Price increases?

[radkins]

What do you guys think will happen with the machinery suppliers after the end of the year, can we expect major price increases? From some of the rumors I have been hearing it might be a good idea to make planed large purchases before the end of the year.

[mlucek]

Enco has already increased many prices. I found many discrepancies between their catalog price and the price after I put a given item in my shopping cart.

Also price discrepancies on a few other items - General brand in particular. Some of the catalog prices were 1/2 of the shopping cart price.

I called Enco and the guy did verify the price increases and mistakes on the General items. I think they should honor the lower prices, grrrrrrrrrr.

Mike

[BillH]

Lathemaster raised their prices.

[lazlo]

The price increases are probably reflecting the dramatic increases in shipping costs from China in the last year.

[DR]

As far as big ticket items, lathes mills, I thought there were incredible deals out there.

Pretty hard to increase prices on discretionary items.

[lazlo]

As far as big ticket items, lathes mills, I thought there were incredible deals out there.

Yeah, no kidding -- there's a ton of machine tools that are flooding onto Craigslist. I just bought a Wilton 7x12 bandsaw.

Only problem is, it's not a good time to sell...

[Doc Nickel]

Traffic on eBay is skyrocketing. Last March, when they popped in those infamous new rules n' regs, they were averaging 14 million listings on any given day.

Right this moment, they supposedly have 27 million listings.

What I'd like to know- and one ofthe many things eBay won't tell anyone- is the success rate. Doesn't matter to eBay, of course, as they make money whether the item sells or not. But it'd be interesting to know if, say, for example ten percent of listings were successful before, but only 7 or 8% are selling now. That'd be a pretty fair economic indicator...

Doc.

[gregl]

Doc:

You can sort of find this out by looking at the completed listings. Those pages show whether the item sold or not. While the listings drop off after a time, you do get a feel for the closing prices.

[Liger Zero]

I've seen a bunch of automatic lathes and screw-machines come up on Craigslist here in Rochester in the last month. One complete shop, two of those automatic Hardinge dealies, and today another batch five of screw-machines just popped up.

Couple days before two big old W&S turret-lathes popped up, and there are two more "medium" sized lathes all for sale at the moment.

Problem is while I do at the moment have cash (thanks to a "gift" from a relation) I just don't have room. I got all these mini-machines crammed into one room of a two-bedroom apartment and a hella understanding landlord. I think he just *MIGHT* object if I brought home that grand old war-vintage W&S.

...plus one has to wonder what exactly one would *DO* with it at the moment, where has all the work gone that made them put the machine up for sale in the first place.

I suspect I'm seeing those companies that ran day to day on a credit-line suddenly dying as their current line dries up and they find there is no more credit to be had. My last job ended suddenly more or less for that reason... there were other factors but that's what triggered the initial layoffs.

[Ed Tipton]

I think that the economic future of this country is so uncertain right now that a lot of small companies (and maybe larger one's as well) will either be going out of business or re-structuring to the point that the surplus market will be hot! I've already seen signs in the central Illinois area that there is going to be more stuff available. The problem is that for every machine that comes up for sale, there are two Mexicans standing in line to buy it, and they are buying the items that the HSM'ers are looking for. The older machines that modern industry is turning their nose up to is what those guys are looking for. They send it over the border, and put some unskilled 16 year old kid on it and pay him a small wage to learn how to run it. The old lathes, grinders, mills, and single point machines that helped build this country are now helping Mexico build their country. A lot of machinery can be purchased with the big bucks from drugs, and after awhile, they are running a legitimate business without risk.