I have noticed that since I have been reading the forum, several posters have offered second hand guns for sale which are not much, if any, cheaper, than you could buy new. Perhaps they like to drive a hard bargain, or perhaps they have unrealistic expectations of what their item is worth. i also notice that some posters are good at pointing this out. Oh well, caveat emptor.
Are there any real bargains to be had in classifieds?
- Thread starter Beethoven
- Start date
- Oct 20, 2012
- 5,111
- 1,688
Yep, that's the way it tends to go. We have a thread dedicated to it: http://www.airsoft-forums.co.uk/index.php/topic/26578-macks-airsoft-dreamers-of-the-week-thread/
Most of the real steals are on gear and accessories. It can be a bit of a roll of the dice on buying second hand guns.
Most of the real steals are on gear and accessories. It can be a bit of a roll of the dice on buying second hand guns.
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TheFull9
Supporters
- Dec 17, 2011
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'Worth' is just about the most subjective thing in the world. But classified ads vary massively, as with anything. Different forums have different sorts of folks, similar things with facebook groups, varies by item type as mentioned etc.
IMHO some people too often expect, heck demand, things be insanely and unjustifiably cheap just because it's 2nd hand which apparently means it's now nigh-on worthless; then throw their teddies out if a seller does anything different.. as if choosing to just not buy the item isn't always an option. That said, yes there are a few (generally quite young) who don't quite understand the market and do try to sell low quality goods for sometimes more than they cost originally despite said goods being used and/or messed about with. But I think if anything the thread linked shows that's the small minority of cases, not the other way around. Where this often gets messy is when people have 'upgraded' a gun, which is a misnomer because most aftermarket parts are no better than stock parts, so don't do anything to the value of your gun. If you've changed a gun around at all (inside or out) it's generally best to just keep it. Alternatively if you've got some high-value externals bolted on to something, replace them with the stock parts then sell the gun and sell those accessories seperately.
I've not really looked at the RIF section on here, but I know on Arnies you'll see guns advertised initially for a good bit less than RRP, then sellers will incrementally drop prices over time. Since there generally isn't that great of a demand for 2nd hand RIFs (certainly not at the mid to high range prices), the eventual selling price will often end up being very low after many of said incremental price drops. My personal take is that if someone's selling something that's literally in the same new condition as they got it from the shop, but they're only asking say £10 less than RRP and it's an item I'm interested in, then that to me is a great opportunity to make a saving and I'll take it. Generally the done thing is to look at the price asked and if you're interested, come in with an offer maybe slightly under what's being asked and most folks will go with that. I know when I'm selling I'm always open to negotiate a little as long as it's reasonable. Obviously what you're offering needs to be proportional however; £15 less on a £250 gun is fine but £15 less on a £30 shirt is being a bit ridiculous.
Coming up with values for stuff (unless it's simply in never been used condition) is a bit of a dark art end of the day, because this isn't bargain hunt and there's no expert to figure it out for you. You have to look at what you paid, current retail price, condition of the item, market demand and various other factors. I know I've misjudged and gone the wrong way in both directions before now. I'll tend to make a fair estimate range, then initially advertise at the upper end of said range as quite often I've gone too low and missed out; you'll know when this happens as you'll get multiple messages from folks asking to buy at your first advertised price right away with no haggling.
My personal peeve is "What's your best price on this?", because I've already posted the price that I'm after, if I had a better price in mind I would've posted that. If you want to come to me with a reasonable offer on something I'll quite probably say yes in order to get the item sold, but maybe do a little back-and-forth depending on the conditions at hand.
The fact with classifieds is you can save money by investing time in searching, but you need to do a lot of searching to find exactly what you're after and that can and will take lots of time generally. You need to be on all the forums, any facebook groups and trawling ebay for gear on a pretty much daily basis sometimes. I know I have certain ebay searches bookmarked as I'm doing them daily trying to hunt down rare items that very rarely come up for sale in my size and at a price I can afford, so being able to get the results in one click is just incredibly handy.
IMHO some people too often expect, heck demand, things be insanely and unjustifiably cheap just because it's 2nd hand which apparently means it's now nigh-on worthless; then throw their teddies out if a seller does anything different.. as if choosing to just not buy the item isn't always an option. That said, yes there are a few (generally quite young) who don't quite understand the market and do try to sell low quality goods for sometimes more than they cost originally despite said goods being used and/or messed about with. But I think if anything the thread linked shows that's the small minority of cases, not the other way around. Where this often gets messy is when people have 'upgraded' a gun, which is a misnomer because most aftermarket parts are no better than stock parts, so don't do anything to the value of your gun. If you've changed a gun around at all (inside or out) it's generally best to just keep it. Alternatively if you've got some high-value externals bolted on to something, replace them with the stock parts then sell the gun and sell those accessories seperately.
