posted on May 14, 2001 04:30:58 PM
Although sellers are often crticized for seemingly high starting bids and reserves, WHO can blame them, with all of these outages!
I am about to list 200 items, and I like to start low to get some bidding action going, but WHO can take a chance of missing HALF the bids in the closing moments because of an outage, and as a result sell the item for a fraction of what it should go for?!?
posted on May 14, 2001 06:03:00 PM
Start your item at the lowest price you are willing to take. If it's worth it, someone will bid. If it's not worth it, it wouldn't meet the reserve anyway.
posted on May 14, 2001 06:17:34 PM
ladyfargo is right. she isnt saying ask as much as you can. she is saying , if the system crashes people cant bid. the last second snipers cant get on to bid so your item gets sold for the low starting bid. so maybe snipers should just bid and not wait.....that is not going to happen. the real problem is unlike a real auction ebay ends sales at a time. in the real world an auction doesnt end until bidding stops.
>in the real world an auction doesnt end until bidding stops.
What about goverment auctions that are "sealed bids" (that's an idea I like).
Until I came upon eBay, I had a totally different idea of what a "Dutch Action" was. That was when the auctioneer starts high, and comes down till someone says "I'll Buy it".
posted on May 14, 2001 06:45:38 PM
>>Common sense would tell you your right, but it doesn't happen that way. But who ever said ebay bidders had common sense? <<
That I can believe. It's amazing how silly some are. I recently posted a thread and folks were not ashamed to admit that they would rather bid on an item selling for $30 with no paypal fee than the identical item selling for $20 if there is a 30 cent paypal fee. They somehow felt that the seller who hides the fee by raising the price of the item and charging everybody was more honest than the seller who only charged the folks who actually used the service. So go figure.
I have tried starting auctions at my minimum price and at a low price with a reserve at the minimum price. I even tried doing both at the same time on the same site. What I found was that the low items got lots of bids but rarely met the reserve. I also got lots of stupid emails from the folks who bid on the reserve items like "I see I didnt make the reserve, but will you let that $500 camera go for $100?" And then there were the folks who thought that they won because they were the high bidder even if they didnt meet the reserve and got angry that I wouldnt sell to them. Some threatened to neg me. I guess they soon discovered you can't neg if you didnt win. So I don't waste time with reserves. I dont list that way and I dont bid on them. To me it's like walking into a store where prices are marked but when you get to the counter, they want more money. I can't understand why folks who couldn't accept a 30 cent paypal fee would accept the idea of an auction where a bid is meaningless unless you guess the seller's magic number.
posted on May 14, 2001 06:56:20 PMI don't waste time with reserves. I dont list that way and I dont bid on them.
To each his own I guess. A lot of people say that they won't waste their time bidding on them, but there's still plenty of people who will. I've done very well with reserve price auctions, especially for hard-to-find items.
posted on May 14, 2001 07:02:22 PM
For the one zillionth time
IT DEPENDS WHAT YOU SELL
I use reserves on many items, and 99% of the time the reserve is met early on. Auctions are all about getting people to commit to raising their paddle. Once they've done so, it often times becomes a battle of egos.
I don't much care if the odd person on AW refuses to bid on reserve auctions, any more than I care about the people on AW who refuse to bid on auctions where Billpoint or PayPal aren't offered.
My customers bid, and that's all that matters. No complaints about slow sales here.....
posted on May 14, 2001 08:25:36 PM
>occasionally tempted to try no-reserve, low-opener listings
When I have something GOOD that I got dirt cheap, sometimes I'll do that, but on something I am lucky to double my $ on (which doesn't double after expenses) I either start where I need it to be, or use a reserve. Strangely enough, dispite some people not liking the format, using a reserve works. I don't make a habbit of wasting listing fees.
posted on May 14, 2001 08:30:08 PM
I know you can't put anything about eBay outages in your descriptions, but couldn't you put something in like, "I reserve the right to void this auction if anything prevents it from running to it's stated end time?"
posted on May 14, 2001 08:32:50 PM
sadie ..... No, you cannot. You can end the auction early, after cancelling all the bids, but if it ends on its own, its considered sold to the high bidder.
Wording such as you posted will get your auction nuked, if it's reported to eBay.
posted on May 14, 2001 11:50:41 PM
yisgood: you said--
>>I can't understand why folks who couldn't accept a 30 cent paypal fee would accept the idea of an auction where a bid is meaningless unless you guess the seller's magic number<<
Well, I don't generally bid on reserve auctions, but I am not dead set against it. It's simply another auction format. Whereas a '30 cent paypal fee' is ILLEGAL (and would be even if it were a 1 cent paypal fee or a $100 paypal fee for that matter). I believe MOST folks know the difference between $30 and $20, but they don't want to see others breaking laws flagrantly that they themselves would not break and encourage these lawbreaking sellers by bidding on their auctions. The seller who charges $30 is actually making a better business decision (less bad publicity + more profit) and the buyer who patronizes him has made an ethical decision not just a money-based one (which some of us still feel is important). So it's a win-win situation...unless you are one of those dopes who is STILL trying to figure out how to charge for Paypal ONLY on Paypal transactions and hoping to find some way of doing it that the people accepting credit cards haven't tried and failed at for lo, about 30 years now...
