posted on November 15, 2000 07:33:49 PM
Got this email tonight:
NEW FEATURE! Buy It Now!
A new and easy auction enhancement is now available to you! Buy It Now is attracting a new set of buyers to the site, allowing all buyers to make instant purchases at the prices you want, and speeding up transactions! Extremely conducive to gift giving and last minute purchases during the holidays, Buy It Now is being offered as a holiday test for free! Try it today!
Edited to add that I went to look and the Sell your item form has not been updated yet.
posted on November 16, 2000 03:42:28 AM
woke up this morning to the notice from ebay for Buy It Now , so let's bring it back up to the top of the board!
posted on November 16, 2000 06:10:05 AM
For the people that have received this Email, have you tried it? Are you actually seeing an updated seller's form on Ebay????
posted on November 16, 2000 06:43:58 AM
I have tried, to no avail, to get information on when the Buy It Now feature will start. I put a post on one of eBay's boards but it got buried without a reply. I've heard about the email everybody's getting (I haven't gotten this email yet) where it says "use it today" but it's not activated that I can see. I even saw on another discussion board where a person said they saw it on a "revise" page. I went thru one of my auctions and checked and I saw nothing that indicated the BIN feature. It also isn't showing up on the Announcements.
I've had trouble getting around eBay this morning. Maybe it's because they're trying to implement the new feature. One could only surmise!
posted on November 16, 2000 07:57:28 AM
I got that email too, and I went straight to eBay and entered an auction, but of course, it wasn't available--it was just the same old sell your item form. I tried again this morning, same thing. Nothing on the announcements board. Another example of dot-com organization. Send out the notices, get everyone excited, and then pfffft.
pocono, I doubt that what you're saying will come to pass. Yahoo has a buy it now function and I haven't heard people complaining about that type of problem. In fact, most people on Yahoo seem to really like an optional Buy it now function. But if you want to bet on it, I'll bet you a dollar that Buy it now will be VERY popular with buyers and sellers this season. (Sellers that USE it of course...not those who just put it down with dark and ominous predictions).
I think everytime eBay changes, people overreact. Isn't it possible for change to be a GOOD thing??
posted on November 16, 2000 09:06:43 AM
I got my email late last night and immediately tried to list something but the option didn't show up yet on the listing form. The email got sent out before the option was turned on I guess.
I've been waiting for this feature and hope it will help improve sales, it could be very beneficial this Christmas selling season.
posted on November 16, 2000 09:18:40 AM
Well, as far as Buy It Now on Yahoo!, there is the added benefit that you don't have to pay _anything_ for listing (unless you feature) or final value fees to Yahoo! if your buyer doesn't come through...
On eBay, if someone uses Buy It Now and doesn't pay, we _still_ have to pay listing fees, then when we finally figure out that they aren't going to come through with the cash, the very soonest we can get credited for the FVF is 17 days after the auction end.
Yeah I can see a potential problem there (didn't even occur to me until I read your post pocono).
Apparently this feature won't be immediately available for dutch auctions. Unfortunately, seems to me that's where it would be especially useful.
posted on November 16, 2000 10:01:34 AM
Personally I have never had a problem with 'buy price" auctions on Yahoo, and have run 1000's of them. However, I have heard plenty of sellers tell a different story, and the fees definitely put a seller at an increased risk of loss.
Also, Yahoo is now verifying buyers with a credit card, and no matter how many people say different, the vast majority of us have a limited number of them and so there is less an option to create an endless string of id's as they gather negs for non payment. No more is your reputation so discardable.
Further, Yahoo offers sellers the option to screen bidders, and if this ever became a problem the seller could restrict bids from people with less than 0 FB or 5 FB or whatever.
I don't know how it is going to go for the Ebay seller, but my point here is the only entity that is FOR SURE going to profit is Ebay. Particularly when they train your now "bidding buyers" to avoid auctions and go only for BUY PRICE selections. At this point
they will be charging you to put them up that way.
posted on November 16, 2000 10:06:51 AM
As soon as I received the e-mail yesterday, I went to eBay and tried out the feature. I can verify that the new sell screen appeared, but would not submit correctly. Off and on throughout the night the But It Now option appeared, but never worked.
I tried right now and I receive this information:
Input Error
One of the parameters received was invalid for this function. This probably means that your browser had problems with the form or you invoked the function incorrectly. Please go back and try again. If you're using an old bookmark, you may need to rebookmark it due to recent changes to protect your privacy. If the problem persists, please report the problem to eBay [email protected].
posted on November 16, 2000 10:20:04 AMPersonally...
As a seller, I would NEVER use the "buy it now" feature.
If someone is so willing to "buy it now" then they'll more likely than not "buy it later" too. So why not leave it up fot normal auction and possibly get MORE for it?
If a seller overprices something, it will probably NOT sell anyway. If a seller underestimates the value, the market will likely correct that---unless some quick-thinking bidder buys it now, in which case the seller is SOL.
posted on November 16, 2000 10:22:35 AM
sun the same thing happened to me. I saw the screen with the Buy it now space this AM, but couldn't successfully submit.
