posted on December 4, 2000 05:49:52 AM
I imagine that the Buy It Now feature is great for the lucky person who happens upon a hot item as soon as it's listed and can grab it at a steal. I do wish that ebay would remove the item once there is an instant bidder. I've come across many items that I'm interested in bidding on and can't because someone has grabbed it up at the Buy It Now price. It's almost like you have to be watching the new listings constantly if you want to cash in on those great bargains. I also listed an item and tried the Buy It Now feature adding a few dollars to my original list price. Since the item wasn't getting any bidders I went ahead and removed the Buy It Now price as it would be pretty embarrassing if I only had one bidder who bid at the regular price and the Buy It Now price was never met. I think people who are listing hot items at low prices with the Buy It Now feature are losing a lot of money since I've seen many items that I know would get top dollar, but go in a matter of minutes at the BIN price. If I had a say in the BIN feature staying or going, I'd say get rid of it.
posted on December 4, 2000 05:52:52 AM
When I saw the title of your thread, I was going to post with the same complaint you made. I wish that once an item was sold via BIN, that it would be removed from the search list. I happened across two items just last night I was interested in, and both were already sold under BIN. Grrrrr...
posted on December 4, 2000 05:56:45 AM
As a Seller I LOVE BIN - AND Buyers, often when a seller posts a BIN item, they may likely have others. I have had a number of customers write and say they missed the auction, but did I have any more "widgets", or would I please let them know if I posted another "widget," on eBay.
All this is to say - it doesn't hurt to ask, write the sellers on the auctions that you missed and see if they don't have another item like the one which just sold - can't hurt and you might be happily surprised.
I have gotten lots of sales from these back door buyers.
posted on December 4, 2000 06:31:31 AM
I'm with you Meya & harvestmoon, I think I might like it if I ever got to use it but that hasn't been the case so far! I'm tired of wasting my time loading an auction only to find out that it's already ended by BIN! I can't understand why they leave the auctions like that up.
As a seller I haven't tried it. I've been busy so I planned my auctions ending at a time where I wouldn't be--I didn't want them ending in the middle of the week when I didn't have time to check my e-mail. I did end up getting the amount I wanted for the items (and started them at $1) so I guess I don't need the BIN feature!
posted on December 4, 2000 06:40:59 AM
As a seller I love it. I got two sales that way last night. Mine don't usually get snapped up instantly, but then, I "only" sell used books, not the latest gadget. I also wish the listings would disappear immediately because I see no point in keeping them up. I see my counters go up and up but I don't have more copies of the books.
I'm enjoying it now, but I understand that ebay will charge for the privilege of listing a BIN next month. If it's anything more than a few cents, I won't be using it.
posted on December 4, 2000 07:00:27 AM
I think it's great for commonly available items where you can accurately guage the market price. If you know that your item always sells for $9 to $11, then you can set the buy it now for $10 and walk away with a quick and easy sale. I've used it on Amazon and really liked it.
However, I'd never use it on anything unusual. You just don't know what you could get for it by letting it run its course through the auction period.
As a buyer, I like the idea of securing the item immediately, but I've experienced the same problem as those above where the item I click on is already gone!
posted on December 4, 2000 10:32:36 AM
...after I posted my comment, I happened to do a title search on a book I sold last night with a BIN price in the single digits. Thought it was a good deal for me, and it was, in terms of return on my investment. But then I noticed the SAME item is currently up to $23 on a live auction. Oops! I forgot to check the competition first!
Live and learn, I guess. My buyer got a great deal, anyway.
posted on December 4, 2000 12:04:47 PM
I had my first BIN sale last week for a Pokemon Christmas ornament. I immediately received email from the winner requesting payment info (I hadn't gotten the email from Ebay yet to know it had been sold). Less than 12 hours later, I received another email from another bidder who saw that my item had sold, and wondered if I had another item available at the same price the winning bidder had purchased it for.
I did, and we arranged the sale of the item. Got Paypal payment promptly, and both ornaments went out in the mail today.
Today received email from a 3rd person who saw my auction and wanted to know if I had another. I hope they leave the BIN items up on search - I'm getting more hits AFTER the item closed than I did before.. and things have been really slow lately, so I'll take every bit I can get. 8)
posted on December 4, 2000 12:39:50 PM
As a buyer, yes, I like it (except that I wish they'd take the already-bought auctions out of search, as others have mentioned). I'm the type that would rather pay a couple of extra dollars and *know* I got the item, rather than making a bid and waiting and waiting and waiting for the auction to end.
As as seller, though, I've found that BIN doesn't seem to work out well for me. What I sell one day for $5, might sell for $10 the next day. Same exact item, but the demand goes up and down. If I put a BIN price of (say) $7.50, it seems like one of two things happen: it seems to either scare off the bidders who want the item as inexpensively as possible, or someone snatches it up for $7.50 and leaves me wondering if I priced it too low.
