mumbai

These have been (re)listed multiple times over the recent past. I don't think there have been any takers, but I never went back to check.

As I noted above, I accept that this conversation at this point contributes nothing to its original intended purpose in service to the greater thread. That statement makes absolutely no sense. No need, as it wasn't even the original point of my replies. I see no reason to continue trying to convince you otherwise. Again, you're arguing points that are inconsequential, and furthermore, moving the goalposts of the original discussion yet again to prove something, though I know not what. I'll repeat: Kosmic Stardust and Good_Times are correct that this subthread serves no purpose with the direction it's taken. I'm content to just let it die. EDIT: typo.

Yeah, it wandered far off-range from the original subtopic. Sorry.

No, it had (limited) sound: beep, beep, beep...

You're selling on eBay, you've already gotten something in return, whether you wish to recognize it or not. This position of yours reads as little more than a visceral desire not to pay what is asked, even though you voluntarily choose to do so. Justify is a strong word choice. I would hate to be tarred and feathered as an eBay apologist. Explain is perhaps more accurate. As in, explain why it isn't altogether unreasonable. Also as in, explain why there may not be (m)any alternatives open to eBay or other online venues that don't cause as much obvious distress. Yes, I do think that when given a discount, it is something other than a bad thing. I wish I could say the rates the USPS extends are the same or lower as through eBay for the same delivery options, but in a number of cases (e.g., international shipping) they are not for the typical eBay seller. Same, too, for FedEx. So, again, good on you for obtaining discounts that I don't believe exist in all cases. Or maybe I'm just really bad at comparing two numbers and determining which is larger. I'm not comfortable with the emotionally charged language you use here, but they aren't all what you think them to be. One counter example would be sellers with items of a certain weight or set of dimensions that want to charge going rates but not flat rate and so opt for calculated shipping. Or am I mistaken in thinking that? Your opening reason "why" was because it was "BS", which misses the bigger picture. Your characterization of what I "automatically assume[d]" is just wrong. Though, again, I did point out that your reasoning on the value of a thing purchased with mailed delivery more or less plays into an argument that might be used to justify a uniform fee structure. It seems that you still don't see how. The bits that you reposted mostly underscore your gut-level refusal to consider the fee structure in question as anything other than a personal insult to you and naked greed on the part of eBay. So be it. I don't share that worldview. You're right, I can't argue that. Because I didn't. I honestly can't even follow what you mean to pin on me, here. And again, I didn't. And again, you fail to see that this implicitly provides ground from which to argue that fee assessment need not differentiate between "item" and "shipping" pricing should one choose to take up that position. EDITS: whitespace. wording. admission of incomprehension.

Upon some reflection, unless finely tuned (and perpetually retuned as carriers adjust their rates, which is its own problem), this could easily lead to at least one frustrating corner case for sellers who use calculated shipping costs. Say the arbitrary percentage limit set on this free harbor narrowly exempts from fees the cost associated with shipping to one buyer but doesn't with another buyer of the same item who resides in a higher-postage zone (I'm only considering one class of domestic shipments here). I don't think sellers are going to be happy about this, especially for instances where fractions of a percentage point in the postage differential mean paying the fee or not. I also think it might produce inflationary pressure on item costs or shipping charges by sellers who attempt to game the proposed system as much as possible, which may or may not be countered by competitors offering the same goods. EDIT: ridiculous overwording. autocorrect shenanigans.

There is a difference in paying a fee and getting nothing in return and paying a fee and getting something in return. Simple as that. Again, this is in reference to the "dumbasses" (your word) who don't ship free-of-charge versus those who do, relative to eBay fees. I'm not arguing anything here, though the variance in bidding that I have seen suggests that bidders don't always think this way about shipping costs and "total" value. That's less an argument than an observation. And a small one, at that. The argument I did make is that your logic justifies eBay assessing a fee on the entire value of an item, including shipping, in exchange for access to their marketplace rather neatly, contrary to the position you take elsewhere that shipping should be exempt from valuation in terms of fees. Taken together, your statements don't fit. Aside from the veiled personal attack, you're misreading me. Again, I can't tell whether it's deliberate or not. It's clear that sellers were profiting (you assert as much above) and so eBay stepped in to curb the loophole that disadvantaged them (fee circumvention) and other sellers (less equal playing field). This is important context to understand "fees today". Absent that context, one could much more freely harrumph about unfair fees on postage and it would be more persuasive. My other observation was merely that more than a few sellers still profit from shipping, despite the extension of the fee. That's entirely unrelated to the above point. ETA: grammar. and then a misworded sentence. and then reinsertion of a dropped word from that sentence (d'oh!).

You are being obtuse. Whether it's deliberate, I cannot tell. You give sellers' thinking too little credit. You neglect side-benefits to listing with free shipping. You ignore the fact that despite the fee, eBay is still rife with sellers who charge more than it costs to ship, even after accounting for the 10% fee. From one perspective, sure. But having watched bidding habits of comparable items over the years, I'm not certain buyers always think with such clarity. I would add, though, that if this is truly your viewpoint, then one might reasonably adopt it to justify charging a fee on the entire "worth" of a product, and not just one line item of its total end-user cost. Right? Or am I missing some internal logic, here? ...and your own statement disproves your point. By shifting the value from the item to shipping, sellers did profit, by getting around eBay's past fee structure. Again, I can't tell whether you're willfully ignoring the meaning of your own statements or don't see it. eBay "could" do a lot of things, but that doesn't mean they should. They already extend a discount on postage purchased through them, of varying value, so I don't see how one can fault the system for trying to extract every penny from sellers. Bringing this back around to GameGavel, for this "better" way to occur, then GameGavel would have to offer a similar service of postage-on-demand. See that happening? Yeah, because sellers always look out for the buyer's interests... Anyway, I believe that sellers "win" at least in part by pushing out those (apparently well-intentioned) sellers who would face no penalty for selling an item for $0.01 and charging as much as they could on shipping to reach the same price point. There's a leveling of the playing field here, despite its imperfections, that you seem to overlook. Good for you, so then what's the problem? ETA: poor wording.

