AMber ring

On the topic of the Amber ring and the scammish stores selling it and
such.
Not sure what this means, but I did a search on this exact ring online
and came up with a few different stores selling it with majorly
different prices:

http://www.silverunlimited.com/product.asp?3=2575 $33.30


Free Shipping-Sterling Silver Amber Sunburst...
Sterling Silver Amber Sunburst Ring .925 Sterling Silver ring with
round Honey Amber center stone and twisted band and...
$48.95 at BRANDSPlace.com:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WD1V
from a Silver and Goddess store... $16.50

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WD1V
from a Moonbeams and Starlight Store $15.99

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/sunbeetle/700511.html $29.60

There was another that I saw before, which I cannot find now, that had
it for about $9.00.

What's this all about? Call me stupid, but if this was not scammish
and hired by the original seller.. then why are these all so
dramatically different in price?

Something does not make sense.

On Mon, 12 Apr 2004 14:15:44 GMT, (porkchops)
wrote:

What's this all about? Call me stupid, but if this was not scammish
and hired by the original seller.. then why are these all so
dramatically different in price?

Because people can get those higher prices.

--
Marilee J. Layman

On Mon, 12 Apr 2004 07:15:35 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry
(porkchops) wrote:

What's this all about? Call me stupid, but if this was not scammish
and hired by the original seller.. then why are these all so
dramatically different in price?

Something does not make sense.

Welcome to the world of retail markup variations in low priced items. Lets
assume, and this may be reasonable, that the true, real, wholesale price of
this ring is around $7.00. That's not at all out of line for a small silver
ring with a relativly inexpensive stone, from a mass production manufacturer.

Note that by wholesale, I mean the cost a retailer will pay to the manufacturer
when they're buying enough to meet substantial minimum order requirements.
That means true wholesale. NOT the typical wholesale to the public sort of
thing. Usually, true wholesale also means you have to present some sort of
evidence that you're actually in the business, such as a sales tax license,
etc. There are lots of firms, especially on the net, claiming to sell at
wholesale prices. It's very rare to find one that really is doing so.

Anyway, in the real "brick and morter" world, it would be usual for an item
with this kind of cost, to be sold for three to four times it's wholesale cost,
ie somewhere in the 20 to 30 dollar range. Higher end stores may get
substantially more. The price range you've found would be quite typical for
the range of retailers from ritzy fashion shops down to discount sellers

The thing to keep in mind is that any business must generate a given amount of
total profit in order to pay it's bills, employees, etc. This is true for
internet businesses as well as traditional stores. When merchanides costs a
lot wholesale, the net profit from any given sale may be more, allowing the
store to make the needed minimum amount of operating profit from a fairly low
markup, on up to the traditional 2x markup or more. But when the cost per item
becomes very low, the markup must increase if the store is to make any actual
profit, unless there is such a high volume of sales that the volume of sales
makes that minimum profit. Remember that though the cost per item may be low,
the cost of processing the sale may not be any lower than for an expensive
item. To Illustrate: If you go into many department stores, from places like
K-mart to more expensive places, you may find racks of costume jewelry earrings
selling for just a few dollars per pair. This may seem cheap, but often, the
cost to the store for those things may be on the order of perhaps ten or twenty
cents per pair, maybe less. In order for the store to justify putting that
rack there, tacking up square footage, as well as to pay for the inveitable
pilferage, and the time it takes a sales associate to ring up a sale, the
stores usually need to charge markups on that type of merchanidse of anywhere
from 8x the cost to considerably more. sometimes they just look at the things
and "decide" what they can sell it for, not worrying whether this amounts to an
enormous markup or not. What will, in the end, determine the retail selling
price is what price level ends up generating the most total profit from that
square footage the rack takes up. The price can go up until the sales volume
goes down enough that profit then declines.

If this sounds unfair or brutal, heck, girl, that's the economics of business.
And the basic rules apply to almost any business you can name, though the end
prices will vary a lot depending on the market, the type of store or business,
and the type of merchandise. It's not as "obscene" as one might think, since
in the end, if a store cannot generate enough profit to remain in business,
then nobody will be there to sell the things at all, as the store goes out of
business. And if the profit margin overall for the business os too high, then
market competition will find some other seller willing to undercut the price
and make a little less profit. it evens out in the end to price levels that
generally pretty well reflect where they need to be in order for stores to
remain profitable, competative, and still in business.

Now, internet sales are a lot more variable. Merchandise may come to a seller
by many different channels. Some of it may be new, some of it may be
overstocks or closeouts from the manufacturer. Some retailers will have bought
a lot, and thus at lower prices, and some folks selling on ebay may not be true
retailers, but rather folks specializing in overstocks, merchanides from
bankruptcies, estates, and the like. And some internet businesses are some
little ol lady doing it from her kitchen for a little extra cash, while others
are big operations needing to more carefully follow the normal rules of retail
pricing.

And as with "brick and morter" stores, some of these businesses will try to
sell at the slimmest price they can manage, hoping to make their profit with
volume, while others, perhaps hoping to cultivate a higher end image, may mark
up even the cheap stuff to higher retail prices, counting on the higher
markups to make their profit even with lower volume.

you find all types. And as with the 'brick and morter' stores, perhaps even
more so, internet shopping requires people to be alert. There is a popular
image of the internet as a place where shopping is cheaper than the real world.
while there ARE indeed bargains, some recent surveys have shown that in
general, internet prices tend to be about the same as regular store prices, and
in some cases, perhaps justified by the convenience of at home shopping, they
can be even more than store prices. As a comparison, have you ever compared
the prices shown in those airline inflight catalogs with similar merchandise
you can find in your home town? The catalogs make it sound like great deals.
Sometimes it is. But in general, they're charging more for the convenience of
shopping from that inflight catalog, and the airline is likely taking a cut
too, so you end up paying more than you might if you found the thing for sale
back on the ground. Same sort of thing if you compare prices for things you
find in small mom and pop or traditional small shops just out there on main
street, versus the same things you'll find in the big shopping malls. The
malls offer convenience, but often they're a bit pricier.

You don't need any sort of fishy goings on to find the kind of price variances
you did. That's just the marketplace. Learn from the experience, and do your
homework before spending significant amounts of cash on anything, internet or
not.

Hope that helps.

Peter

I have a large range of quality Amber jewellery on my website and around a
dozen new items to be added within the next week.


http://www.qualitysilver.co.uk/acata...Jewellery.html




"porkchops" wrote in message
...
On the topic of the Amber ring and the scammish stores selling it and
such.
Not sure what this means, but I did a search on this exact ring online
and came up with a few different stores selling it with majorly
different prices:

http://www.silverunlimited.com/product.asp?3=2575 $33.30


Free Shipping-Sterling Silver Amber Sunburst...
Sterling Silver Amber Sunburst Ring .925 Sterling Silver ring with
round Honey Amber center stone and twisted band and...
$48.95 at BRANDSPlace.com:


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=4103308 598
&rd=1&ssPageName=WD1V
from a Silver and Goddess store... $16.50


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=2697779 684
&rd=1&ssPageName=WD1V
from a Moonbeams and Starlight Store $15.99

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/sunbeetle/700511.html $29.60

There was another that I saw before, which I cannot find now, that had
it for about $9.00.

What's this all about? Call me stupid, but if this was not scammish
and hired by the original seller.. then why are these all so
dramatically different in price?

Something does not make sense.