Price Gouging???

[Dusty Morningwood]

Lots of discussions about the price of this or that or the other thing lately.  By and large, like the girl's gym teacher, we live in a market driven, supply and demand society.  Admittedly COVID and various trade wars sent lots of commodities through the roof.  People are being pilloried for selling many things, guns and ammo, for example, for more than they paid for it.  This got me thinking about where the line is between making a reasonable profit and price gouging?  Being retired, I do lots of wheeling and dealing for walking around money.  Married, dontchaknow.  So where I can, I buy low and sell high.  Or at least higher. 

 

Then there are examples that we can all relate to such as real estate.  If I bought a house last year and suddenly the market got hot, would it be wrong of me to sell it for whatever the market would bear?  My personal experience is when I lived in first Baltimore and then Philadelphia (1999-2007) I purchased houses in kind of sketchy what I call formerly-working-class neighborhoods because that is all I could afford.  But then the housing boom hit and the radius of desirability jumped out to include my neighborhoods.  In both cities, I sold small two BR Row Houses for three times what I paid before the bubble burst, including squeezing a Russian developer for $20K for 900 sq ft of dirt so the rowhouse he was renovating could have a bigger back yard.  I know, I'm awful. But in the case of the house I later bought in Wisconsin, literally right before the bubble burst, I had to sell it for a 20% loss because I had moved.  Lots of supply there and not as much demand.  So, here in SASS World, what kind of lines do we draw on these issues?  If I had, say, a bunch of rifle ammo I bought two years ago and no longer needed, would selling it for a little more than I paid (maybe just recouping cost and shipping), but well below what it's going for now, be considered "gouging?" It's questions like this that drive me to other forums or Gunbroker to sell stuff that I am sure a pard or pardette  on The Wire could use.  Your thoughts? 

[Cypress Sun]

Quote

 

Price gouging occurs when a seller increases the prices of goods, services or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair. Usually, this event occurs after a demand or supply shock. Common examples include price increases of basic necessities after natural disasters. In precise, legal usage, it is the name of a crime that applies in some jurisdictions of the United States during civil emergencies. In less precise usage, it can refer either to prices obtained by practices inconsistent with a competitive free market or to windfall profits. Price gouging may be considered exploitative and unethical. Price gouging became highly prevalent in the news in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic when state price gouging regulations went into effect due to the national emergency. The rise in public discourse was associated with increased shortages related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Since ammo/primers/firearms aren't considered "basic necessities", I guess it really depends on who is setting the standard for the price of any given item. I think it's up to YOU to define if price you want for something is gouging regardless of someone else's definition.

 

I would think that $250.00 per 1,000 primers is gouging if I needed primers, however, if someone offered me the same amount of money for the same amount of primers......I'd sell every primer I have. Does that make it a double standard?

 

Bottom line is, the only person that you have to answer to is yourself. You decide what is gouging and what isn't.

[Doc X]

I just sold a few boxes of excess to me 45 Colt ammo that I purchased several years ago to a new pard getting into the game for exactly what I paid for it back then. Thinned the herd a bit on a pair of pistols and a rifle as well, also at normal prices. I will neither support or participate in jacking up prices. Each individual has to decide for themselves where they stand on this issue. This is my stance, yours is your choice.

[DocWard]

Not again...

[J-BAR #18287]

36 minutes ago, Dusty Morningwood said:

 This got me thinking about where the line is between making a reasonable profit and price gouging?  

 

 

The line is only in the buyer’s mind.  If he thinks the item for sale is priced too high, it doesn’t sell.  A free market economy will always be more efficient than attempts at external control.  Government price fixing screws everyone.

[Capt. James H. Callahan]

17 minutes ago, Doc X said:

I just sold a few boxes of excess to me 45 Colt ammo that I purchased several years ago to a new pard getting into the game for exactly what I paid for it back then. Thinned the herd a bit on a pair of pistols and a rifle as well, also at normal prices. I will neither support or participate in jacking up prices. Each individual has to decide for themselves where they stand on this issue. This is my stance, yours is your choice.

The Spirit of the Game lives!

JHC

 

[Michigan Slim]

If I think your gouging, I will neither buy nor comment on your post. But I will remember you and not do you any favors down the road.

[Dusty Morningwood]

Lots of interesting comments, but the line is still blurred.  I have been giving stuff away on the FREE STUFF thread and have received stuff for free.  These are mostly odds and ends that are hard to sell or put a price on, or simply not worth the trouble of trying to sell. But then there are things like, say, a New in Box Vaquero you bought 10 years ago.  Do you sell it to someone, even on SASS for what you paid?  What they sell for now NIB or somewhere in between?  Would "somewhere in between" be price gouging or simply appreciation?  I am never going to gouge anyone on anything, but things are worth what they are worth.  Somewhere down the line, some folks started to look at the SASS Classifieds as a Rummage Sale.  This, of course, has been discussed before.

[Ozark Huckleberry]

 

ETA: You put a NIB Vaquero on the board for what you paid ten years ago, it’ll be sold in two minutes, you’ll delete the post, and it will show up for resale in a few days at twice the price. 
 

Don’t leave any meat on the bone when you’re pricing your guns for sale. 

[Dusty Morningwood]

7 minutes ago, Ozark Huckleberry said:

 

ETA: You put a NIB Vaquero on the board for what you paid ten years ago, it’ll be sold in two minutes, you’ll delete the post, and it will show up for resale in a few days at twice the price. 
 

