walk away from the deal and sell privately if you needed to make more money out of your old gear? I don't think the store did anything "wrong" here...
I also think that many people may have been offended that you gave Adorama, a company generally considered as no less than stellar, a bad review for something that that should be expected.
I'm sorry for your disappointing camera sale. I hope this thread doesn't affect how you see our community. I find it a very friendly place, but you have to approach it willing to learn also. I think asking "why" you didn't get what you were expecting versus ranting about Adorama would have been a much more appropriate way to go and would have garnered more positive responses.
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[Yashica Lynx 14E | Canon 30D | Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 | 540ez | Cactus V4s]
Sorry everyone here did not come to your support, but they have been through the same experience with used gear. Private party sales are the best but do not always happen at your convenience.
Sorry one of life's lesson learned.
http://kadvantage.smugmug.com/
I do not believe they can sell used gear for 90% of retail, no matter what the condition. I have purchased some used Nikon top end lenses and if I had to pay 90% of retail, I would buy retail, just to get the warranty
I believe you expectation may be a little high - another Adorama fan.
You know, when you buy or sell a car, KBB is only sort of useful. If it says your car is worth 5,000, but nobody wants to buy it for that, is KBB correct? I'd say no. If nobody bought your gear after three months, then you overvalued your equipment. So I think you probably expected way to much for the trade in.
Did you try to sell the lenses for 70 to 80 on your own?
I think if you ranted about something thats more reasonable, you might get more people to rant with you.
Don't look now but I think Adorama hacked DG and deleted all your WTS threads... unless they were never there, of course.
That type of thing offends people and I personally don't think it's good practice to try and drive business away from a company that held up to their end of the deal. You are the one that didn't back out...Adorama didn't refuse to give you your stuff back or anything.
I bought a nice lens from them and it was cheaper than buying locally here in Alaska...and that included shipping. Top notch company.
One thing I have learned here on dgrin. People are generally helpful and nice (there are a few bad apples everywhere). I love this place and find that how you approach a subject will greatly affect what kind of replies you get. Piss people off here and they WILL put you in your place quickly.
<Insert some profound quote here to try and seem like a deep thinker>
Michael Wachel Photography
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The key to your whole dilemma is here:
Didn't that give you a clue? What that means, simply, is that you expected too much money. All of the market information was telling you the same thing, and instead of recognizing it, you went public attacking Adorama, which is one of the most reputable firms in the business.
I'll make this concrete. I am lusting after a Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro, so once in awhile, I look to see what people are trying to sell them for. The few I have found have been posted at nearly 90% of retail. Why would I buy for 90% of retail a lens that is not guaranteed and the treatment of which I cannot know, when for that extra 10% more I can buy it, untouched and fully guaranteed, from a reputable dealer such as Adorama or B&H? I won't.
Last spring I sold my XTi (absolutely mint condition) directly, no middleman, and counted myself luck to get about 2/3 of what I had paid, after throwing in a few extras. That's the most the market would support.
In the future, if you want to save yourself this headache, track sales of similar equipment on ebay for a few weeks first, keeping in mind that people have a tendency to overpay on ebay, so you will probably get less if you sell locally.
His selling thread is here:
http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=136703
Looks like it's in good condition, but you were trying to sell used equipment at the full new price and you never decreased the price.
When presented with the offer from Adorama, why didn't you try selling it here for $100-200 more than their offer?
XSi body only, new and guaranteed, free shipping, B&H: $569.95
I think the OP is right: time to terminate this thread. Back to work.
Has this been your first time trying to sell something? If so, take this as a lesson to be learned to check out how your gear stands in the current market, not for how much you paid for it. If someone could buy a $500 camera that is almost in the same condition as yours, for example, which might be more expensive, you can bet they will go for the $500 camera.
Selling anything requires attentiveness towards market trends.
It depends on what is being ranted upon where you will find like minded agreements or disagreements.
www.tednghiem.com
- The XSi is not the most recent consumer camera to be released by Canon. Consumer level cameras tend to fall of in market value quite quickly. MSRP on this camera is $750. Since the advent of the T1i, the market on this, if you were doing a private sale and if you're lucky, would be 50% of this. Adorama actually has an XTi, condition E, body only for $309 - this addresses your statement that Adorama will be attempting to sell your XTi for 90% of $750 or $675). Take out required profit and you get something in the range of 20% to 30% (call it 30% - $225).
