posted on October 25, 2000 04:46:25 PM
Also, if someone bids on the item, it negates the "buy it now" price.
So, if someone doesn't meet the "buy it now" price, but puts a lower bid on the item, then it is just a regular auction and if someone came along and wanted the item at the buy price--too bad--it is not longer available.
posted on October 26, 2000 07:08:14 AM
But if you start the bidding at the BUY IT NOW price, that won't happen. One bid will trigger a sale. ePay is not going to get caught with their head in the sand so they are finally copying Yahoo's best feature. What wasn't clear to me is whether the listing for this type auction will be free for a trial period, or just that feature will be free. If they try to charge another fee just for adding a BUY PRICE, they will piss off another big block of customers some of who will migrate here.
TAG reports Yahoo's auctions count is now almost 4 million. If true, this is almost a double in the last 2 months.
BTW, I suggested a year ago to the late TC that Yahoo change the BUY price to BUY NOW, because my customers didn't know what it meant. So instead I use "1st Bid WINS" in my title. Although it looks like Yahoo was too lazy to add one 4 letter word in their display, ePay liked my choice of words. It's nice when somebody acts on a good suggestion. TC gave me his email address 18 months ago and asked me to report bugs and make suggestions. I did until about the first of this year. Many of the bugs I reported never got fixed and as for my suggestions: NONE ever got implemented. That's why I quit "working" with them.
[ edited by zzyzx000 on Oct 26, 2000 07:15 AM ]
posted on October 26, 2000 07:33:54 AM
** Announcing ‘Buy It Now’ in Time for the Holidays **
Dear eBay community,
In mid-November, we will be introducing a holiday trial of “Buy It Now”. Buy It Now is an exciting optional enhancement to your listings and will be offered free during the holiday promotion. As a seller, if you choose to use the Buy It Now feature at the time of listing, you will be able to name a price at which you would be willing to sell your item to any buyer who meets your specified price. Your listing will be run as a normal auction, but will now feature a Buy It Now price. Buyers will have the option to buy your item instantly without waiting for the listing to end or can bid on your item as usual. Buyers, if you see a Buy It Now item, you’ll need to act quickly! Buy It Now will only be available before the first bid is placed on the item. As soon as a bid is placed, the Buy It Now price will no longer be available and the item will sell through the normal process.
The decision to introduce a Buy It Now trial resulted from extensive customer research. In
August and September, eBay sent out an online survey to 20,000 of our members and conducted
numerous focus group sessions with buyers and sellers. Here’s what we learned: While members love eBay’s selection and believe trading on eBay is fun, many buyers desire the ability to buy items faster and with more certainty, and many sellers want the ability to sell an item without having to wait for the listing to end. We believe this is particularly true in the holiday season with gift giving.
EBay’s goal is to satisfy the needs of our community, but we also know we need to do so in a way that maintains the magic and fun of eBay. From your input, we have decided to implement a trial of Buy It Now for the holiday season beginning the middle of November. We believe that Buy It Now is an exciting enhancement to eBay because it gives buyers a unique opportunity to buy items in time for the holidays and offers sellers a new vehicle to increase their key holiday sales. We would like to test whether Buy It Now listings are effective in helping us to attract additional buyers and increase overall trading on eBay.
During the trial period, eBay will be evaluating the success of the Buy It Now feature for both buyers and sellers. If you are a seller, here is what you should be looking for to determine whether the new Buy It Now feature helps your listings:
-- Do your items close faster or do you get bids earlier with Buy It Now?
-- Do you get more bids overall on your items?
-- Has your success rate on these items improved?
-- Has the final price of your item increased with the new feature?
EBay will be conducting an extensive marketing effort for Buy It Now centered around our holiday promotions. Our marketing of this feature will include a PR campaign, banner campaign and advance publicity of the feature to the eBay community through email,
newsletters, and onsite communications. We believe these promotions will drive buyers to
eBay for their holiday shopping needs, and we expect this holiday season will be one of the best our seller community has ever had.
