Originally Posted by
Happy Feet
Interesting thread.
I have a philosophical question that might draw a lot of heat but I really don't mean offense to anyone, just something I think about.
When I look at CL I see a lot of C&V related listings that are crazy expensive (to me) and I assume many are flipping or riding the trend upwards that it creates. If an aggressive flipper works a local market they can denude a lot of reasonably priced transportation for lower income people. Good for the individual flipping but bad for people looking to buy an inexpensive bike. Some may say you should be willing to pay for value but in reality, many of those expensive bikes were cheap bikes a few days or weeks earlier. I know it's an unpopular POV but I just think many of those listings represent a weirdly artificially raised market place created by the concept of purchasing for profit and not for actually seeking a riding bike. Yes.. no?
Consider the set of all bikes at and below an arbitrary price say $100. Consider the market to be an arbitrary geographical area, say 25km radius around your city hall. Consider the market to be CL, Kijiji, word-of-mouth, teeny ads in newspapers, yard sales and so on. Flippers are only interested in the sub-set of bikes that can be resold quickly with minimal additional expense(tires, cables), Labour(cleaning, Pickup, Selling process). Your speculative question essentially is: Is the subset of potential Flippers bikes a large-enough subset of the set of all bikes under $100 to negatively impact the set of buyers looking for simple transport?
Happily, this question can be empirically answered by examining your local CL. In my view the world is awash with $100 bikes that make flippers and collectors cringe. Plenty left for those needing cheap transport AND the metal recyclers.
Your question is really excellent (at least to me), since it can be generalized into: "What are the unintended consequences of bike flipping?"
daf1009 said:
While some flippers may help to inflate the market, I find that it is not flippers that do that...but...individuals that do not know what they have. They watch TV shows like American Pickers...and believe that a well used Schwinn Varsity, due to being "barn fresh" is worth $400. I have seen so many people put a bike on CL at an outrageous price...and it stay there...for YEARS!
daf1009 is pointing-out a distortion in "normal market forces" that uninformed people want vastly more for their bikes than the market supports. This must be an unintended consequence of "American Pickers", "Storage Wars" as well as traditional human delusion.