Fluctuating Values

Here’s how the classic definition for pricing products goes: You take the costs of resources, development, distribution, marketing, taxes, add them together, then slap on a bit of a percentage for profit. The you sell something, the less it costs you to actually create it, increasing your net gains. However, after a while you need to decrease the retail price, or create sales in order to continuously make money. But what happens after something reaches the end of it’s lifecycle?

While I have briefly touched on this topic before, it was heavily focused on “Collector’s” and their influence on the market. This time, I’d like to examine a different aspect of how used goods are valued: sentimentalism and nostalgia. Let’s take a look at a real example: Typewriters.

Technically, there’s no reason for anyone to use such an antiquated equipment as a typewriter, at the least not the average human being. I can see a writer having a bit of fondness towards this mechanical beast, but the amount of people who would actually care enough about them and have their practicality in mind are seldom. They represent a very tiny group, that could only be described as enthusiasts. But even they would be aware of the fallacy of relying something so old and outdated is inefficient. Yes, you might have some sort of preference for it, but serviceability is a bitch, not to mention the procuring of usable ink ribbons is getting harder by the day. This provides us with three basic problems:

Case 1: The Flooded market

You can find typewriters in every corner of the world, hell you might already know someone who has one of them stacked away in a dust covered box in their attic. Maybe they bought it, it was gifted to them or they simply inherited it from their parents or grandparents. The point is, that there’s quite possibly way too many typewriters per person, and most of them will never be appreciated or used at all. Hence, the availability is so great, it pushes prices down as there’s not enough of a need for so many of such.

Case 2: The Condition

A lot of said typewriters are in horrible shape and need repairs. It might be a small issue that can be easily fixed, but aside from hobbyists, there’s no actual service person out there who can help you in replacing a key or getting it unstuck. The lack of professionals also end up with an increased cost for serviceability, as those who actually do these types of work have to ask for more payment, in order for such to be worth their time at all. Frankly speaking, it’s cheaper to just straight up find a replacement unit altogether. With this in mind the prices for working items increases, precisely because it’s a niche product.

Case 3: Purchase Threshold

What is the maximum amount of money someone is willing to pay for anything? This depends on the person and their needs, but there’s always that one specific number beyond which you simply refuse to spend your hard earned cash. Let’s say you keep buying in ribbons for 5 dollars a piece. Price increases by 1 dollar, you still might buy it. But if it doubles, you will possibly refuse any offers at that range. Yet there are individuals who would pay that and even more, depending on a number of circumstances. Usually this would be the ease of acquisition or the speed at which it can happen. If you need something right now, you’re more likely cough up more dough, than if you can be patient and wait it out until a good deal comes along. Problem is, if there has been an example of something selling for more than it is actually worth, a lot of sellers will think about that price as being the “absolute minimum worth”, which ends up creating a superficial value.

The above three are what usually influence the pricing of used items on the market. But there’s a fourth and fifth element to this, that contribute greatly to any and all values.

Case 4: Evolution and death

As with everything, you have technological upgrades that meant people wanted to upgrade to newer, better products. First came the electronic typewriters with ink cartridges and easier editability, and built in dictionaries. The next step were so called word processors, a more basic form computers that could let you actually save your text in an editable format, and move it between machines, while also changing the method of printing. This was later replaced by home computers and laptops, which eventually killed the need for something as “basic” as a typewriter. You could do more than one thing now on your machine, there was no reason to keep using an outdated equipment. They pretty much lost all their value.

Case 5: Wait, we need to go back!

Years pass and you’re sitting there in front of your computer, connected to the internet. You type away vigorously, until the power goes out, making you lose your progress. You get angry as now you have to start all over from the beginning. But wait, there’s still no electricity, what can you do? If you’ve got a charged laptop, you’re fine but otherwise you’ll be forced to rely on classic pen and paper. Writing by hand? By god, you haven’t done that in years! Not aside from those unusual moments you actually had to use a writing utensil because you didn’t have your phone with you to quickly jot it down into a note taking application. Okay, what now?

Maybe you ignore the whole thing and just wait until you can use your computer again. In which case you might find that your document was corrupted. You spend hours wasted on the internet, trying to find a solution, ultimately to end up watching cat videos, because you’ve got distracted. Time well spent. Well, you try and turn things around by opening your choice of text editor and starting a new. Except you’re now having connection issues, because you’ve been using a free software that requires to be connected to the internet 24/7.

This is when nostalgia hits you and with all your annoyances at the max level, you realize that the simpler life before was also better, because less things could go wrong and you weren’t as easily bombarded with distracting information. Alright, you dig up your old pc that actually has offline software. Except the pc doesn’t work anymore, or you realize you’ve long thrown it out, because modern things couldn’t run on it. You need to buy one from someone. Which is plausible, but you might also remember the problems you’ve just now had, so you’re going to go one step further and downgrade even more: That’s it when you have the bright idea to get a typewriter and get introduced to Case 1: The Flooded Market and you being to realize, you might not be alone with your ideas, forums and communities began to open up in front of you, preaching how going back to simpler tools is the best way to live life while also self assessing the values of things, without anyone really pointing out the one true fact: there’s no one to regulate all this, and if after all those years something was deemed unusable by the majority, even deemed to be recycled, then the opposite happens of a flood: shrunken availability.

Conclusion

As we can see with the above wall of text, there’s a number of things that can happen which can influence a price of a used product. From nostalgia to availability, these elements rely on one another in an interconnected way, ultimately ending up with a complicated market that you cannot legibly maneuver around in. Since second hand goods fall under different regulations, or rather there’s practically none for them, the buyers and sellers themselves determine what rules apply to any purchase, being completely subjective about whether or not something or someone is fair. The major issue here is that more scams and exploitation can happen because of this and a lot of times nothing can be done about this. But that’s off the subject.

Economically one could say that the used market is an interesting study of consumerism and perceived values. But all it really has become is just one giant mess and a pain in the ass. There seems to be always a tipping point for new products in general where the buyers are starting to get less for their money and more restrictions placed on them than before. Some just become too cheaply made, revisions are constant and either pointless or just plain damaging. In cases like these you step back and start to think where it had all gone wrong, and contemplate if going back to a previous model or version would be more beneficial to you or not.

The music industry suffers from this. Automobile industry suffers from this. Household appliances suffer from this. Heck, even a simple shovel had suffered, as it went from a long lasting product, to a cheap plastic / aluminum that is hard to recycle, breaks constantly and isn’t even as efficient as your grandpa’s rusty old one, that had termites eat away at it’s wooden handle for years. Despite it being 40 years old it still works, which is more than you can say about that thing you’ve bought at Walmart / Tesco a month ago, that got bent out of shape, and is now being used as a door-porter.

Hmm, it’d be better if you had a similar one to your grandpa’s. Wonder if anyone’s selling one now? Maybe it’s time to check with google.