The last few times I’ve sold things on eBay, I used the default auction setup, and the items didn’t get any bids until the last couple of minutes and sold for a tenth of comparable “buy it now” items.
When I used to sell things there would be bids over several days but that doesn’t seem to happen much any more; only if I am selling something very rare.
It occurs to me that maybe people just can’t be bothered to invest time in auctions any more? I know when I am buying something, I will only join an auction if that’s the only way to get the item. If I see a widget in an auction with 2 days left say, going for $1, and a buy it now where it’s $15, I’ll usually just buy it now, because it’s just job done, and I’ll probably have the item by the time the auction is over.
So are all buyers basically thinking like me? Are auctions soooo 2019?
Auctions waste time I don’t have, so I no longer bid on auctions. Also, I have been sniped in the last seconds of an auction many times and lost. They’re just not worth doing IMO.
I finally ditched eBay completely a few years ago. It seemed to be all on the side of the buyer when there was a dispute, and since I gave up my Alaska book collection and my coin collection, there wasn’t anything on there of interest to me. Also, a seven day auction just seemed interminable. I will occasionally go there to see what something might sell for, but am no longer a member/user.
Ebay is a joke for sellers now, I haven’t used them for several years now. Everyone is using Google lens now to search for items and want to place low ball bids on everything. I have better luck on Facebook market.
Also eBay always sites with the buyer in a dispute, even if you specify no returns. They just make up a lame excuse and eBay believes them.
Same thing with estate sales and other online auction houses. They want 50% of the selling price, which leaves practically nothing for the seller other than break even.
The bidding system fell apart with sniping (programs or web sites that would insert the bid within the last second(s)). And even extending the time really didn’t help, as it was not the same as placing earlier bids. People have already learned that’s the way to bid, so the bidding system is basically dead.
In my interests, I still see auctions. It’s annoying to bid on Monday for something that closes Sunday night, but I have won them, sometimes as the only or one of two bidders. Not everything gets sniped.
Auctions are a hindrance when you want a spare part, and you have to wait forever for it to close, and there are other choices in BIN that cost a little more, but they can be here before the auction ends.
ISTM that when eBay was isolated hobbyists and craftsfolk it worked OK.
When it became a mechanism for antique/used stuff resellers to find, buy, and then sell inventory as a business, plus an online flea market of new merchandise of dubious provenance, the whole thing got cutthroat for the participants. The eBay decided to squeeze both sides on fees and services.
It’s a trifecta of anonymous greed wrecking everything.
This next thread is not about eBay specifically, but eBay and auctions are commented upon by many posters many times. Some defending it; others dissing it.
I haven’t used eBay in years, though it can be useful for specific hard-to-find items. But IIRC, the only times I’ve made successful purchases have been either with “buy it now” or by sniping, and that was years ago. I imagine the auction process has only gotten worse.
Sniping auctions is nothing new, that’s pretty much how I’ve always used eBay auctions since the beginning. There is no point in driving up the price early to give other bidders time to respond. If I’m using eBay I am looking for a deal, so nowadays I’ll only buy if it includes free shipping and maybe has the Best Offer option.
I agree with this. I used to buy fountain pens on eBay (I haven’t been buying for a couple of years now). I started in 2019, and auctions were by far the most common selling method. There are some bigger fountain pen sellers that still use auctions for vintage pens, and they succeed because they have developed a very strong reputation for the quality of their merchandise, in a field where it is very hard to judge quality from an eBay listing.
I never understood the point of early bidding. If I wanted something, I would bookmark it and come back in the last hour and see how it was doing. If it wasn’t already too expensive, I would decide on my maximum price and would bid that amount in the last 15 seconds. I was sniping, I guess, but manually. Sometimes I got the item, sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I just barely won, and sometimes I got things for good (i.e. low) prices. I had to exercise discipline on myself not to get caught up in the moment and go over my maximum price. It could be fun and exhilarating, as long as I was in that acquisitive state of mind.
These days, when I want to sell my pens, eBay looks much less attractive to me, and frankly I’m afraid to try it. Everything seems rigged for the buyer, and it’s hard to see how a seller would be able to get any kind of return for their investment.
Ah, seems I was a bit slow in recognizing that the days of auctions are basically over.
On the upside, I remember that years ago it was common wisdom that there is no strategic advantage to bid sniping, because of the hidden maximum bid system of eBay. I didn’t believe that was correct, and argued as such, but I was definitely in the minority at the time. It’s good to see that since I last picked up this topic, it’s basically become accepted that bid sniping is an effective (if not fair) tactic.
So I’m noob in one sense, but “told ya so” in another
I haven’t used Ebay in years, but for me it didn’t waste time and sniping wasn’t a problem.:
1.) Find auction item you want.
2.) Place the maximum bid you are willing to make.
3.) Wait for auction to end.
You don’t need to monitor it, the system makes the minimum next bid for you. And it doesn’t matter if you are outbid 3 seconds before the auction ends or 3 days before it ends, someone willing to spend more than you is someone willing to spend more than you. If you were willing to spend more, you should have bid more in the first place.
Yeah, when we moved three years ago I sold everything on FB Marketplace or on Craigslist. Mostly the former. They both have their scammer problems, but are easily spotted. Plus: no shipping!
Nothing unfair about manual sniping, the process is available to anyone, when it works it’s because the sniper is willing to invest time and effort in the process. Using software is another story, it benefits those who are willing to pay someone else to do their work for them.
The reason I didn’t like putting in my maximum bid in the beginning was that it tended to draw bidding attention to an item that might otherwise slip by unnoticed (at least for fountain pens). If everyone puts in their maximum bid up front, then the price gets high sooner and the chances of a bargain are gone.
It’s a tactic that is effective against people participating in the auction the way it was designed for. If “unfair” is too strong a word then let’s just say it’s exploiting a flaw in the system.
As we’ve done umpteen times in the past. You know this, I know this, and a few other calculating rationalists out in the world know this.
But one hell of a lot of people are emotional bidders. Or lack insight into themselves and have no way to discover what their own maximum bid is until someone else shows it to them. Those folks need the raise and counter-raise of a human-speed open outcry auction to make their decisions.
Seems silly, but there it is.
If the auction closes at 2am your time, paying a computer to stay up late and enter your last moment bid is probably preferable to doing it yourself manually.
I imagine there are also snipe and counter-snipe tools that can get into a bidding war in the last 5 seconds. While a wannabe human sniper would just be sitting by waiting for the page to refresh after they’d entered their manual last-chance bid.
