posted on March 23, 2002 09:58:28 AM new
I have used the BUY NOW on a couple of auctions, and I have used the Proxy Bidding feature on a few, but I have had two people in the last couple of days who insited they were entering proxy bids and ended up being informed they were WINNERS at the BUY PRICE.
Ok, how does this work? Yahoo seems to have the BUY NOW box seperated from the regular bid box. If a person checks the proxy bid feature and then enters an amount equal to or above the BUY NOW price does it automatically jump over to the BUY feature and register the proxy as the buy price???
I don't know if I'm making myself clear. Both bidders had placed bids and then decided to up their proxy amounts. In both cases they entered an amount equal to the BUY PRICE and found the auction closed with them as the winner AT THE BUY PRICE. By their thinking they were not bidding the BUY PRICE, they were just entering that amount as the MOST THEY WOULD PAY if need be. That seems right to me. However, both said that when they increased their proxy to the BUY PRICE it declared them winners. They both felt they should have remained high bidders, but not suddenly been decalred winners at entering the buy price as a proxy bid. Now, I don't know why they didn't just enter 1 cent BELOW the BUY or why if they were willing to go to the BUY PRICE they were so upset at winning it at the BUY PRICE except of course had that not happened one would have gotten their item at $100 less!
Anyway, one insisted I cancel their bid which ended up with me cancelling all the bidders because the second highest bidder was really lower than I would have wanted to accept.
The other one has a lot of integrity and insisted on honoring their bid, but because they also won a couple more of my auctions, I ended up lumping them all together and giving them a very good price. Good for me and good for them. I was satisfied and the buyer seemed satisfied.
Was this happening just a glitch or is this the way Yahoo is set up? If that is the case it might be a good idea for Yahoo to have a diddy on the bid box that if the BUY NOW price is entered they are the WINNER at the buy price!!!!!
posted on March 23, 2002 11:55:00 AM new
What is happening is they are bidding the BUY IT PRICE. This makes the auction final as it cannot go over the BUY price. If they were to bid one penny under the BUY price, then the proxy bidding would take over until they get out bid or the auction closes. If you place a bid, the BUY IT NOW price still is in effect. So if they rebid the BUY IT PRICE, they are obligated to buy it for that. Now what you did with your other customer is great as you made a satisfactory sale. I would offer the other bidder the same kind of deal and see if they buy also. At least that way, you could have a sale instead of possibly a war of bad feedback.
Good luck,
bp
posted on March 23, 2002 12:10:12 PM new
good thing with Ebay this does not happen (once bidding reaches the sellers buy price, auction is over)! I had an item on ebay with a BIN of $15.00...it sold for $27.00.
MEOW
posted on March 23, 2002 01:11:16 PM new
I like Yahoo's BIN policy better than eBay's. With eBay, the BIN disappears after the first bid but Yahoo allows it to stay. Occassionally on eBay a $15 item with a $15 BIN price will sell for $27 but that is fairly rare. If a seller sets a BIN price then he is comfortable with receiving the BIN price. A bidder on Yahoo seems to have has a bigger gamble on Yahoo than eBay when a BIN price is set on an auction. The Yahoo bidder has the option to buy the item or risk losing it by placing a bid below the BIN. A new bidder can snatch away the item by bidding the BIN price, something that can not be done on eBay. It's a subtle difference between auction sites but one that bidders must consider when bidding at Yahoo.
posted on March 23, 2002 06:34:56 PM new
Well, I posted because I didn't know whether these bidders had been victims of glitches or it this is just the way the system works.
I have read post for the past 2 years from sellers who have such good luck with BIN and felt it was really a + on Yahoo.
I guess I just attract a different type of bidder. Maybe it's my category but I have found that what seems to work for everyone else that post here, it just doesn't work for me! LOL
My bidders seem to be bargain basement, blue light special people and they aren't going to pay one more cent than they absolutely have to and I constantly get "ASK SELLER" comments where they want to know on day 1 of a 10 day auction if I will take less than my start price if nobody bids!!!!! Talk about hurting my feelings. I'm already bare bones here and they want it for less!
A little off topic but not worth a thread of it's own, is anyone else experiencing glitches in their MY AUCTIONS? I was trying to clean my sold auctions up and found that one minute they are all there and the next some are missing. I use the records keeping feature and I marked all those that have paid me and then I noticed that one minute they are marked but the next they are not.
None of my recently won auctions have shown up in my closed auctions either. It looks like I haven't sold anything since 2/12/01! Not that I've sold all that much, but I have eeked out a few winners. Not that it really bothers me. I personally don't like that people can look that up anyway. If I have an item that bombs and closes for $10 I sure don't want everyone thinking that's all they should bid when I put another one up!
posted on March 23, 2002 07:59:06 PM new
That section has been buggy lately. When I delete the closed auctions sometimes they come back or I can not delete them at all. It may be a holdover from the glitch-filled auctions management software of a couple of weeks ago.
Off topic but still relevant.....
One huge difference between Yahoo and eBay is that Yahoo lets you retain closed and not sold items seemingly forever and eBay stores them for only about 30 days. I believe that the free listing days and relisted auctions in general at eBay would get more listings if the unsold auctions were available for longer periods.
I am predicting an eBay free listing day in July beause the new postal hikes and wacky rate structure might cause a big dive in the number of listings.
posted on March 24, 2002 06:21:55 AM new
There have been alot of glitches at yahoo lately noy only in the my auctions. I have my competitors auctions in my favorites and just click to see what they're selling. Sellers with 100 auctions would only show 3 auctions.
Hit the refresh button until you see what you want to see is the only advise I can give.
dendude
posted on March 24, 2002 09:53:02 AM new
I decided to do a little "research" to see if my buyers could have somehow not known they were about to buy what they were bidding on by simply increasing their proxy bids to match they buy price.
I found an auction with a BUY NOW price and bid the opening bid. Then I upped my proxy by entering an amount equal to the buy price and when the screen to confirm poped up, there were two buttons. One said BUY and one said CANCEL.
So unless they just totally were not paying attention, they should have known at that point they were indeed fixin' to buy the item and NOT just raise their proxy bid!
AS TO THE BUGS/GLITCHES:
I have often chuckled at a HOT auction with 1 bid, sitting on a price of $.99 from a seller with a FB of 3. Especially since right below that list of so-called "HOT" auctions, Yahoo is telling you that you are looking at a list of live auctions with the most bidding activity from sellers with the highest feedback!!!wink
This AM I clicked on my category home page and all the auctions that popped up as HOT AUCTIONS had absolutely NO BIDS!!!
I wonder what a new visitor to Yahoo might think???? LOL
