Ebay - OT

[Alan]

In message , sweetheart wrote

We just searched Ebay for 70s crap.

[Andy Burns]

It's called sniping, it's a fairly successful (if a little selfish) tactic to avoid getting into a bidding war with someone!

If you don't bid early, the sniper night never bid at all.

[sweetheart]

There's a lot of that. ;-)

Now look, nothing aggressive or whatever intended but I had a watch on a clock ( another one following the one I said about). I had a vague idea I might bid but didn't following my experience yesterday. Now its just gone past and not a single bidder came in for it.

I ts plain crazy. I was put off from something I could have got because of the experience yesterday and now no one wants anything more it seems ( by the way this was a nicer clock than the other. Probably worth more).

[sweetheart]

Yeah I have just realized that - and I didn't bid either. On a clock I saw that went down two minutes ago.

[sweetheart]

this position every time

Which begs the question, why do they do it then? Bid on something someone else has a bid on but not on something with no bids?

[Jeff Gaines]

Bidding on eBay is simple surely - when you find what you want you decide the maximum you are willing to pay, enter that amount and leave eBay to bid for you. You either 'win' it or you don't, but you won't pay more than you think something is worth.

[Bob Eager]

Because they probably booked an automatic snipe on that item when the item was first listed.

[sweetheart]

It seems simple until someone comes and messes it up.

Anyway, it looks like I am about to own two plates. I just bid for and got another one. No one bid on that either. Got it for very little. after all that - and I still have a bid left on one in 2 days time.

[tim....]

That's the fault of the show's format.

People buy specialist stuff and then sell it in a general auction.

It's not a surprise that it doesn't reach its valuation

tim

[Bob Eager]

They didn't mess it up. If they bid very late, unless they bid more than your maximum bid, you won't lose it.

[Alan]

In message , sweetheart wrote

Bloody dealers, buying up all the plates.

[sweetheart]

Well I stand by that. A dealer was buying up all those that came up yesterday.

As I said originally there were 10 there I counted - all the one I want. Spread over three days.

Three ended yesterday. I bid on one. The dealer bid and took all three. Seems today he isnt interested as I have bought ( just like that ) a plate - cheaper than the ones he bid on yesterday. I had / have a bid in for a plate ( same again) in two days time. It remains to be seen if I get it or not. But today, there were no other bidders. I chanced it after seing a clock go unsold just beforehand. Yet another clock yesterday was bid on by several buyers ( identical cliock).

Is this because its a sunny Sunday? I thought snipers worked all the time.

[sweetheart]

[Andy Burns]

Sometimes it might be a shill bidder, i.e. the seller bids on his own item from another account to bump the price up, or someone conspires with the seller to do the same, eBay claim to stamp down on it, I'm not sure how strongly ...

[Mike Barnes]

newshound :

Agreed to all that. As a way of recycling your old stuff, it's hard to beat.

[John Rumm]

Aside from the fact that their fees are a bit high, I have had very few problems buying or selling on it.

Its usually easy enough to compare ebay to other online web sales sites

- typically dealers on ebay are comparable or better. You also find an increasing number of business that have real shops and also sometimes web sites of their own, will also maintain an ebay shop so as not to miss the business done there. Axminster power tools for example.

This is what is called sniping[1]. Its designed to take advantage of both human nature (i.e. the fact that people will often bid over their pre-decided maximum in the heat of the moment) - so slipping a bid in at the end prevents this, and also takes advantage of folks (no offence, but by the sounds of it in this case you!) who don't understand how ebay bidding works.

So first lesson: ebay proxy bidding. When you place a bid on ebay, you are not bidding the amount you place. What you are telling ebay is that is the maximum that you are prepared to bid.

So for example. Your plate is sat there at the opening price of 1.99. You decide that you would be prepared to pay up to £10 for the plate. Hence you first and *only* bid should be for £10. Ebau will now bid on your behalf, and enter the opening bid of £1.99. If no one else bids, then at auction close, you win if for that amount. Say however someone comes and enters a maximum bid of £5. Ebay will immediately out bid them on your behalf and place a bid of £5.50 (or whatever the next bid "increment" above the current bis is. It carries on like this until either you are outbid, or you win. You will get an email if you are outbid.

Ebay is available for end users and dealers - the only difference is the fee structure is a bit different. So there is no point being upset by it

- that is the way it is supposed to be. (probably 80%+ of sales are from business sellers)

The only person you are hurting here is you. The dealer has done nothing to hide the fact they are a dealer - especially if they maintain and ebay "shop".

OK, log into ebay, and click on the "advanced search" link next to the search button. Type a description of your plate into the search box, and click the "completed listings" check box. Then click search. It will now show all the recent completed auctions that sold something like that which you want. Prices shown in red are ones where no sale happened (i.e. did not reach opening price or reserve), ones in green show the final value of the sale. That will give you and idea of what folks are prepared to pay. With something that is collectable and not readily available, then that *is* the reasonable (ebay) price. Say folks are routinely parting with £20 for it, and a dealer comes along and sticks an opening price of £40 on a similar one - it simply won't get any bids

- hence its not possible for a dealer to "rip off" anyone in this way.

Find out what the plates have sold for as above. Go back and bid again with the maximum bid you are prepared to pay if its over the normal sale price. Remember a dealer needs margin to make money, so they will not be interested in paying top money for something. Hence you will probably win it or lose out to another collector like yourself.

Regardless, so long as you know how to lookup the typical selling prices, and you only bid up to what you are prepared to pay, they you can't be ripped off.

[1] Sniping - bidding in the last few seconds of an auction. This is typically done with software and not by manually entering bids.

It is *particularly* common with collectables, since frequent buyers and sellers of collectables will build up a reputation for knowing what it potentially valuable and hence worth bidding on. So they have a problem

- if they see something that is perhaps not well described and recognise it as something potentially far more valuable than the owner realises, they would obviously want to did. However if they do so, they also attract attention to the item. So setting their sniping program to bid 3 secs from the end means that they don't disclose their interest until that information is no longer of value.

[Mike Barnes]

Matty F :

I don't believe for one moment that eBay hasn't thought of extending auctions. Of *course* they've thought about it. And they've decided against it, obviously, even if their reasons aren't obvious to you.

[John Rumm]

The whole point of the ebay proxy bid system is that it (in theory at least (although see previous comments on disclosing values)) makes sniping irrelevant. If folks bid once, with their maximum bid, then the proxy bids will sort the rest out.

Treat it like a postal bid at a real auction, and the only way you can be outbid is if someone else pays more.

[John Rumm]

Its actually been discussed with and by them many times. For whatever reason they have never implemented it. Personally I don't see the need.

Only because she did not enter her maximum bid in the first place. This was a lack of understanding on the OP's part, not a failing in ebay as such.

[John Rumm]

Its how a real auction works with postal/faxed/emailed bids etc. The auctioneer bids on the bidders behalf until either he wins it for the bidder, or the room/phone bids exceed the maximum proxy bid.

If you are confident in the value of what you are selling and there is lots of popular demand for it, then the low starting price will make no difference to the final outcome, however will cost the seller *less* in listing fees. It will also encourage earlier speculative bids.

Calm down... learn how it works. Enter a bid as large as you would be prepared to go up to in a real auction and relax. You will either win or not depending on who else wants it.

For something you need to be prepared to play a longer game - keep your eyes on what is available for a few weeks and only enter the market when you like what you see. You can save a search in ebay, so that to rerun it becomes the click of a button.