EBay will be holding public discussions of Buy It Now with our community members on our
discussion boards throughout our holiday trial. We hope that you will share with us your opinions, concerns and experiences of the feature through these public forums. We will also plan to share with you information regarding adoption, success rates and feedback on Buy It Now throughout the trial.
Please check the announcement board later this week for more information on how Buy It Now will work. Stay tuned!
Warmest Regards,
eBay
*************************
There is the full announcement. To me it is saying that:
1) "Buyers, if you see a Buy It Now item, you’ll need to act quickly! Buy It Now will only be available before the first bid is placed on the item. As soon as a bid is placed, the Buy It Now price will no longer be available and the item will sell through the normal process. "
If you list as Buy It Now, but someone bids a lower starting amount, the auction is no longer Buy It Now, but an auction. Whereas with Yahoo, even if a person has bid the lower amount, another person can come along and Buy It Now at anytime. Several of my items have sold like that. I like the idea that it will STAY Buy It Now like Yahoo...
2) "...we have decided to implement a trial of Buy It Now for the holiday season beginning the middle of November."
I see only a quarter more to list Buy It Now after the trial.
3) It seems to me that Ebay has their priorities a little messed up. I think Ebay needs to work on site stability before adding more features which take up more bandwidth and more server space.
"TAG reports Yahoo's auctions count is now almost 4 million. If true, this is almost a double in the last 2 months. "
Well ebay is doing all that they can to help Yahoo out and all I can say is THANKS EBAY!
posted on October 26, 2000 07:52:56 AM
VeryModern,
You're right, it definitely sounds like ebay plans to CHARGE A FEE to the seller for using the "buy it now" feature (right after Christmas). Probably because sellers can use it instead of placing a reserve. So they'll probably charge as much for it as they do the reserve.
Only problem is, the reserve PROTECTS your item from a lower-priced OBLIGATION to sell and the "buy it now" price doesn't. In fact, the whole point of using it disappears if a lower bid is placed, unlike Yahoo, where a second (or third) bidder can come along and RAISE the bid or reach the "buy price" and close the auction.
WHAT A JOKE!!!
zzyzx000, If a seller makes the opening price and "buy it now" price THE SAME (as in first bid wins), does he really want to pay YET ANOTHER FEE for the privilege of having *no chance* of the price being *raised* by a second or third bidder?????????
I think not.
It's one thing to offer "buy it now" FREE to the seller, but it's an entirely different matter to CHARGE for it. If you want to get a set price and sell quickly, and let the buyer buy quickly, "first bid wins" is great.
BUT IS IT WORTH PAYING FOR???
Of course not. A *smart* seller will simply open at the price he wants and let the auction run its course rather than PAY ANOTHER FEE TO EBAY.
Ebay can't even see straight through their cloud of pure greed.
And that's NOT an exaggeration. I just keep shaking my head in disbelief.
posted on October 31, 2000 05:18:44 PM
I don't think that by stating this is a "trial period," they are necessarily implying that there will later be a charge. If they had called it a "free trial period," yes.
I suspect that what they are implying is that they will use this trial period to determine if it is profitable for them -- weighing the cost of supporting the additional feature versus the increase in revenue, if any.
Also, they may be implying that this is a "trial period" for the technology, which is almost certainly true, but scary nonetheless.
posted on October 31, 2000 05:41:17 PM
I have trouble imagining Ebay GIVING us anything!
I am quite sure that the trial means free trial during which the system will be up and down like a yo-yo (like it isn't now!) and then we will charge oh let's see....I know Only a DOLLAR!
posted on October 31, 2000 07:02:48 PM
Oh labbie thanks, but I have been workin' the boards today overtime. I got facinated in the AW astrology section and pulled an 18 hour shift.
posted on October 31, 2000 07:51:48 PMI have trouble imagining Ebay GIVING us anything!