Don’t leave any meat on the bone when you’re pricing your guns for sale. 

This is my point, exactly.  Now, I ain't got any NIB Vaqueros, but I am in the process of selling some vintage collectable guns - at what the market will bear and based on recent comps.  Not sure I would go all the way with surplus ammo I no longer need, but...

[Pat Riot]

They’re your guns. List them for what you think is fair…fair to you!

I think I would be a bit put off if I decided to throw my SASS Pards and Pardettes a good deal only to find the “Pard” I gave a good deal to turned around and sold it for a boatload more. Actually, I know I would because it happened to me with some shooting friends of mine years ago, not CAS friends though. I sold some things and later found out they took them to a gun show and sold them at a tidy profit. Had I known that’s how they were I wouldn’t have done a deal with them. 
It all worked out in the end and it was worth it because they weren’t in my life soon after so I am pretty sure I did get the better deal. 
 

If you want to sell your guns for more than you paid but the price is fair I say go ahead. 
 

 

[Cat Brules]

I was digging around out in the garage a couple days ago, and found I have about fifteen forgotten boxes of 12ga., Win AA’s, 7, 71/2, and 8, low noise, low recoil, on a shelf behind a box of “stuff”.  I reckon I got them some time ago, and they just got buried put there.  So,  I continued to buy shot shells as needed, while those languished!   Not likely to run out now.
 

Very recently, the owner of the LGS (local gun store) told me he was   completely out of ammo and shot shells of any caliber, gauge, etc.  Hard to believe, but no reason to fib.

 

Is it now time to start freaking out?  I don’t know.  However, I don’t feel it yet.  
   :-)    
 

Cat Brules

 

[Ozark Huckleberry]

5 hours ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

They’re your guns. List them for what you think is fair…fair to you!

 

. . . 
 

If you want to sell your guns for more than you paid but the price is fair I say go ahead. 
 

 

 

Exactly. 

 

I wasn't criticizing anybody, or casting out some o' them aspersions. I'd even go so far as to say, 'go ahead,' even if the price isn't fair. It ain't my business.

 

Some people want their guns gone quick, and are willing to let 'em go for less than market value to make it happen. That's their business.

 

Some people put a value on their guns not really knowing what the current market value is. A little lookey-see on a site like gunbroker, where you can join the site and look up recently closed auctions to see what people are currently paying for guns takes just a touch of time. It ain't my business, exactly, but it just troubles me to think of a pard getting all down in the mouth and crossways with themselves for finding out they sold a gun for way less than it's worth. Left some meat on the bone, so to speak.

 

Some folks put guns out here on the wire at less than their value with the notion that maybe they'll be putting their guns in the holsters of new cowboy shooters. Kind of a old-pard-helping-a-new-pard idea. It's nice to try to be a pard to a new shooter you've never met, and mighty thoughtful to be willing to give a new shooter a break, what with the cost of guns being what they are. I s'pose the best way to approach that would be for a feller trying to help a new shooter out to network with local clubs to find those cowboys, and actually put their guns in the hands of the new shooters who'll be using them.

 

But here on the wire, unless the seller puts something in like, 'No dealers', or 'Only for sale to CAS numbers over 110000', or some such, guns listed below their market value are more likely to wind up listed on a site that puts them out there for sale to anybody, CAS number or not, and if the new pard wants them, they'll pay the full price anyway.

 

And if a new shooter hangs around the wire hoping for a deal on guns, well -- better be quick.

 

I suppose a feller could help himself by clicking on that 'FOLLOW' button at the top of the classifieds, so new listings are sent to his sassnet email. He could help himself even more by having the new listings sent to an email he doesn't sit on, that will scan the new listings for words like, 'vaquero' and such, and auto-forward those to an email he does monitor.

 

But then he'd also need to be at a job where he sits on the computer most of his day and can immediately respond, even if he's driving along in his car, and maybe even be willing to risk getting pulled over for distracted driving if he jumps in to claim gun someone has put out there for sale.

 

But the bottom line is -- if someone wants to put their guns out on the wire cheap, they have every right to do so. But putting guns out here cheap with the idea they're being a pard to a new shooter or such, well -- like a said, it's mighty thoughtful.

[irish ike, SASS #43615]

The market of supply and demand drives prices. If you bought a house for $250K and can now sell it for $1 million you would, wouldn't you?

If a thousand cases of 45 brass sold for $200 8 years ago and you can now sell it for $350 why wouldn't you? If you don't someone else will.

[Dusty Boots]

It is not price gouging if someone thinks it’s a fair price...and buys it.

[Cholla]

If I’m selling something it’s to make room or fund a new project. If it’s for a new project I need every penny I can get to make it happen. With prices elevated as they are I am going to treat it like fuel. I’m not going to sell diesel for what it sold for back in 1994 to fund buying gasoline today. And ammunition is as close to fuel as it can get. The projectile machine won’t go bang or pop without it. We have gas stations out here that are way off the main drag with gas 25 cents to a dollar higher than those in town. Yes, I try to buy my gas at Safeway but if I run low out in the boondocks I am dang glad I can buy the high priced fuel and not push the Jeep home. 
I don’t get some of the folks on here. What happened to following what your momma said? If you can’t say something nice, don’t say it at all. If you feel something is overpriced it will sit there until the price comes down.