posted on May 15, 2001 01:52:06 AM
personally,as a buyer i don't like reserve auctions and never bid on them. but as a seller, there were a couple of things on which i put a reserve, and was very surprised to see they got bids almost immediately, and were bid up to meet them quite quickly. i don't think that would have happened without the reserves. but once met, the bids didn't go much over at the end. i found all of this surprising.
i do usually start off at a price i'd be happy enough with, should i only get one bid. the problem is, if ebay goes down, while i won't have to sell my items for a pittance, they might not sell at all.
posted on May 15, 2001 02:06:41 AM
This a little off the subject, but I am new to eBay or any other auction, but i did not know about the system crashes. Also I put two items in at prices that are so low it's like giving them away, but I thought that may be a way of starting a history in there. What do you think?
posted on May 15, 2001 04:38:32 AM
"but couldn't you put something in like, "I reserve the right to void this auction if anything prevents it from running to it's stated end time?" "
Reddeer -- you say it will get nuked if reported... is there an ebay rule you can refer me to?
posted on May 15, 2001 06:22:36 AM
5.2 of the User agreement that all sellers agreed to when they signed up.
5.2 Binding Bids. Except for items listed in a category under the Non-binding Bid Policy, if you receive at least one bid at or above your stated minimum price (or in the case of reserve auctions, at or above the reserve price), you are obligated to complete the transaction with the highest bidder upon the auction's completion, unless there is an exceptional circumstance,
such as: (a) the buyer fails to meet the terms of your listing (such as payment method), or (b) you cannot authenticate the buyer's identity.
posted on May 15, 2001 07:12:56 AM
brighid868: It is NOT illegal to charge for Paypal. It is illegal to charge for credit cards. Paypal gets around this by charging for everything, including bank account transfers and account balance transfers. It is against Paypal's terms and ebay's terms to charge for Paypal, but it is perfectly acceptable to give a discount for using other payments.
Do you remember when gas stations used to give a discount for cash? Then they took that discount away. Some folks mistakenly believe that they are not paying for using a credit card. Of course they are! But they are also paying the credit card fee even when they pay with cash. Why is this more "honest" than only charging for the extra cost of accepting a credit card?
I'd rather not rip off my customers. But I won't rip myself off either. So I will add a "handling fee" for everybody and then discount it if I am not paid with a credit card via Paypal. My buyers can use a credit card with C2it and not pay the fee. If they are too lazy to sign up with C2it, why should that be my problem? They are choosing a method that is convenient for them and they should pay for their convenience. When you have something shipped to your house, don't you pay for that convenience or should the seller consider that a cost of doing business? Anyone who feels this is unfair is welcome to pay me by money order and also pay the handling fee.
posted on May 15, 2001 09:19:44 AM
Yisgood...you are right that it is not illegal to add a service charge for paypal but you are wrong in stating that Payal gets around it by charging for cash (account transfers) or checks. Paypal is not charging the CARD HOLDER and therefore is doing nothing illegal...we are NOT the merchant holding the merchant account and therefore we would be doing NOTHING ILLEGAL if we were to charge a fee also. It is illegal for the MERCHANT to charge the CARDHOLDER a fee to use a credit card.
It may be that in the future the laws will be changed to take into account the use of second party payment services and outlaw the final merchant (us) from charging a fee but currently we are not subject to the laws on not passing on the credit card fees, nor are we subject to the agreement between the merchant and the credit card companies because we DO NOT sign that merchant agreement.
BUT..it is against the user agreement with ebay that we agreed to in order to use ebay's services.
posted on May 15, 2001 10:46:19 AM
>>Paypal is not charging the CARD HOLDER and therefore is doing nothing illegal...we are NOT the merchant holding the merchant account and therefore we would be doing NOTHING ILLEGAL if we were to charge a fee also. It is illegal for the MERCHANT to charge the CARDHOLDER a fee to use a credit card. <<
Amy, you're absolutely right. I forgot that Paypal doesnt charge the cardholder. The expanation I gave fits C2it, which does charge the cardholder directly. In any case, the only illegality is when the merchant who signed the agreement with the credit card charges the customer for using a credit card. Sellers accepting Paypal signed no such agreement. Even sellers who accept credit cards directly can add a "handling fee" to everyone and then discount for cash or money order. Personally, I think the rule is silly. It was done to protect consumers from being hit with fees for using their credit cards. What happened is that now they are hit with the fees even when they don't use their credit cards. It's just that now the fees are hidden. The "cash discount" was taken away and folks seem so happy about paying more that they now get angry when a discount is offered.
posted on May 15, 2001 12:06:48 PM
As stated above IT DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU SELL.
Different categories work differently... But many sellers, in many categories, have found that they realize better results with higher starts or reserves as too few auctions generate much competitive bidding. In seems (and makes sense) that competition between buyers can reliably generate optimal results only for the hotter items or categories.