I'd also add that the postage discounts eBay extends for those who choose to use the integrated shipping at times more than offset the 10% taken in fees, though do range from 2% to 34% under retail, so your mileage may vary. Overall, I don't see much room to complain here on the whole. Maybe I'm wrong, but it could certainly be a lot worse, e.g. Amazon Marketplace charges 30% on self-shipped items and used to tack on an additional, trivial, though irksome, $0.07 "label fee" if you took advantage of their integrated shipping options. ETA: to clarify that the costs are "under" and not "over" retail. oops.

Amazon now presents listings to buyers in that order, as well. It used to be ordered on item price alone, which was goofy given how some sellers shifted the cost burden onto shipping and were awarded a better listing position because the item price was lower. Positioning on Amazon in terms of buyer presentation is still a mess, but for a number of unrelated reasons. I'm not certain this mitigates abuse of eBay's fee structure any better nor is easier on sellers in terms of transparency and uniformity of application, but my gut tells me it isn't on either count. My gut could be wrong here, having not done back-of-the-napkin math or considered corner cases like combined shipping, etc.

Not to defend eBay too strongly, but (a) plenty of sellers still profit, at times handsomely, on shipping despite the fees; (b) it's a transparent cost of doing business that can sellers can easily account for; © eBay isn't the only online marketplace with this fee structure; (d) the advent of DSRs alone related to shipping costs applied by sellers isn't enough to curb abuse of eBay's overall fee structure by "putting all the value into shipping costs." But, please, feel free to suggest an alternative of your own that is fair to both sellers and the marketplace that is less hassle for either.

If you see that behavior on Amazon still, it's not an end-run around fees there, as Amazon has charged a fee on total price (item + shipping) for quite some time now. There's no reasonable alternative apart from setting fixed shipping amounts for items (as was the case on Half.com, now defunct), which would frustrate if not anger sellers all the more, I think.

+Omega Race

It's late. I thought perhaps you were possibly referring to the other dealer folder that Coleco issued in '82 if not what you just restated as your point.

To further this point, the one I have in my possession is as both of yours in terms of contents (sheet count and the like). I'm not certain what you're communicating here. Perhaps I'm being thick about parsing this sentence, though.

There's nothing vague here about the declaration (and only that) that these are prototypes. The original seller played the fill-in-the-blank game. Not so on the second go-around.

The point, here, though is that these aren't even that ... unless someone is taken in by the say-so of a listing that itself makes less than a half-hearted attempt to justify the auction's title, let alone its asking price.

Sure, I guess these ... http://www.ebay.com/itm/GORF-COLECOVISION-EPROM-Video-Game-Cart-Home-Made-Prototype-Test-WORKS-/112445944039 http://www.ebay.com/itm/TIME-PILOT-COLECOVISION-EPROM-Video-Game-Cart-Home-Made-Prototype-WORKS-/112445946348 http://www.ebay.com/itm/BUCK-ROGERS-COLECOVISION-EPROM-Video-Game-Cart-Home-Made-Prototype-WORKS-/112446570878 ... can become this ... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-3-Colecovision-PROTOTYPE-Dev-Carts-Time-Pilot-Buck-Rogers-Gorf-RARE-/322609708687 ... for twice the price when certainty goes from "HomeMade ? / Prototype ? / Test Cart ?" to definite "PROTOTYPE Dev Carts" with no additional supporting evidence apart from more wishful thinking, I guess. Neither the boards nor the EPROMs match the era-particular dev copies I've seen, which is more than a few. I don't think I've ever come across a Coleco Inc. board of any kind that utilized Mitsubishi Electric chips, in fact. I'd like to be proven wrong rather than call out the seller like this, but I don't believe I am. Someone prove me wrong.

Thanks for the thread pointer. Happy for the verification that this particular swap has been independently observed.

I don't really expect a completely satisfying explanation, but I thought I'd ask anyway on the off-chance someone knows... I seem to have multiple cartridges labeled Wing War that each contain Moonsweeper circuit boards. One I would consider a fluke, but a few with identical replacement raises the question of whether there was production mix-up from back in the day with regard to this particular Imagic title. Anyone else run across this curiosity or know anything about the source of my confusion here? These are legitimate, production-run Imagic Wing War labeled cartridges from multiple, independent origins with no signs of label tampering or replacement. I never took time to notice the issue given the degree of wear to the labels, and so, my prior lack of interest in scrutinizing them.

That's not the case, but the support for two-button controllers plugged into the interface is a bit particular.

Are they even still available? $60 shipped for 5 is more than fair, but they're untested, which could pose a problem.

It is a fold-out "menu".

As was pointed out in your original thread by someone else, you had already listed it on eBay before (re)posting here. There's no "may" about it.

That particular Atarisoft prototype has been (re)issued numerous times as a cartridge by various parties over the years. ETA: Unless comment regarding rarity/cost was meant to apply to OpCode's Pac-Man Collection?