How many sales per day on the 'goN? more:

I've bought & sold a lot of audio gear/accessories and my feedback reflects it, so I would like to think my experience is typical in regards to the satisfaction level. I've only been burned once & the buyer was so lame I didn't pursue it, plus the fact it was only an outlet. My fault for sending it out before receiving payment but I had 12 or 13 perfect outlet sales plus all my other deals before.

I had one deal where the seller shipped some bookshelf spkrs. w/o adequate packing between the double boxes & what really pissed me off was I offered to pay extra for the extra box & related supplies. I didn't leave a neg. because the seller followed through immediately with full reimbursement.

Not too long ago I was in the process of selling my amp & the buyer and I couldn't agree on some fine points of the transaction, so I cancelled the deal & Express mailed his unopened envelope/check back to him after receiving. I also had one potential buyer who kept changing shipping & payment methods and simply walked away from that one after he told me he didn't want me to pack it but would send his "agent" to my house to pack & ship the piece. This wasn't a 5 crate spkr. system but a one box CDP!

A number of factors are required to successfully complete a deal, whether it be from A-gon or your local auto repair shop and I still like to make a phone call when I'm buying & encourage the same when selling. As for potential problems, there are many search engines & archives available elsewhere so that the diligent can check out a potential purchase beforehand.

Driver - good that you walked away from the deal with the buyer using his "agent"! That scam has been quite well documented here and over at AA.

The overall point I took from the AA post is that audiogon promotes a false sense of security, which given that audiogon deletes negative feedback and the perception that the dispute forum/process is meaningful is an arguable point. Audiogon has a minor role in transaction satisfaction. They have no real control, so to blame or praise audiogon for deals gone well or poorly is a mistake, imo. And we all have our own experiences, but they don't really mean much to other people.

Posters are not in a position to calculate satisfaction much better, but there are problems with Elizabeth's calculation. Primarily, as already stated, there are more buyers and sellers than posters, so not everyone who is unhappy is going to make a post about it. I think the number of problems is higher from looking at the dispute forum. Audiogon opened more disputes to the forum and it went up pretty quick, and I am confident in suspecting that even then audiogon handles the majority of disputes privately.

There have been notes of negative feedback deletions and complaints of dispute forum. The message is to buy and sell as if the dispute forum doesn't exist and that feedback to some degree is unreliable.

All of my transactions have gone very well on A'gon.
However, i just check for stuff for sale within a 2 hour drive of my home.
I'm not much for shipping, i hear alot of horro stories, and while alot of the transactions with shipping go wwell, with my luck my box would arrive all but destroyed.

If you meet the person face to face they are less likley to try and rip you off, or if the deal is a scam in the first place they will probably back down and not run the deal.

Alot of these scam artists out there are long distance hounds who like to deal with people across the country, opposed to somone who lives in thier area and would work em up real good with a tire-iron in the safeway parking lot if they just happened to run across them again after getting scammed.

Not to mention if you buy it off the person in person, you fully see the condition of the unit and might be able to give it a quick ops check before any money gets exchanged.

Hello All,

Elizabeth, I do not think you would want to participate any further in the Disputes Forum if you only knew how how your words, "tempest in a teapot" were quoted and twisted in the resolution of my dispute. However, specifics of actual disputes can only be discussed in the "Disputes Forum." Let's just say I found the process woefully weak and worthless. No, actually Cow Turds describes the process more accurately, IMHO. Yet, I still enjoy visiting A'gon daily because of the collective wisdom in the Forums. I relate most closely with Ed Sawyer and Ohlala above.

If you click on "Advertising Info" on A'gon's home page, you will find some useful stats as of Oct. 1992: 64,000 registered members, 12,700 items listed per month, 420 items listed per day. It also says on the home page "Over 10,500 high end pieces."

Not scientific but: 12,700 items listed per month minus 10,500 items available at any given time equals 2200 items sold each month, or 73 items per day.

Also, not scientific:
*169 items auctioned since Sun through this Wed. night equals an average of 42 items sold by auction per day.
*420 items listed per day minus 42 items auctioned per day equals 378 classified ads per day. I think only 10% of the classifieds result in sales, but clearly no more than 20%, so let's go with 20%
*20% of 378=76 classifieds sold per day
*42 items auctioned/day plus 76 items sold by classified/day equals 118 total items sold/day.

Whew...therefore, I think 73 to 118 items sell/day.

You worked me, Elizabeth, but I still like and respect your opinions.