kasmoon
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posted on September 27, 2000 09:20:50 PM new
I decided to choose a category, skip the featured ads and go ad by ad until I could see the pattern. It actually didn't take long and it does seem somewhat more fair now. The pattern was the seller rating on the first several ads was 630, the next dozen were from a seller with 590, the next set seller rated 577, next set 551 and so on.
It sure would have been simpler if Yahoo had just said they were giving the listing advantage to established sellers over newbies.
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warr
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posted on September 27, 2000 11:13:52 PM new
Fair in an auction is by closing time and not by a sellers feedback rating!
If someone is selling 10,000 made to be collectible items from China and I am looking for one vintage item made in Germany in the same category by a seller with a feedback of 5, as a buyer I do not want to look at all the other stuff just because someone has a feedback of 5,000!
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kasmoon
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posted on September 27, 2000 11:50:15 PM new
Hi Warr
No matter what their reasoning I'd still prefer they change it back to ending soonest order. Instead they give us the time left sort option. I'm afraid people new to Yahoo might not notice the sort options.
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figmente
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posted on September 28, 2000 06:09:40 AM new
Listings are not sorted by seller rating.
Maybe happened to look that way in one category you looked at, certainly is not gerneral case.
Whatever it is yahoo auctions seems practically dead.
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CleverGIrl
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posted on September 28, 2000 07:36:18 AM new
Dead indeed. I was looking at the ending soon auctions in my category last night -- have decided to follow the Million Auction March advice and branch out from ebay -- and auction after auction had no bids whatsoever on them. Literally only two or three auctions on the whole page had any bids. Don't know what it was like before they scrambled things, but as a POTENTIAL new yahoo-er (buyer and seller), it's very disconcerting, and very discouraging. And I was one of those new users who had to ask about how to find what was ending today.
Bummer.
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RB
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posted on September 28, 2000 07:39:22 AM new
I agree. I tried Yahoo for about a month and never got one look at any of my listings let alone a bid. I guess the fact that a listing with 1 or 2 bids is considered a "hot" item by Yahoo should have tipped me off 
Oh well ... didn't cost anything to try ...
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keziak
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posted on September 28, 2000 07:53:09 AM new
As a buyer, the lack of bids would not deter me if I found what I wanted at the right price. I have just listed for the first time and I am interested in learning the "culture."
I am using "first bid wins" but I noticed that the items I would be interested in bidding for (a) did not use this feature and (b) had starting prices I am not willing to pay. For example, McDonalds lego sets for $4 starting price. Huh? I routinely bid on and buy legos on Ebay, but I found nothing to tempt me on Yahoo. It wasn't the merchandise, it was the prices.
Yahoo lets you sort your lists all kinds of ways, by price, number of bids, and closing times. I think most users should be able to figure that out.
I don't know why there are apparently so few buyers for most things. I keep getting bids and buyers on ebay for my stuff, and I'll stick with it there, but it would be great to cut out the ebay fees! (same thing for half.com)
Keziak
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warr
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posted on September 28, 2000 09:37:50 AM new
kasmoon
I think on many points you and I agree! The old system is definitely one of them for viewing order!
keziak
You are absolutely right about prices! 
You will find some folks on Yahoo feel they should be able to list their unique (collectibles)items for whatever they want and leave them on the site forever with automatic resubmits until the item sells!
Different subject! 
As far as sort order? Yes! Most folks will figure out how to sort, but what about newbies? Extra clicks deter folks and are not neccesary!
The default setiing at E-bay is by "end time" of which you can sort by day or by gallery all in a time stamp sequence! Plus many other sort methods as Yahoo just recently instituted!
YAHOO used to have the "PHOTOS ONLY" as well as the "LIST" mode in an end time default!
Go to "TOYS-DIECAST-MATCHBOX" AND BROWSE PHOTOS ONLY for about ten pages and randomly click on items for sale and see when they end! Over ten days my items for sale remained in the 40 plus pages even with an hour left to closing! 
As a buyer "PHOTOS ONLY" WAS how I used to shop Yahoo Auctions!
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chasd7
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posted on September 28, 2000 10:19:40 AM new
My two cents.
I'm not a suit or a computer dweeb but here it is!
List all auctions for a nominal fee. List them for 30 days, in 5 or 6 day increments.
Return to the time of closing listing system.
This would discourage listing non sellers forever. Give every auction 5 or 6 turns at the top of the heap. Control first bid prices.
I try to stick with rusty, crusty tools. I've
started raising my first bid price due to lack of 2nd and 3rd bidders.
Postal rates are killing me.
Ah well common sense never goes over with suits. charlie
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sulyn1950
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posted on September 28, 2000 10:45:45 AM new
I was playing around and went through several categories with large (1,000+ listings), ordered them by BID and was very discouraged at what I found. 
On the UP side, I don't feel sooooo bad about the lack of activety on my auctions! I was beginning to take it personal.
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yankeejoe
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posted on September 28, 2000 10:56:42 AM new
Sulyn,
You're not alone, my sales have tanked this month.
Yahoo has managed to chase both buyers *and* sellers off their auctions in little more than a month. What a feat.
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moonmem-07
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posted on September 28, 2000 12:07:07 PM new
Figmente I just checked 2 categories and the order was seller with the most feedback first. It made it realize that my feedback number wasn't very high!
"If man were to be crossed with a cat, it would greatly improve the man, but deteriorate the cat." Mark Twain
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VeryModern
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posted on September 28, 2000 12:38:49 PM new
don't know about catagories but if you SEARCH the results are not ordered by feedback.