- The battery grip (BG-E3) of the XTi is listed (new) on B&H for $135. Since this will fit only the XTi and the XT, market for this, especially used, will be quite small. Call it 50% and count your blessings ($70)
- You say you had three lenses that you sold and that they were $100+ per lens ---> that means these were consumer grade lenses. Consumer grade glass does not retain value well on re-sale. So Adorama looked at the glass, figured what they thought they could sell it for and discounted that back to you to cover their needed profit. If one assumes that Adorama is a reputable business (and they are) and that they know their market (and I'm sure they do as they've been in the business a long time), one would have to assume that they have a good idea of what these lenses are worth.
So, given the product being sold and the market conditions as they are, I'm thinking that Adorama quoted you a fair price. Then, when you protested, they increased the quote (thus cutting into their margin) by almost 8%.Finally, DGrin is a nice community filled with warm and caring people. What I and others have been attempting to do is provide a quick and as pain-free as possible education in market economics, also known as "supply and demand". In your particular case, there's not much demand for the XTi (regardless of the fact that it's in nearly mint condition) or for used consumer grade glass. Minimal demand is reflected back as low pricing.
Hind-sight being 20-20, you might have gotten a better price had you sold each piece seperately in the forums .... at the cost of time and convienence.
Note: all this was written while others were posting so I didn't know at the time of writing which lenes you were selling and this isn't worth the effort to go back and re-work the analysis using that new information. The points I made are still valid even taking that into consideration.
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There's some one trying to get $800 out of one on another forum. I politely guided them to POTN and said sorry about your luck in a very nice way. I'm amazed that the 5D II is still selling for what it is, but given that it's still showing as back ordered at B&H, the shortage is probably causing the demand.
Not to detract from this site at all, but if you're selling Canon gear, sell one POTN. That's http://www.photography-on-the.net
It's a ginormous Canon DSLR forum. I've sold things on there that have been listed for less than a day before they went. What ever the 5D MKII kit lens was and a 70-200 f/2.8L IS. I got hits on the 5D kit within an hour of posting it.
It's also a great resource for finding average current market value on equipment.
I'm assuming that you priced your things at a reasonable market value though.
Correct, but a quick search of XSI in the for sale section would have pulled up a long list of currently and previous sellers and their prices.
Jeremy
I am sorry that you were disappointed with the valuation you were given.
We do sometimes get it wrong, but the staff team in the used department are usually quite accurate when valuing equipment.
Actually, we generally work on a figure of 70% of the figure we believe an item will realize when we put it up for resale, rather than 80%. That covers our staffing and advertising costs, plus building and overheads in Manhattan! We also pay for the shipping and insurance when a customer sends an item in for valuation, plus return shipping and insurance if the customer is unhappy with the sum we offer.
On top of that, the boss expects us to turn a profit!
I hope this helps, but if you ever have a query or concern regarding an order from Adorama - or AdoramaPix - please don't hesitate to contact me directly.
Adorama Camera Customer Service Ambassador
http://twitter.com/HelenOster
Helen@adorama.com
www.adorama.com
So, instead of taking the offer, feeling sorry for myself, and ranting about it as if it was their fault on DGrin, I decided not to sell it to them. I went to ebay, checked out the completed auctions for this lens, and found them going used for around $550. I posted an ad in the for sale forums here, and waited. It took a little over a week, but someone finally contacted me and offered $500. I countered with $525 knowing that I'd still be getting roughly the same amount as if I had ebayed it and had to pay auction fees. He agreed, and bought the lens.
Now, it was totally up to me to take the lower price from adorama, or put the effort into selling it myself. I could have even told that guy to take a hike and waited around for someone to pay $550 if I wanted to. The point is that I agreed to sell it for $525 and I bear 100% of the responsibility for that. The same is true for the OP, who agreed to sell his gear for $430.
http://blog.timkphotography.com
:deadhorse
yes, I unsubscribed after my "delete this thread I'm an idiot" post.
Helen, I just have one question. I asked if he could list how much they were giving me for each item, and he refused. He said that they do not sell stuff individually, and that you try to sell it as one big package. I thought this was a little odd and suspicious, because... If you were truely giving an accurate quote value for each item, you would have a list of what each comes with - how much its worth, and a total quote at the bottom. Correct? Please tell me why he couldn't tell me what I was getting for each item?
I'm very impressed that someone from Adorama took the time to come on to this thread to try to explain their position, even though you were the only person who felt it was an unfair deal.
I'll be sending Adorama more business in the future because of it.
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