I've not really looked at the RIF section on here, but I know on Arnies you'll see guns advertised initially for a good bit less than RRP, then sellers will incrementally drop prices over time. Since there generally isn't that great of a demand for 2nd hand RIFs (certainly not at the mid to high range prices), the eventual selling price will often end up being very low after many of said incremental price drops. My personal take is that if someone's selling something that's literally in the same new condition as they got it from the shop, but they're only asking say £10 less than RRP and it's an item I'm interested in, then that to me is a great opportunity to make a saving and I'll take it. Generally the done thing is to look at the price asked and if you're interested, come in with an offer maybe slightly under what's being asked and most folks will go with that. I know when I'm selling I'm always open to negotiate a little as long as it's reasonable. Obviously what you're offering needs to be proportional however; £15 less on a £250 gun is fine but £15 less on a £30 shirt is being a bit ridiculous.
Coming up with values for stuff (unless it's simply in never been used condition) is a bit of a dark art end of the day, because this isn't bargain hunt and there's no expert to figure it out for you. You have to look at what you paid, current retail price, condition of the item, market demand and various other factors. I know I've misjudged and gone the wrong way in both directions before now. I'll tend to make a fair estimate range, then initially advertise at the upper end of said range as quite often I've gone too low and missed out; you'll know when this happens as you'll get multiple messages from folks asking to buy at your first advertised price right away with no haggling.
My personal peeve is "What's your best price on this?", because I've already posted the price that I'm after, if I had a better price in mind I would've posted that. If you want to come to me with a reasonable offer on something I'll quite probably say yes in order to get the item sold, but maybe do a little back-and-forth depending on the conditions at hand.
The fact with classifieds is you can save money by investing time in searching, but you need to do a lot of searching to find exactly what you're after and that can and will take lots of time generally. You need to be on all the forums, any facebook groups and trawling ebay for gear on a pretty much daily basis sometimes. I know I have certain ebay searches bookmarked as I'm doing them daily trying to hunt down rare items that very rarely come up for sale in my size and at a price I can afford, so being able to get the results in one click is just incredibly handy.
SeniorSpaz87
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- May 24, 2014
- 1,786
- 873
My favorite - I sent an offer to a guy on Ebay - he countered me by raising his original price by 75p. Ahh randoms, you always amaze me
Roundel91
Members
- Sep 25, 2016
- 177
- 2
I just bought a 2 tone G&G CM raider CQB from a bloke on the classifieds for £117 including the postage. Ill also say that was without any haggling.
That included 3 mags (admittedly one thrown in for free), battery, charger and some rail covers.
If i was buying brand new that lot would have cost me well in excess of £200.
For someone starting out i dont thibk thats bad atall.
That included 3 mags (admittedly one thrown in for free), battery, charger and some rail covers.
If i was buying brand new that lot would have cost me well in excess of £200.
For someone starting out i dont thibk thats bad atall.
Roundel91
Members
- Sep 25, 2016
- 177
- 2
I find this hugely annoying as well. Its almost as if the person is saying "i cant be arsed to haggle so will you let it go for loads less than the asking price?" If im selling something and you want to make an offer lower than the listed price then just make one. The seller can only say no.
Anyone doing the "whats the lowest ammount you'll take" line gets ignored.
Manners are also a big thing for me. Just because im selling something doesnt mean you have the right to talk to them like crap because they wont sell you something for rediculous money isn't going to work.
In actual fact if your a decent person you might find theyd be more willing to knock a few bob off...
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- Oct 20, 2012
- 5,111
- 1,688
Yup. Standard response to "what's the lowest you'll go?" has been "what's the highest you'll go?" for a while. Tends to work quite well.
To address the OP again though: I think there's a significant batch of people who're posting here secondarily to Facebook, and as such as see a lot of the lazy practices in questionable pricing that arises on there semi-frequently.
To address the OP again though: I think there's a significant batch of people who're posting here secondarily to Facebook, and as such as see a lot of the lazy practices in questionable pricing that arises on there semi-frequently.
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Samurai
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- Mar 7, 2014
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TheFull9
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- Dec 17, 2011
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Are they actually any big, active airsoft sales groups left on FB? The largest one I was in has literally vanished completely (about 10k members, run by someone from Ambush Adventures I think). UK Airsoft Community is still there and you can sell kit, but they've removed the actual FB sales functionality from the group which makes it far worse for any sort of classifieds usage. It all went from being busy as hell to completely collapsing overnight when the RIF sale ban came in. General traffic on them seemed to go down a fair bit too.
jcheeseright
Supporters
- Jun 14, 2012
- 4,280
- 2,261
None that allow the sale of guns, plenty of gear sales groups but you're already on most of those!
TheFull9
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- Dec 17, 2011
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Well that's what I was meaning to be honest. There are the high-end gear sales groups, but the ones that used to cater to RIF sales used to also cover any other more basic kit. Mesh masks, simple replica accessories, cheaper uniforms and gear etc. There's always going to be a big market in people trading airsoft kit, so it seems weird they just fizzled to nothing so quickly. Though one can't help but feel some admins removed the sales features (even though folks could still sell anything that's not a RIF) to ensure their empires didn't get shut down. Not saying all, but there are a few little internet dictators out there and the ability for absolutely anyone to make a group on FB did bring a few of them to the surface.
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karl_liverpool
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- Sep 10, 2016
- 129
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Facebook recently banned rif and all firearm sales and added it to the terms and conditions.
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