eBay Question

[flundertaker]

I like Gunbroker's 15 minute rule.

Anyone really know why eBay doesn't run like a true auction?

amen. it's better for the sellers and the site. I have no idea why you would want to run an "auction" and not give everyone an opportunity to catch a little auction fever and up their previous high bid. think of all the recent high selling prices on GB for things like the nickel 17, pre-29, etc and imagine what the price would have been if someone could have sniped them at the last minute on a fixed time auction. probably 50-75% of what they sold for on GB.

 

[Old TexMex]

It seems to me....
ebay is a buyers auction, not a sellers auction.
As we say, it all depends on whose ox is gored.
I rekon ebay is geared toward volume of sales, and chopping the bidding off at a fixed time facilitates their management of their huge volume.

Is that a fair assessment or am I mistooken?

 

[zzzippper]

Wait until the last 10 seconds..
then place the highest price you're willing to pay..
that way a bidder can't walk up the bid on you unless they are willing to pay more than your max amount, which the current bid price won't show your max price.

Agreed. Some may call it bad sniping but it keeps you from guaranteeing that you will get out bid. The people that place a bid with six days left are just jacking up the price. The same thing happens on gunbroker.

 

[Skeet 028]

There seems to be a lot of folks that claim they won't bid on a reserve auction, well I won't bid on a 15 minute rule auction because of the "nibblers" (or the shills....)

There you go..the shills. Gun Broker has wayyyy too many of them. The guys with accounts have friends bid..If the friends win...all is forgiven. When they have an account there is no final value percentage charged the seller..so...he is out nothing. And Gun Broker has no reason to follow up on this shill bidding. I will not buy or bid on GB for those reasons. At least with ebay you know when it ends. Watch till the last if you want and then bid..but realize you ain't the only one. I don't like their policies but even with paypal fees they aren't really out of line on costs. Most auctions here locally charge 30% to sell YOUR stuff plus many have a 5% buyers fee. A real way to make money. Almost as good as a pawn shop. They can almost print their own money...LOL

 

[RonJ]

So it looks like the consensus is that I placed my bid a few seconds too late. Thanks everyone who replied.

 

[Ben_hutcherson]

I like Gunbroker's 15 minute rule.

Anyone really know why eBay doesn't run like a true auction?

Ebay is a true auction. There are many different types of auctions, and it's just not a traditional "Going, Going, Gone" type auction(AKA an English Auction). Sites that extend bidding due to last second bids operate this way.

Ebay could best be classed as a sealed-bid Vickrey type auction, where the bids are sealed(i.e. the amount not known) and the price the winning bidder pays is determined by the second highest bidder. Ebay is a bit different from a Vickrey type auction in that the winning bidder pays one bid increment over the second highest bid(except in special cases where the two highest bidders are separated by an amount less than a bid increment).

I've been around Ebay-first using my Dad's account and later my own-since 1998.

Sniping is how it works on Ebay. It always has, and is most likely not going to change. There's nothing "unfair" about it-if you bid the maximum amount you are willing to pay, don't complain about how you "changed your mind."(BTW, even if you enter an early maximum bid, you can still continue to increase it up to the last second of the auction).

I don't have a lot of sympathy for folks who complain about sniping-that's how it's been done on Ebay for nearly 20 years now. Either learn to play the game, or stay away.

There's nothing evil or cowardly about it-it's just people making the most efficient use of the system that's in place.

 

[Taurus627]

I don't bother with the last second bidding. I determine what is the highest amount I willing pay for the item and bid that amount a day or so before the auction ends. If I will the item, then I'm happy. If I don't win the item, then it was priced more than I was wiling to bay. You never get caught bidding too late to have your bid accepted.

When bidding on E Bay items, this is how I do it but I will usually try to find what I want with a "Buy it Now" available and forgo the bidding process.

 

[deadin]

Anyone really know why eBay doesn't run like a true auction?

Most "live" auctions I have attended the auctioneer will hammer down a sale if there isn't another bid within seconds, let alone 15 minutes. That and a good auctioneer can tell if there is a good chance to wheedle more bids out of a couple competitors and will let them run with it. If he feels it's done, hammer time and on to the next item. There's no real way to do this on-line. The money is in thru-put, not individual items.
As I said in another thread, on-line auctions are heavily weighted in favor of the seller because it is the seller that makes them the money. Unfortunately it is the buyer that has to pay the bills....

 

[Florida Guy]

I like Gunbroker's 15 minute rule.

I think it sucks if you're a buyer. It only benefits the seller.

 

[M3Stuart]

Fleabay....

 

[Skeet 028]

Actually no..it benefits ebay or Gun Broker or whoever. To be honest both buyer and seller pay in the end.seller pays the fees but the buyer pays for the item and shipping. And on ebay..they even take their percentage on the shipping. So if the seller is a little more up on things he adds that percentage on his shipping charges..so it costs the buyer a little bit more. Previously sellers were charged their fees on the cost of the item..so they did buy it nows for an item worth say 50 bucks...at 3 dollars and charged 47 dollar shipping. GBs 15 minute rule is ok for the seller but for GB too. Hurts the buyer though in the long run....even if you happen to be the buyer...or the next to last bidder. LOL

 

[deadin]

To be honest both buyer and seller pay in the end.seller pays the fees but the buyer pays for the item and shipping.

I contend that the buyer pays everything and the seller is on the hook for nothing. If it doesn't sell it costs him nothing. If it does sell the fees are taken out before he gets anything, so he never had the extra money in the first place.

 

[Skeet 028]

Oh it does cost the seller. What if it doesn't sell for the true value?? Even if it did he doesn't get what it sold for. Extra money?? What extra?? Yep the buyer funds the payment to the auction..but it comes from the proceeds to the seller. Any auction of a person's items ends up that way.

 

[deadin]

What if it doesn't sell for the true value??

That's the chance one take's with any "true" auction. Maybe he should have used a starting bid at "True " value ( or a reserve.) Besides, isn't the old saying "It's worth what someone is willing to pay for it". If I value my old beater top-break at $1,000 and it only sells for $400, has it cost me $600??

Even if it did he doesn't get what it sold for.

Isn't that true of anything you use a third party "agent" to sell ?

 

[Ben_hutcherson]

I contend that the buyer pays everything and the seller is on the hook for nothing. If it doesn't sell it costs him nothing. If it does sell the fees are taken out before he gets anything, so he never had the extra money in the first place.

On Ebay, the seller pays 10% of the selling price+shipping plus Paypal fees($.30+2.9% of the transaction).

This means that on an item with a $100 selling price(including shipping) the seller will only see 96.80 in their Paypal account. They are then billed for $10 by Ebay at the end of the month.

BTW, I offer free shipping first class shipping on all my auctions now(I rarely sell anything which can't go first class). It makes no difference in what I pay to Ebay but tends to make buyers happy and-more importantly-raises my search standings. I do offer some "upgraded" options(which no one ever takes, although I'll occasionally bump a buyer up to Priority Mail if the buyer is a friend or I'm particularly happy with the selling price).

As I said earlier, Ebay is what it is. You either learn the rules and use them to your advantage or be prepared to lose auctions and get lower selling prices on items you sell.

I don't like the current Ebay fee structure, but I deal with it.

 

[tbgunner88]

The funniest part about ebay is watching people get into bidding wars, many times the same seller will have another listing of the same item on buy it now for half the price of what people bid it to. This happened recently with a knife I was watching, the same seller had one knife set at $12.90 buy it now and another on bids that sold for $23 and both had free shipping.

 

[cowart]

I still believe that there is something wrong with "Sniping".

It doesn't seem that much different than bidding at an in-person auction.