I was just in ebay's Q and A section and an ebay employee said it would hopefully be running before the day's end.
VeryModern, you raise some good points....I definitely agree that some people *will* find ways to abuse it, but overall I still think it's going to be a great addition to the present way of doing business. Wanna make a friendly bet on it? If you win, I have to knit YOU a pair of slippers (and no you do NOT want to see my knitting!!!)
I think its entirely possible that a lot of people will use the Buy It Now feature...
Possibly the same people that send me email that says "I HATE waiting around and trying to win at the end of an auction. It looks like you have quite a few of these - will you sell this outside of the auction process so I don't have to mess around with this?"
Or the same people that won't bid on ANY of my auctions until the very last day even if I make 3000 items available (dutch)?
Some people are very impatient and don't like to "wait around" until an auction is over to pay for (and receive) their items. I have friends that don't buy from onine auctions just for that reason.
In most cases when people are so impatient, they are more than willing to pay more for something. How many times have _you_ paid significantly more for something because you needed (or even wanted) it right "NOW"?
That said, if ebay charges, I don't think I'm very likely to use this feature.
posted on November 16, 2000 10:49:07 AM
I use BUY NOW - or as we call it on Yahoo "1st Bid Wins" exclusively, and we LOVE IT - can't wait till it shows up on the listing page on eBay.
I found it on the revise page, but not on the listing page yet!
LETS GO EBAY - put the BUY NOW on the listing page - can't wait to test it.
posted on November 16, 2000 10:58:43 AM
I forgot the rest of my prediction.
Ebay sellers are going to find that this is the end of runaway bidding (for almost everything, or conservatively, for 80% of what is listed at the site.)
That kind of bidding is already history, but this will show it in spades.
More and more sellers will move off site (primarily Yahoo, but also anywhere else they can think of) because they will see they are deriving no benefit for the fees they are paying and so Ebay growth will continue to be stagnant.
There will be cutthroat competition, especially as inexperienced dealers start to panic and sell cheap.
In short, this is the end of the short-lived online auction era (except for the truly rare).
Matter of fact, auctions were a fad, and EBAY has obviously came to the same conclusion. People will still run auctions, but they will be akin to having a raffle to get people into the "store".
posted on November 16, 2000 12:00:21 PM
I think Buy it now is great. I used it on Yahoo like this. When selling an item that is normaly selling for around $12.00 to $13.00 I have a $9.99 start or a buy price of $15.00
Over 1/2 of the time people took the $15.00 buy price. I think it will work even better on Ebay.
posted on November 16, 2000 12:02:30 PMThe DUMBEST thing that Ebay could do now, is [i]compromise[/b] their identity. Once they start offering the "buy it now" feature, they will cease to be an "auction" site. They will then be the same as any other retail site, and will fade into the abyss.
I totally disagree with the notion that auctions are a fad. They are a great way to either get a good deal or perhaps make a good profit on what was otherwise thought of as a worthless item.
Ebay's biggest concern should be GETTING MORE BUYERS without compromising their identity and screwing with the formula that got them where they are today.
They seem to be channeling their energies in the wrong direction. They should enhance their stengths, not sell them out.
posted on November 16, 2000 12:16:51 PM
The problem here Tommy111 is that ebay has stopped growing and in the same time frame Yahoo has doubled it's listings. They are now very nearly neck and neck. (Still got a shot at my Christmas prediction coming true)
Ebay can't get MORE buyers because buyers do not want to bid and wait and all that bull**** anymore. It's done, it's over, it's finished. It's not fun anymore. Things change. Moods change, people change, trends change. People don't line up to buy beanie babies anymore and they don't bid stuff sky high on ebay either.
Now what kills me is if ebay sellers will PAY ebay to be Yahoo which does it better for FREE.
posted on November 16, 2000 12:17:34 PM
Okay. Here's my bet (and VeryModern my knitting....have you ever heard the expression "never try to teach a pig to sing"?
Prediction:
Buy It Now will be very popular with some buyers but others will always hope for a better deal and thus will start the bidding at the lower initial bid price. This will encourage them to bid early and attract more bidders to see what the attraction is. So sellers who sell with Buy It Now and get a quick turnaround will benefit and sellers who offer Buy it now but whose stuff ends up being bid up in the usual way will benefit too.
ebay will make money, sellers will make money, buyers will be initially confused but will come to love it.
Kim
(always the optimist, unless I'm in one of my moods)
posted on November 16, 2000 12:42:59 PM
Kim I married an optimist just like you and so really appreciate the quality
However.
Folks looking for a deal know better than to bid up an auction. They snipe.
We will see a sea of zero bid auctions just like Yahoo, and you will have to check "solds" to glean what is really going on.
Oh..
I just remembered that the "buy it now" price is null if someone bids early. So this means an interested party may bid early to turn off the option (to the rest of the WORLD) to be able to buy at the seller's desired price.
Grrrrrreat.
Okay, so it won't be this bad (my previous posts), that fast. Maybe, maybe not, but it doesn't look all that good. Stock market continues to fall today, people are not in the mood for games.