I'm not saying that Ebay is doing this as a public service. If this option significantly increases sales (which I believe it will), Ebay might be better off if they did not charge for it, since they would be collecting more FVF's.
posted on November 1, 2000 02:17:20 AM
Yahoo has gotten a huge influx of sellers
2 1/2mil USA 1 1/2 miloverseas Currently.. since June 2000!!! MAM musta started this huge increase.
All Yahoo needs are many more categories and the nail is sloooowly going into ebay
posted on November 1, 2000 07:38:28 AM
I am definitely going to give the eBay BUY NOW a whirl while it is free and see how the eBay market reacts to it - should be interesting - I LOVE - the BUY NOW or 1ST BID WINS - approach of Yahoo - and am VERY curious as to how it will work on eBay.
I am lining up my auctions now to test on eBay through this system.
I wish the Mr. Lister was already set up for it, but alas it isn't and eBay tells me they are not sure it will be ready for the new BUY NOW opening.
posted on November 1, 2000 08:19:02 AM
I don't wish that Ebay would die, but I do hope that the things we are seeing there indicate that the powers that be on Ebay are waking up. I do think they have noticed that something is wrong and they need to fix it, but I think they are kind of searching in the dark for the problem.
Of course, if they would work on site stability before adding new foo foo frills, that would be great! Also, they stated that they shut down the search by seller during critical periods of usage--like Sunday night. BAD BAD BAD! This is how many people find the items that they wish to bid on! They have the seller marked and want to go to their auctions to bid! Ack! BAD EBAY!
I feel that if and as other auction sites strengthen and begin to take some of the market, then it can only be a good thing. It will make Ebay sit up and take notice and strengthen their site and we the sellers and buyers won't have to be jailed by just one strong site.
I believe that Ebay has also overlooked the fact that in the beginning at least, the sellers were also the buyers and that the sellers "reinvested" their dollars into the site by buying.
The new crop of sellers appear to be just sellers in business (even the mom and pop places) and do not reinvest by buying as much as they used to. Ebay has attracted the folks who have small stores (like baseball card and hobby stores--even cottage industries making products specifically to sell on Ebay and the web) that have heard how great Ebay is and are flocking in because they feel that they can make more money by listing. But, being small businesses, they don't wish to invest the money back into Ebay by bidding. Thus, we are gaining in seller numbers, but bidder numbers are dropping and the prices are no longer stellar because of supply and demand.
It would be helpful to have other strong sites to increase the buyer traffic as well. More online auction visibility=more buyers--I hope!
posted on November 1, 2000 09:44:11 AM
As I learned here, even on Yahoo, a lot of buyers don't understand the "buy price." That's why it's important to put something like "First Bid Wins" in the title, then give a brief explanation in your description.
I think this approach works so well for a couple of reasons: Instant gratification. No waiting for the end of the auction, allowing for impulse buys. Second, the knowledge that the next time they check the auction, it might be gone.
When this is implemented on Ebay, there will be even more confusion, so it will become even more important to help your buyers understand the concept.
I really think that those with experience on Yahoo will have a pretty serious advantage, at least in the beginning.
posted on November 1, 2000 11:57:29 AM
I too do not like the buy now, or buy it. I have used it on yahoo and people just dont get it. I will not be using it on ebay. And as far as ebay is concerned, until sellers come together and tell ebay where to go, nothing will change. I stay there because there just isn't enough bids on yahoo or amazon. I have had over 20 auctions on yahoo with only 2 bids. Can't afford to stay with them. I put on the stuff that doesn't sell on ebay, so I can just keep listing for free here.
posted on November 1, 2000 12:12:52 PM
It isn't still Halloween is it? Maybe I am in the twilight zone but isn't this the Yahoo outlook?
Speaking of which, who copied whom? Seems like everytime another site thinks up something different, sure enough, ebay follows suit. It's now a joke. And not at all funny.
posted on November 1, 2000 12:38:02 PM
VM- I say YAY and bring it on. I expect everyone can imagine what the "buy it now" will do for ebay. No one will understand how it works, just the other day a pinkie showed up to yack about it and I asked one simple question; is this optional and free"?
