posted on July 18, 2001 01:44:50 PM new
Dim, in your stats do you account for reserve auctions where a bid(s) is received but not high enough to win? I see a lot of closed auctions with this type of situation in the free sites.
posted on July 18, 2001 01:49:56 PM new
There's no "correction" made for reserve auctions that closed with a bid but did not sell because the bid was not high enough. To do that you'd have to click through every closed auction.
posted on July 18, 2001 02:39:02 PM new
In that case it's not really a true sell-thru rate. The actual rate would be lower because of all the unmet reserve auctions.
posted on July 18, 2001 03:02:03 PM new
bidsbids >
In that case it's not really a true sell-thru rate. The actual rate would be lower because of all the unmet reserve auctions.
Correct. This is probably true for those auctionsites that report statistics as well.
posted on July 19, 2001 06:33:59 AM new
Pardon me, I just wanted to say that a "sell through" rate would seem to me to indicate items actually sold. I don't believe that items receiving bids that do not meet the reserve on an auction could in any way be considered "sold". That would be tantemount to the item not receiving a bid because no one wanted to meet the starting price.
I was also under the impression that Dimview's figures came from "sold" auctions, versus listings.
I am not trying to start a battle, but if you're going to use figures that include unsold auctions as "sold" wouldn't page view statistics be a more accurate, or at least as accurate as the supposed "sell through" rates??
This revelation seems to have really confused the issue and skewed all the rates to date.
posted on July 19, 2001 06:59:06 AM new
There are only two auctionsites posting results, Bidville updates a weekly report at midweek and ePier updates a sales history every few days. There is no indication that their statistics are "corrected" for reserve auctions that have a bid but did not sell because that bid was not high enough.
Do Bidville and ePier make this "correction?" Most likely they do not.
What percentage of auctions have reserves? What percentage of those auctions receive bids that are not high enough? Probably low, which would result in a nominal "correction."
Is it still possible to discern a trend in sell-through rates since all auctionsites are treated in the same manner? Yes.
posted on July 19, 2001 08:29:56 AM new
The reserve auction is a very popular form of auction, especially among the sportscard sellers. They often start their item at a penny and attract bids and interest on their items. I would estimate that at least 10% of the closed auctions are reserve auctions featuring unmet reserve prices. We can probably loop off 10% from the final sell through rate but the numbers are so small that it is academic anyway.