Also, I have 100 - 250 auctions running at any given time. It's harder to notice when someone has bought an item. I tried to check several times a day, but was afraid I'd accidentally overlook an auction. The end-of-auction notices from eBay are usually too slow to be useful -- I wish they'd send an extra notice right away saying that someone has "bought it now".
If I didn't have so many auctions running, and if it was easier to set a price for my things, I'd probably use BIN all the time. But for now, it's not really helpful to me.
Either way, I sure can't see paying extra for it, especially when other sites offer it at no extra cost.
posted on December 4, 2000 06:35:00 PM
I think the fact that closed BIN auctions remain in the search listings is part of the *genius* of Buy It Now!
I've seen a couple of closed BIN auctions for an item I've been wanting for a while, which isn't rare, but is hard to find (there are between three and eight listings at any one time on eBay) -- and some of them have closed at prices that I would have been glad to pay.
Now what do I do? I search *two* or *three* times a day for that item, in the hope of snatching up a bargain. And in the course of my surfing, if I see another BIN item that appeals to me, at a price I like ... well, of course, I'm going to get it.
Of course, I buy mostly vintage, one-of-a-kind type items, so the competition is a little more stiff for the stuff I like. But I still think that Buy It Now has the potential to increase sales by teaching buyers like me that you can't just put something on your "watch this item" list and sit around on your butt until the close of auction.
Mixes things up a little bit. I think that's great.
posted on December 4, 2000 10:11:20 PM
The reason that auctions still show up in search after they have been bought is because of the way eBay handles the search function.
Every so often throughout the day, a process goes over ALL of the auctions creating a seperate search database. This is why your items don't show up in search as soon as you list them -- you have to wait for the 'indexing' run to complete. This is also why sometimes ebay lets you search, but won't let you actually see an item. Item retrieval can be 'down' while search is still working.
They do this to make search run faster - think about it. you can ask for "commode" in both titles and descriptions of 6 million auctions and get a result in a few seconds. That's an awesome task. What they most likely do is rip every title and description down into their component words, then create databases of them that, for a given word, point back to all the auction numbers.
That indexing run takes hours even on very fast expensive clusters of workstations. It is central to ebay as a web site. don't expect it to change much anytime soon.
BTW, given what I've said above, if you are looking for 'just listed' items, you want to try to find out when the indexing run has finished and search just after that. You can get an idea when the last run completed by going to a very active category, do a search on a word common to that category, and sort by 'newly listed items first'.
posted on December 5, 2000 01:03:38 PM
I understand why bidders would like the BIN feature. Buy why in the world would sellers want to use it? I sell mostly used books and at least 5 times a month I have a "sleeper". The last one I had I listed at $5.00, I would have been happy with the $5.00. But I was THRILLED when it went to $154.00. Had I used the BIN feature I'd have lost out on $149.00....So for me I'll just pass up the chance to use the BIN feature...
posted on December 5, 2000 03:01:41 PM
I sell gems and jewelry. I posted several items with the buy it now. I posted it with the opening bid. Because I am not greedy and would like to move the inventory.
I had also post some buy it now previously with an additional amount over opening bid.
Did not get any sales
I haven't had any reaction to either.
Buyers would you think that the opening price is ok or should it be more than opening price? I did this on items in the 300 to 400 dollar range. The only reason I even thought of using the buy it now was because of xmas and figuring people are getting in a hurry.
I just wondered if it turned people off or if they were afraid to use it.
posted on December 5, 2000 03:48:11 PM
I like it too. But, if they start charging for it, they can keep it and I will go back to putting "First Bid Wins!" in the title and saying in the description to email me immediately if they bid on the auction, so I can close it. I still do that on the "First Bid Wins!" auctions I have up there now that are high priced items. I don't want someone using BIN on those and automatically closing them before I make sure they are in the USA and have given me a name, address, and zip. Recouping fees from egreed is a pain.
posted on December 5, 2000 05:10:34 PM
It work good if you don't have a NUT case on your hands. I have one bidder yesterday, after she bid on one of my buy it now auction. She e-mails me 15 times in one day. First, she is going to pay using Paypal. Next 2-5 e-mails, she just going on and on, complaining one after another one accuse me of being rude which I didn't. Then she wouldn't remember how much is her winning auction or my mailing address. Finally, she say she is going to send a check in the mail. NUTS!!!!!
posted on December 5, 2000 10:12:46 PM
I've been setting BIN prices near the price I'd expect to get on a regular auction, and every item has been getting snapped up within 12 hours of listing it. So it has been a huge success for me, but I'm not sure if after Christmas I'll have the same good results. On auctions without the BIN I'm getting an increase of people asking me to sell it to them at a BIN price with any price I ask. I hope ebay keeps BIN after the Holidays because I know it'd work wonderfully on my smaller priced items that typically recieve one bid. I've used it on Yahoo extensivally, and I find my profits going up to 100% per item (aver. is 40% increase).
