Thrift Store

[KnightWarrior]

I want to rant about something before I forget

There's a Thrift Store I go to 2 days a week, I have some games, not so good..it's about the TurboGrafx-16

So I walk in on a tuesday asking about gaming items, No Nintendo or Sega, She brings out a VCS light Sixer...don't want that

She mumbles I have a TurboGrafx - That caught my ear..I'm thinking a good deal like $15 ...

She brings it out the System, Controller, PSU and 2 RF's

She said let me look it up..I saw ebay :-/ she looks for the lowest BIN at the time $81 - She told me $64 eek...She won't go lower that $45

Is that a good deal or a bad one?? I'm not going there anymore.. If I do find a un-common game that's priced nuts on ebay..they will look there

[Keith Courage]

Were there any games included? That could easily make the difference depending on what games they were.

[RainMaker]

Even with no games $45 isn't a horrible price, depending on the condition.

[turboswimbz]

I have picked a few in nice condtion around the $40 - $50 mark at resellers and thrift stores.  They have made good trade items.  Seems to be about the decent going price in the wild.  I've found a few that were lower, but those were mostly ones that people wanted to get rid of becuase they had no TG-16 stuff other than a deck.   

[tpivette]

While $45 isn't all that bad, the clerk should've done a bit more research and at least priced it based on the average SOLD consoles on ebay... not the unsold, recycled weekly BINs

[ccovell]

Remind me what the purpose of a thrift store is again?

[Corredor X]

She said let me look it up..I saw ebay :-/

After that sentence, the outcome is rarely good    It sucks to explain that the cart the seller is seeing in the internet is complete, has an intact large box , instructions and the map, so it's (almost) worth the 80 bucks the guy from the auction is asking; that's not the case with the cart that the seller is trying to sell for the same 80 bucks, that is not only loose but the case has a hole(!) in it. "BUT IT'S ZEEEEEELDA, DON'T YOU SEE? ZEEEEEELDA! IT'S RAAAARE! IT'S GOOOOOLDEN!" It happens, you know 

[KnightWarrior]

While I agree on some stuff, I don't agree on the pricing...

It's a thrift store, Like at the Eco Thrift I go to, Like I picked up a NES Top Loader there I got for like $10 8 years ago

Maybe at the Store I go to will look up NES Top Loader on ebay

[seieienbu]

A few years ago a friend of mine worked for goodwill.  One day someone gave them a weird Chinese SNES accessory, a 3.5 inch floppy drive with a parallel port and some ram that would play ROM images.  It even allowed saving and loading in RPGs and such.  My friend asked his co-worker "How much you think this is worth?" and received an answer of "About $2."  That was apparently how the two of them operated, but whatever. 

Anyway, I still had a SNES so my friend gave it to me.  I was always curious how it wound up at good will, but whatever.  Weird stuff goes to weird places sometimes, and is occasionally very cheap!

[pc_kwajalein]

She said let me look it up..I saw ebay :-/ she looks for the lowest BIN at the time $81

OMG.

(runs outside, screams in absolute frustration before uprooting a mature pin oak and hurling it javelin-style 3/4's of a mile away)

(walks back inside, slightly more composed)

I can't stand when thrift stores and flea market vendors check Ebay first. What's the point of selling it on the spot, if you go into cyber-space for pricing?

[TheClash603]

She said let me look it up..I saw ebay :-/ she looks for the lowest BIN at the time $81

OMG.

(runs outside, screams in absolute frustration before uprooting a mature pin oak and hurling it javelin-style 3/4's of a mile away)

(walks back inside, slightly more composed)

I can't stand when thrift stores and flea market vendors check Ebay first. What's the point of selling it on the spot, if you go into cyber-space for pricing?

Essentially these sellers are hoping that the ability to get something immediately will make you want to spend more than what an item is worth.

For these sellers it really works out in their favor, since you are paying a 10% premium on an item and they are saving the 15% fee.

It is one thing for a brick and mortar game store to do this, I understand they have overhead, but makes no sense at a flea market where the table costs you $20.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Any time you go to buy something locally and they go to look it up on ebay, politely wait till they are finished wasting their time, then just say "oh hey, its on ebay too? Sweet, I get the prestige of buying it online, get buyer feedback, ebay bonus bucks on purchases, and a return policy for damage or defects under buyer protection, so I will just jump on there and grab it and save some money in the long run. Thanks for letting me know! ". If people would do that enough people like that would stop trying to use it so much as their price resource. A "thrift store" is usually dealing in donated goods. Its not their job to gouge prices, nor are they supposed to be using ebay for pricing as a way to justify it. They are supposed to be taking donated goods and putting them back out in the community at an affordable price. The money they make is supposed to be going towards whatever charity the thrift store is being operated for. Everything they sell is profit other then the cost to employee the clerks and the lease and limited utilites.

[csgx1]

The thrift store that I go to does the same pricing method by ebay.  Usually they start high and discount it if it doesn't sell after a week or two. 

I haven't seen any Turbo stuff at my local thrift stores in the last 5 years. 

[pc_kwajalein]

A "thrift store" is usually dealing in donated goods. Its not their job to gouge prices, nor are they supposed to be using ebay for pricing as a way to justify it. They are supposed to be taking donated goods and putting them back out in the community at an affordable price. The money they make is supposed to be going towards whatever charity the thrift store is being operated for. Everything they sell is profit other then the cost to employee the clerks and the lease and limited utilites.

Exactly. If they don't look online to price the faded OshKosh B'Gosh toddler overalls they're selling, they shouldn't be doing that for video games and accessories.

[Aggie Tsubi]

At least you found something Turbo-related at a thrift store. I've never even found a measly Keith Courage or anything. And it's not for lack of hitting them up. I love to go game hunting at thrift stores, and I have managed to find stuff for the more uncommon systems. Colecovision, Master System, 3DO, CD-i, 32X, etc., those I've found, but never anything Turbo-related.