Answer-"yes, for now but that may change." Told ya.
I'm not hanging around to see the darker side of this one. And BTW, are the Yahoo counters down? Last time I looked I had tons of hits. They have all disappeared. But I think I can depend on them "fixing" this little glitch.
posted on November 1, 2000 12:52:00 PM
millicent_roberts - I never look at counters. When it sells I get the money and I ship. This is one of the main reasons I like Yahoo - I am freed from baby sitting and obsessing.
Not that this is what people are doing who check counters - it is what *I* was doing when I checked counters.
Regarding Ebay - same as paypal - everything costs you, I just know they have pay toilets.
posted on November 1, 2000 12:57:08 PMmillicent_robertsAnswer-"yes, for now but that may change." Told ya.
uh huh.
The other thing with Ebay's Buy it Now is that once one person puts a bid on an item, it is no longer Buy It Now, but reverts to a regular auction. The possibilities are amazing with this thing!
Let's look at this once fees are involved...
First, you pay to insert the auction
Next pay for gallery (optional but what the heck, it's only a quarter! )
Then, you have buy it now and lets just say for fun that it's only a quarter too...
Now, you have paid a min. of .75 to insert your auction--not including FVF.
If a person places a bid on your auction the first day, then the money that may have been spent on the buy it now is moot because it has reverted to a regular auction, however, the starting price might be nowhere near the asking or buy it now price.
So....
we will be forced to pay "Only a dollar" to set it as a reserve auction as well just in case someone places a starting bid, but they do not use the buy it now price.
posted on November 1, 2000 01:14:53 PM
Okay - I'll guess.
They will hit you up for a quarter on a 9.99 item, but it will be $1 over $25. In effect, they will double their fees.
The bid and it drops off idea won't last.
People would be less apt to opt for the option if they leave it that way and what they really want to do is take in the money on the front end.
posted on November 1, 2000 01:33:00 PM
I have no intention of using this "buy now"
on ebay. If it is a new feature then indeed it won't be free. If you think about it, it could really hurt our business but we are the only ones who CARE, so I am not worried. I am delighted that Yahoo came in and became a challenge for me and thousands like more of us. We deserve it. And I hope we prosper on every day forward.
An afterthought, has ebay raised listing fees? I could once list at 19.95 for .50. But now it's 1.00. Am I surprised? No. But I think it would have been courteous to tell the sellers about it upfront. Silly me
[ edited by millicent_roberts on Nov 1, 2000 01:35 PM ]
posted on November 1, 2000 06:47:10 PM
As a side note, it's possible to run "First bid wins" auctions on Ebay right now. You just have to end the auction manually. I just did a "bid wins" search on Ebay -- 664 auctions on a title search.
posted on November 1, 2000 06:52:01 PM
My feelings have been that eBay doesnt really care about their sellers anymore. I mean they list what we do when an item is revised, but let deadbeats go free. The 10 day waiting period is for them to collect intrest on our money. So I moved all my stuff to Yahoo, and wish I would have eariler. I am now signing up new customers from eBay, and my personal friends that never tried Yahoo. My bids using the first bidder wins was terrific since eBay was down for weeks at night. All we need is a 3 day downtime, and Yahoo will really soar!
posted on November 2, 2000 12:51:11 AMWhat's the deal with ebay's "picture hosting" thing now???
I just went over to do a "pretend" listing to see if the listing fees had increased over there as millicent_roberts said (since the listing fees were always shown before hitting the "submit" button), and I couldn't do ANYTHING without selecting a "photo hosting preference" FIRST. I selected "I use another photo hosting service or do not currently use pictures in my listings." so I wouldn't have to fool with ebay's services, then I clicked "continue".
Ebay's stupid software keeps INSISTING I DOWNLOAD some picture hosting software from them, EVEN THOUGH I INDICATED I DIDN'T WANT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How do you put a listing on ebay now without downloading their hosting software???????????
What a pain. Maybe they really DO have pay toilets!!!*&%$#@^*&$#%^@$*&%#@$%*$&%
