Reselling Pinephones on ebay to make money out of it?

[Neat]

Thinking purely as a consumer, though, I could not justify spending $300 on the PinePhone as it is currently. I'd really only spend $250 for the Librem 5 as it is, which has better specs and more convenience with the kill switches. More than that, it's not a good value for me. Purism needs to understand that now, and so should Pine64 if they did try going above where they are at. Phones with similar specs can be purchased new for $40 here, which means the manufacturing costs are less. If Pine64 isn't making that much on these phones, there are inefficiencies in manufacturing that need to be focused on. In order to make that $300 price point work, it would have to absolutely blow consumers away, and unfortunately, nothing about the PinePhone/Librem 5 is going to do that. I hate to be that blunt, but it isn't realistic to assume the average Joe is going to spend that much money on an underpowered phone, have to switch away from the apps, branding, and ecosystem they are used to, and learn Linux in order to have a phone like this.

The big asterisk here is I don’t think that was ever Pine’s expectation. This will likely never be for average Joes. Right now they are most certainly not the target audience. If it stays a hardware only purchase, I also don’t think it will ever be their target audience. All those people asking “can I replace my iPhone/Samsung with this yet?” are not the target. This phone does not compete with those phones. It competes with the Librem 5 and potentially the Jolla supported devices and that new Ubuntu Touch phone that I’ve forgotten the name of. Totally different market.

[addem]

My off the rip take is, yeah this is a bad thing for consumers in the short-run.

But Pine64 is a small and growing company, and these scalpers are giving them money and stability. They’re doing it in a shady way, but the more orders for the phone, the greater resources and incentives Pine64 has to re-invest. And it also means that Pine64 enjoys a degree of free advertising. Just being listed on Ebay, or whatever, is a mechanism that’s getting Pine64’s name out there, and alerting customers to the existence of an Android/iOS alternative.

And sure, it’s not all positive for the new consumers, since they’re introduced to the phone at a higher price point. But I think long-term, it’s a net gain because everyone can find out (with minimal effort) that if you just wait a bit for the next round of orders, you can get it for cheaper.

When that dynamic is gone, like if Pine64 gets to be really popular and powerful, then the scalper phenomenon will be more of a pure negative. And we can deal with it more seriously at that point.

[Dendrocalamus64]

https://forum.pine64.org/reputation.php?uid=18280

Negative reputation should be reserved for those misleading others, or acting in bad faith, NOT dissenting opinions.

In before the -REP button gets turned off altogether, like I've seen on other forums.

[lot378]

The PinePhone has no more value than what the Pine Store still sells it for. It's pretty much still a work in progress and not a consumer grade phone.

I think there are probably a few would be so-called scalpers that intended to flip a PinePhone before seeing it in this light and cancelled their pre-order (probably regular buyers in the same boat too). And there will be buyers who either sell or auction their PinePhones because it does not immediately work the way they expected or they will hold on to it until it does. They might make a little more than they bought it for on an auction - there are few on ebay right now to observe. What has also happened on ebay was ebay de-listed at least one (may be more) PinePhone(s) someone was trying to sell for either $500 or $800 because someone beady-eyed complained to ebay!

Pine64 really seemed to struggle to sell the entire PMOS batch, sales were open almost right up until shipment date August 24th.

[MtnSk8]

No, his business model is very simple. He buys Pinephones in the Pine64 store when they are available. When they are unavailable, he sells them on ebay for twice the price.

Please explain what the problem is with that.

Thanks for downvoting my reply @patrickmollohan

[KC9UDX]

Or just direct to post#25 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...2#pid77472

[lot378]

https://forum.pine64.org/reputation.php?uid=18280

Negative reputation should be reserved for those misleading others, or acting in bad faith, NOT dissenting opinions.

In before the -REP button gets turned off altogether, like I've seen on other forums.

Yeh, the up/down voting is toxic needs replacing with a give thanks button.

[KC9UDX]

The upvote works. It allows you to show acknowledgement or agreement without saying "I agree" or "K" or "+1". It's the downvote that only seems problematic.

[Dendrocalamus64]

That's what I meant, the minus rep button gets turned off & the plus rep button does not.

[bcnaz]

Just my opinion :

Negative voting with no explanation should not be allowed.
  I suggest :
When a member gives a post a negative vote, their name and reason for their negative vote should
be posted in the same thread.

That would also simplify the Moderators job.