posted on July 16, 2001 05:03:56 PM
Just wondered what everyone thought about sellers who only do private auctions. Since Ebay's change to allowing only sellers & winning bidders access to email addresses, what does a private auction actually accomplish (& I'm not talking about 'adult only' auctions)? It seems to me it could be a perfect ploy for a seller to shill bid on their own auctions. Does Ebay moniter this in any way? I almost want to suspect a couple sellers who always do the private auctions (& the $1/NR), & seem to do just 'too' well comparably to other sellers who sell the same items, whether they do the $1/NR or not. Thanks for any feedback.
posted on July 16, 2001 05:39:45 PM
There is so much shill bidding on ebay that it is not funny. I believe that a large percentage of the people ,private or not is shill bidding. If they start it out cheap they are not usually going to let it go for less than what they paid. Ebay is a rigged site.
posted on July 16, 2001 05:42:45 PM
i would bet atleast 50% of the sellers shill. we could do apole here but i doubt people would be honest......I am currently in a 12 step program for shilling.
posted on July 16, 2001 05:49:30 PMi would bet at least 50% of the sellers shill.
Are you serious? Do you really think the percentage is that high? I am blown away if others think that is true. I have never shill bid and can't imagine doing so! Not that I'm holy or anything, but I would just be too chicken I'd get caught!
posted on July 16, 2001 06:27:53 PM
I use private auctions because many of my customers are men buying shoes made for women.
I have never shill bid nor do I see a reason to do so. As many have pointed out here, you can end an auction for any reason. I have never done that either. I start my bids at the price I want for the item.
Since Ebay's change to allowing only sellers & winning bidders access to email addresses, what does a private auction actually accomplish
Private auctions prevent competetitors from seeing anyone that bid on your auction.
I was bidding on SDRAM last month. I lost a several times. After the auction I would get an email through ebay's mail system from a 0 feedback seller asking if I wanted to buy ram form their site. I lost 4 times and I got the email 4 times. Each time it was from a different address, but it was always from the same site. This guy just kept signing up under different names so he could use the ebay mail system to contact bidders on other ebayers auctions.
posted on July 16, 2001 07:20:01 PM
I DO NOT shill bid, but I think I have been shill bidded against when I am bidding on certain widgets, (same widget for past year)I cannot win, no matter what! The widget starts out way low, I bid, someone outbids, I bid again, same bidder always outbids, newbie too! I even bid high proxy, newbie always beats me out. I guess I dont want the item bad enough to keep going. Never been able to figure out if it is shiller or not, either, because they always have bid on several items from different sellers, and won one here and there. So,......?
posted on July 16, 2001 07:22:41 PM
Thanks for all your responses! shop4shoes, I can understand your reason for doing private auctions, & also that through 'non' private auctions, a competitor can still solicit their stuff through Ebay's email system to a non-winning bidder. In my main selling category though, I still think some of these 'private auctions' may be disguised as prime shill bidding opportunities, & for nothing else. I still would like to know if Ebay recognizes these possibilities, or do they only respond if someone alerts them, & how can you do that if it's a 'private auction'.
posted on July 16, 2001 07:45:15 PM
yumacoot
if you are being constantly outbid at the end etc. with the fianl price being high, and its the same seller he not a very good shiller...the idea is to get it high and let you win, not just beat you out.......maybe a percentage of them were shills gone awry but i would bet you just lost out on most......
posted on July 16, 2001 08:03:12 PM
I cannot imagine that nearly 50% of sellers shill! I honestly have no idea how much of it goes on but that seems extremely high. I probably wouldn't recognize it if I saw it, but 50% ??? NAH!
posted on July 17, 2001 06:06:05 AM
In would suspect that the SMALL amt of ebay sellers that actually post on these boards do not shill but the vast majority of ebay sellers do not post here, i would also bet that a fraction of 1% of ebay sellers even post here, a small % more may actually read the threads. i think shillers don't bother with the boards and don't worry much about ebay policies in that regard. Shilling is rampant, you can believe it or just ignore it. It may or may and affect your buying and selling but it is there. Believe it or just bury your head in the sand....in my opinion of course
posted on July 18, 2001 05:23:52 PM
I still want to know (if anybody knows) DOES Ebay, or CAN Ebay, monitor sellers who only do the 'private auctions', to see if they suspect shill bidding from the seller on their own auctions, especially the $1/NR ones that seem to do just 'too' well, ALL THE TIME, compared to other sellers selling the same items, $1/NR, or not? I am not a shill bidding seller, nor do I ever want to be, but I guess I'm just jealous of these sellers, who SEEM to be getting away with this.
posted on July 18, 2001 05:31:06 PM
I have never run a private auction and men have bought pretty little unmentionables from me. However, I would run a private auction if a bidder asked me to.
