How come UK prices on Bitbargain and LocalBitcoins are so low?

[rizq]

Cheap prices are normally good news but...

Very funny and ironic, I started selling on Bitbargain today and the markups are less than 10%.
One seller is selling for £64 as we speak the mtgox rate is £62.48.
I dont know if things are like this for today only, but as the amount of sellers on both websites increases, the competition is getting fiercer by the day.
I am telling you its a bloodbath out there, i simply can't compete anymore. FYI i am selling at 6% mtgox rate, which i thought was very low.

Considering the fees involved with other methods, today buying within the UK is king.

Check it out for yourself if you like.

One chap on localbitcoins was selling for £61.99 when the market rate was £62.48

These dirt cheap prices in UK might be a sign that demand for bitcoin is dwindling.

Thought i would jump the bandwagon and share the spoils having seen the insane markups of the past couple of weeks, seems like i am too late.

Can anyone explain what is going on?

[glendall]

Just a matter of supply and demand, I'd say. The good ole days a few weeks ago, bitcoins were a hot commodity many more folks wanted to jump on to. This week not so much. And now that the word has spread another massive amount, there are more dudes out there willing to sell them locally. And one of those dudes is under-cutting everybody else by only charging chump-change rates to steal all your business, thinking he'll make up for the low mark-up in volume.

I wouldn't think it is much more than that, as described.

[botsofbitcoin]

It has gone very low all of a sudden. It's not just the UK though. All the countries I've looked at have margins around 6 - 10%. Either the UK was exceptional for a while, or everyone has reduced margins in the last couple of days.

More buying volume on there might push the prices up. Or perhaps another period of crazy crashing. It was hard to reduce prices to less than you bought in at so my impression was people weren't reducing them very fast. Now it's been relatively stable/increasing for a couple of days then people are happier to just take a small profit.

Just my guesses though.

[djalexr]

yeah new people trying to get on the bandwagon, IMO - i think its good that theres more competition now as the commission prices were fairly extortionate only a couple of weeks  ago (£10-15 per coin)

Sellers actually get an option to sell at a negative commission, i guess they might be trying to build up some feedback with cheap sales...

Also, remember that some of these sellers would have bought in their supply a when prices were lower, e.g. around £50 - so for those guys, even selling below market rate they could still be making themselves a decent profit per coin!