Why are some items so expensive online?

[Aspergers_Aspie]

Does anyone know why some items are so expensive online. Here is amazon for example.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Now-Thats-What-Call-Music/dp/B000NEUQDY
When another album from the 'NOW that's what I call music' series is way cheaper:-
https://www.amazon.co.uk/NOW-Thats-...t's+What+I+Call+Music+6&qid=1616200632&sr=8-1

 

[VictorR]

With media items, be they books, CDs or anything else, what often happens is if someone lists something and find out they're the only one on that venue with that item listed, they'll throw on a high price hoping it's rare and someone might pay good money for it. If it sells, great, if it doesn't, whatever.

Where things go wrong is that if a second seller comes along and doesn't know the item's value, they're going to use that first listing as a benchmark and price it around the same. This can snowball and then you have 20 copies of a relatively common work priced ridiculously high, so no one ends up buying any of them, and it's a loss for everyone, both the potential buyers and the sellers who will never sell their goods.

I recall one obscure economics text from the 80s being listed from $80-$200 on various sites. The author had released the book for free as a PDF file on their website. Consider that - people trying to get three figures for a book whose contents the author was willingly giving away.

 

[Judge]

It all comes down to simple greed and/or perceived supply & demand.

The good news. Considering how sad the selection of over-the-counter music has gotten since the advent of the CD, it's great that there are retailers like Amazon who can offer those incredibly hard-to-find titles that used to be so easy to buy over-the-counter at the local Tower Records (RIP).

The bad news. However with Amazon they are just an umbrella for both legitimate retailers and scalpers who are banking on the wealthiest of customers who won't bat an eye at paying hundreds of dollars for even a used recording. But on occasion it is funny to see outrageous prices within a range of reasonable ones.

At times it can be very distressing for some of us who lived in a different era when business and industry wasn't nearly so preoccupied with separating consumers from their wallets like they began doing some forty years ago.

Though just last week I received a CD I paid $25 for...having thrown in the towel trying to salvage a digitized recording of the vinyl record version I bought decades ago. Paid retail, yet I'm so happy I did. There's only so much I can do with Audacity when it comes to digital sound editing. From barely acceptable to pristine with a single purchase. My bad...

 

[Aspergers_Aspie]

There's a shop in the UK called CEX and some Computer games from the 90s are very expensive

 

[Misery]

It's all about rarity and greed... it really is that simple. And it can apply to any type of product.

There was this board game I was looking for last year, right. Normally, this particular one costs about, oh, $30, I think it is. But at the time it was just bloody hard to find. Know how much it was selling for on Amazon? $200. Because a bunch of snotrag sellers realized that they could get away with it. Which they did, for a short time. After awhile the game had more copies made, and the price dropped back to its normal value (as the snotrag sellers couldnt keep that price going when suddenly totally normal online stores were selling it for the REAL price).

This is just how Amazon is.

Always always always do the research when buying things. And shop around.

 

[Progster]

Two possibilities:

1. It is genuinely very rare, and this is currently the market price for it. Some collectors will pay a lot of money for rare items. Sometimes an item might not be particularly expensive if used, but a mint copy might be hard to find. This will fetch a much higher price.

2. Someone is trying to get rich. They saw that they were the only seller and decided to try their luck by asking a highly inflated price. There's an item on Discogs that someone has listed for 1000 euros, which is obscure but nonetheless readily available for 7 euros from the record label website. A profit of 993 euros, nice. Good luck with that (sarcasm).

In this case, it seems that this is the genuine price - the same item on Discogs sells for 55 pounds or 100 euros, and that's not even a mint copy. It's common in vinyl format, rare in CD format.

Personally I prefer Discogs to ebay, there's usually a bigger selection and often better prices.

 

[Raggamuffin]

I can recommend a site that I use if you like music and are happy with legal and cheap MP3 downloads.

That album is £89.90 on Amazon and £1.18 on this website.

Buy VA Now That's What I Call Music! 9 Mp3 Download

With this site you buy an amount for your account (which is priced in dollars) and then you gradually use it up as you buy albums, or individual songs for albums.

They also have seasonal deals throughout the year. In fact they have one on right now:

With songs costing 8 pence each, and albums usually costing under £1.50 each - when you top up any amount - it lasts you a long time. I normally do $50 once a year (when a deal is on) and I can download nearly a thousand songs.

Ed

 

[Streetwise]

Does anyone know why some items are so expensive online. Here is amazon for example.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Now-Thats-What-Call-Music/dp/B000NEUQDY
When another album from the 'NOW that's what I call music' series is way cheaper:-
https://www.amazon.co.uk/NOW-Thats-...t's+What+I+Call+Music+6&qid=1616200632&sr=8-1

I always go to a comparison site ,but I've never bought that type of thing from Amazon ,for different reasons, I go to base.com I dont know if they sell music ,or smaller independent stores but I watch reaction videos on different visual media sites so I don't buy as I have the recordings in different forms .

 

[Suzanne]

I think for devices, it is ridiculously priced and therefore so unfair, to ones who would like to own a good phone or tablet etc, but cannot afford to, and those who either can afford don't care about the price, get to enjoy.

I love samsung phones, but currently unable to afford one.

 

[OkRad]

I like Wirecutter. THey help to find good items and good price. From NYT

 

[Streetwise]

Does anyone know why some items are so expensive online. Here is amazon for example.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Now-Thats-What-Call-Music/dp/B000NEUQDY
When another album from the 'NOW that's what I call music' series is way cheaper:-
https://www.amazon.co.uk/NOW-Thats-...t's+What+I+Call+Music+6&qid=1616200632&sr=8-1

it's the record companies who don't like to give anything away ,George Michael Singer lost an estimated 5-6 million in court and solicitor\barrister fees because Sony music are greedy