Now shill bidding on the other hand is a BIG no no. Hard to imagine that so much goes on when I can always buy at bargain prices. As long as I know an item's value, I simply don't worry about it. I pay what I think I should and don't go higher.
BTW the past tense of bid is bid--not bidded. Sorry but this is a pet peeve of mine.
posted on July 18, 2001 05:54:56 PMespecially the $1/NR ones that seem to do just 'too' well, ALL THE TIME, compared to other sellers selling the same items, $1/NR, or not?
posted on July 18, 2001 05:55:54 PM
I DO think that private auctions are the perfect opportunity for shill bidding regardless of what anyone says about their motivation for placing private auctions.
I won't bid on private auctions and actually wrote to a seller about an item that was a private auction (sterling) and asked him why he listed it as private. Newbie said he did n't know, just seemed like a good idea at the time. I told him that I and others thought private auctions were a prime opportunity for shill bidding and he was appalled at the thought.
The other reasons I have heard:
To protect a customer bidding on a high ticket item from being spammed for other merch.
To protect the seller from bottom feeders.
To protect the buyer from the embarrassment of having people know what he/she bid on.
posted on July 18, 2001 06:04:21 PM
Actually, I doubt 50% of the sellers shill bid, but the SHILL RINGS out there sure make it seem like that. Many categories on ebay are controlled by competitors using shill bidding, feedback padding, and other anti-competitor tactics. I watch several rings just for the fun of it, and one alone I have seen the guy have over 60 acccounts on ebay. Since ebay tracks using IP addresses and several other items, it is easy to circumvent their detection and make it provable. Of course I have reported him/her, but ebay does nothing.
Then you have the seller use one account for awhile, and then move over to another one for awhile to avoid detection. Another key element is time. Ebay cannot keep records and logs of IP addresses forever, much like auction listings they have to be purged eventually.
I have been considering private auctions, due to the competitors and SPAM. It can get downright VICIOUS out there. The only problem with private auctions as far as I can tell is that you can only see the high bidder as the seller. Which means you don't know WHO bid up the price, and can't really cancel bogus bidding on your item. The competitors will know that.
Still, that might be worth it. Just to avoid having people SPAM your bidders, and add a bit more control to the competitors attacks.
posted on July 18, 2001 06:05:15 PM
I admit that once I bid up my own auction, and kept bidding until I won it. Why? I had five of the same widget. Sold them all in auctions over a period of time. Thought I had bought six so when the fifth one sold I put the auction up again. Got a good bid but then when I went to my closet where I keep my eBay items discovered I did not have that sixth widget. Only thing I could think of was to out bid the bidder so that I won the auction. So I did.
But I agree that if someone is truly shill bidding to raise the price of the auction then the shill should quit before the auction is over so an innocent buyer gets the item. That was not my purpose. My purpose was to bid high enough so no one would win a non-existant item but me.
posted on July 18, 2001 06:50:10 PM
Oh, and I can honestly say, after 4 years of online auctioning I have never shill bid one of my items (or anyone elses for that matter). I use the theory you lose some, and you win some, and it balances out. If you consistently lose, then stop auctioning.
I have lost money on lots of items, but obviously made more than I have lost. The theory here is that volume will make up for the small losses.
Though, I would give anything to have an item that sells well, and doubles my money. I had a product about 2 years ago that I bought for $30.00, and it sold for $60+ every single time. Even sold 88 of them in a SINGLE auction. Those were the days, and I didn't even THINK of shill bidding. The item was so hot that I didn't have to!
Alas, the company that made the product went under, and so I lost my ability to auciton it when inventory ran out. GOSH! That was a fun time.
Honestly, I think shill bidders will lose in the end. Not only is shill bidding illegal in a lot of states now, and is a violation of the Consumer Protection Act, it WILL NOT make you money in the end. Someone will eventually report you, you will eventually be eaten up by fees, or you are just trying to fraud people in the very beginning anyway. Not to mention all the work of monitoring the shill bidding accounts, I can barely keep up with 4 accounts. I can't imagine trying to run 60+.