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VeryModern
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posted on September 28, 2000 12:44:45 PM new
sulyn1950 - and others new to Yahoo who may be reading, a large percentage of what is sold on Yahoo is sold at the buy price which means that as soon as that price is bid - BOOM the listing is gone.
If you want to judge Yahoo, search ended auctions (under advanced search) and have a peek. Keep in mind that it does not show items that ended UN-sold but it will give you an idea of what gets sold and for how much.
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yankeejoe
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posted on September 28, 2000 12:48:46 PM new
VeryModern, I am very sure that *my* sales are down. I was just commiserating.
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VeryModern
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posted on September 28, 2000 04:47:44 PM new
yankee - so are mine.
I was responding to this:
>>>I was playing around and went through several categories with large (1,000+ listings), ordered them by BID and was very discouraged at what I found. >>>>
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figmente
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posted on September 28, 2000 04:51:15 PM new
Still not sorted by feedback. Made one spot check (Books-Other) 1st nonfeatured listing had an extraordinary 1327 FB but 6th had 1.
Continueing - 1st 3 were very high, next 4 low (1 to 2) then 5 from britain (seems to occur often)... I don't see a rule but seller's fb rate doesn't do it.
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SilkMoth
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posted on September 28, 2000 05:05:06 PM new
Another spot check in Textiles and Linens:
First 10 non-featured auctions, in order: 244, 244 (same seller), 19, 10, 9, 11, 6, 3, 1206, 2.
My own feedback is 27 and my auctions in this category began on page 11.
--------
not SilkMoth anywhere but here
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enchanted
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posted on September 28, 2000 05:35:42 PM new
is it possible the auctions are in order of the date or time listed (started), not the ending time?
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figmente
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posted on September 28, 2000 05:56:22 PM new
Doesn't look like time listed.
Spot checking sold auctions - the % of first bid wins offerings there doesn't seem much different from active listings.
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auctionee
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posted on September 28, 2000 06:53:44 PM new
The only thing I have been able to figure out is that all of a sellers auctions in any given category are listed together....so I would assume that the order has more to do with the seller than the auctions themselves...but no clue as to what that could be.
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CharlieOne
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posted on September 28, 2000 07:14:07 PM new
I think they throw a bunch of ping pong balls into a big rotating wire basket. Each ball has an auction number stamped on it. Then they have some Yahoo! vixen with an IQ of 3, pull them from the bin. If your lucky you get to hear her yell "Bingo", when she pulls yours, and your number one on the first page of listings.
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enchanted
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posted on September 28, 2000 07:45:33 PM new
I think they might rotate the listings or randomly display them
once when i listed a auction and then immeidately checked the category it was the first listing right below the featured items with the 'new' icon but it was the very first one! Later i looked again and it wasn't the first and there were'nt other new ones at the beginning of the list.
I wish someone from yahoo would come by to explain it all to us.
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rnrgroup
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posted on September 28, 2000 11:22:44 PM new
Well, here is one seller who is managing to sell about 100% of their auctions on both Yahoo and ebaY, they must be doing SOMETHING right! ....http://user.auctions.yahoo.com/user/bargaintown_liquidation? (and yes AW, I do have permission to post this link!) -Rosalinda
TAGnotes - daily email synopsis about the Online Auction Industry
http://www.topica.com/lists/tagnotes
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labbie1
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posted on September 29, 2000 06:46:02 AM new
Just throwing this into the ring because there is really no way of checking...
Could it be that auctions are ordered according to the seller either by:
1) Sell through rate
2) Number of auctions left out of their 1000 quota for the month
3) Number of auctions they can have total, which would include "bonus" auctions due to feedback
4) Number of feedback received in any given period of time (not total feedback, but feedback for a certain period--say, a day, a week, 3 days, etc.)
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figmente
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posted on September 29, 2000 11:32:28 AM new
Could it be that auctions are ordered according to ...
I doubt it, probably something much more arbitrary, I don't think even the seller grouping is consistent.
But it really needs correction rather than explanation.
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shewaya98
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posted on September 29, 2000 06:54:22 PM new
Do any of you think Yahoo Auctions will recover from all the changes? My Auctions have laid down and died! I'm selling great in e-Bay now, but sure do miss Yahoo! the way it used to be. I feel like buyers will find other auctions that do no require a cerdit card verification to bid. Where are they? I may try them out myself.
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VeryModern
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posted on September 29, 2000 07:29:27 PM new
shewaya98 - I think they will probably recover over the long term, but the way it's been going these last few weeks, I may have to re-think plans for holiday selling. I give it until mid Oct and if no improvement, it'll be time to start cutting and pasting to Ebay - with a plan to come back to Yahoo after Christmas. Very disappointing, and I am a huge Yahooaphile.
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moonmem-07
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posted on September 30, 2000 09:37:09 AM new
It really scares me when VeryModern talks that way! I hope that wakes up the people working at Yahoo.
"If man were to be crossed with a cat, it would greatly improve the man, but deteriorate the cat." Mark Twain
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millicent_roberts
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posted on September 30, 2000 09:56:39 AM new
This has been an interesting thread.I had no idea feedback was what pushed your auctions forward. Kinda like amazon's brillian scheme, bid for placement. NOT.
Is ebay the ONLY site that does natural progression? looks that way to me. So no wonder people are going back there to sell.
I tried Yahoo. I have auctions there right now, out of 30, one has a bid. So it's back to the old 9.95 start and let the bidding begin!
I never thought I'd say that but I don't really care to waste time on something that will never even be viewed, if I am reading all this correctly
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