posted on July 18, 2001 06:59:09 PM
Yes it is true that shill bidding is very rampant on ebay. Alot of these people have shill-rings which is a group of people that bid on each others items all across the country. It is possible to track them but proving for sure is difficult at the least. Ther may be any where from 25 to 50 people in each ring. Lately these rings have not been doing as well and many of the high performance shillers are closing up shop for the summer because they are lately winning their own auctions, which cuts down on profits. Some are having no profits at all. You can bet they will be back in force in the fall around Nov. they have discoved that more profit is made from shilling than if they just set a certain price. Ebay does not really care they enjoy the profits either way. Very few will come out and admit shillin while many will admit they do not. Ebay is a rigged site.
posted on July 18, 2001 07:23:52 PM
"Alot of these people have shill-rings which is a group of people that bid on each others items all across the country. "
I am a "member" of a rather small group that collects a certain type of item.... You will see us bidding on these, wheoever posts them, and also when we each other post them. Hope you don't think we're shiling each other!
posted on July 18, 2001 07:56:22 PM
A Collectors Group is a different animal. Shill Rings are against consumer protection laws, whereas a group of collectors that actually BUY the items is totally different. Shill Rings don't actually BUY the items, but bid to raise the price or protect the price of an item to get maximum profit.
posted on July 19, 2001 05:26:44 AMI DO think that private auctions are the perfect opportunity for shill bidding regardless of what anyone says about their motivation for placing private auctions.
ANY auction is ripe for shill bidding. I watched one group that sold books, shill like mad. They are powersellers and still on ebay. None of their auctions were private. You don't need a private auction, when you have AOL and no bidder verification at ebay.
I have noticed in the past month that some of the more prolific shillers are not selling any items this summer.
The other reasons I have heard:
To protect a customer bidding on a high ticket item from being spammed for other merch.
To protect the seller from bottom feeders.
To protect the buyer from the embarrassment of having people know what he/she bid on
All very valid reasons. Ebay used to allow anyone to get a any users contact info. In the early days they even included the address with that info. This made it very easy for a trouble maker to harass sellers and buyers alike. Online merchants protect their customer databases. You don't see Amazon, or Frederick's giving out their customers email addresses and what they purchased.
When I first started selling on ebay I had an auction that went sky high. It was a pair of unique boots that two bidders kept going back and forth over. Immediately after the auction the loser left feedback that said: "likes to wear women things. FREAK!!!!!". This was when anyone could leave feedback for anyone. The buyer was very upset. Later that week the buyer told me that the loser pulled his contact info and sent letters to his neighbors that said he was a "threat to children". My buyer wanted to sue, but the troublemaker had signed up with false contact info. I felt really bad my buyer. This incident is one of the main reasons I use private auctions for larger sized shoes and apparel.
I won't bid on private auctions and actually wrote to a seller about an item that was a private auction (sterling) and asked him why he listed it as private. Newbie said he did n't know, just seemed like a good idea at the time. I told him that I and others thought private auctions were a prime opportunity for shill bidding and he was appalled at the thought.
Having a knife is a prime opportunity to commit murder. I think that I will tell every diner at every restaurant I go to that they should stop using them. Hopefully they won't throw steak at me and tell me to mind my own business.
I really don't understand the need to shill. All a seller needs to do is start the auction at what he wants to get for the item.
posted on July 19, 2001 02:45:22 PM
Ebay has LONG had the ability to ferret out and STOP shilling by identifying IP addresses at the moment a bid is placed.
But why would they want to?
Higher sales prices are reflected in higher Final Value Fees.
Shilling is good for ebay. And we all know that ebay looks out for the stockholder first.
[ edited by dejavu on Jul 19, 2001 02:46 PM ]
posted on July 19, 2001 03:16:50 PM
Shop4shoes, you missed the irony in my message. Yes, there are and were valid reasons to run private auctions. Before the most recent changes anyone could harvest the addresses and purchasing demographics of any ebay member. That is no longer true and that excuse in my mind is no longer valid now that email addies and contact info are protected.
Lowlife bottom feeders should be less of a problem spamming customers as they will no longer be able to harvest contact info or email addies.
There is no question that regular auctions can and are shill bid. I just think that private auctions make it a whole lot easier to pull off.
As I said before, ebay has no incentive to squelch shilling.
posted on July 19, 2001 09:46:53 PM
Well, despite what eBay wants or the stockholders, eventually either all states (many already do) or the federal government will create a laws against shill bidding. Then ebay will have little choice to fight against it or face fines.
Not to mention that right now, if you wanted, you could file suit against shill bidders under the Consumer Protection Act. Manipulating prices and deceptive practices are against the CPA. Something like several thousand dollar fine PER incident.
It is just a matter of time before the law catches up, and then something new will come about.
but I would just be too chicken I'd get caught! 