There is the matter of resale value.
Can you elaborate on this, please? How were you able to determine this? Thanks.
Because you are buying a name-that is why a “name” watch commands big bucks. Sure, a knockoff copy might keep time just as well…and it may have a high quality case. But it is not the real thing. Do you really think a “Rolex” is worth >$20,000? It is to someone.
I sell lots of stuff on eBay. The issue with eBay (IMO) is that the buyer is considered to be the main focus, sellers are a dime a dozen, and unless they are burned alive few will leave the huge market pool that eBay provides. I sell 99% of the time and while this irritates me I can understand the logic. Buyers are the crux of their sales model and EBay will tolerate all sorts of nonsense out of buyers and will only move where the violations are pretty egregious. Sellers are on a much shorter leash.
I’ve rarely gotten into a fuss with buyers, but when I have the focus is eBay taking the buyer’s word at face value even if I have 2000 transactions and a 100% rating and this is is their first purchase. That’s why shipping documentation is so important.
Oddly- buyers say the exact same thing about sellers.
not exactly. I had my own experience with shilling on ebay, reported it, and nothing ever happened to the seller.
However, the OP isn’t a rant against ebay. It’s a question about bid retractions. Please try to read for comprehension before you cast aspersions.
Did you read that link? First of all, it’s not a news story, it’s on a message board. Secondly, the guy denies the charge.
No… what I want to see is eBay laying out a case and showing what they did to user X. At least I will get a better feel of what they actually did. This guy claims that ebay didn’t even warn him. Really? :dubious:
OK, now we get to it. You are a seller on eBay. You think eBay would get rid of you in a heart beat? Honestly, what could possibly be their incentive? I understand that you have competitors… most every powerseller does, unless they are selling unique items found in their basement. So, you are right in that your items would be replaced. But your sales wouldn’t be. If there are three items currently on ebay for sale, and one of them is yours, and your item disappears, there are still two items. People looking for these items will either have to bid a higher price to get one of the two left, or wait until more items show up. I’ve seen it before. But no matter what, Ebay gets your cash, they get their paypal cut, they have no incentive to rid themselves of a major moneymaker. The only way I could see it is if you did something so blatant that they didn’t have a choice, maybe but even then, I’d have to see it to believe it.
How much more obvious does a shilling example have to be than this one?
I bid on item,
Guy x bids on same item.
I rebid to win the object to a price I wasn’t intending to pay. Not a major deal, and i was a bit disappointed, but I was happy with the product.
About 2 months later, the same seller has an item I want so I bid. The same person bids right after me, in the same way he did before. (this was years ago, when ebay actually listed the bidders id’s)
So I went and did some checking. The shill bidder (I’ll call him Guy X) was from the same hometown that the powerseller was. perhaps a coincidence… so I look at all of the auctions won by Guy X, and they are all auctions by this guy in his hometown (by coincidence, I know the town, and how small it is…) still, no proof, but things are looking funny.
I then look at the feedback on each item won by Guy X and each feedback line was exactly the same… and each feedback line the seller wrote was also exactly the same. I suspect these purchases were just auctions that the shill bid happened to win by mistake. He could also have been trying to build up his feedback scores too, but his shilling activity was happening over a year after he had started selling on ebay.
So, I let the auction I was bidding on go, the shill won, and the same pattern of feedback appeared for both, and another item was listed by the seller the exact same day.
I documented the shit out of this, with dates, feedback files, and everything else I thought ebay would want according to their site. They did nothing.
In fact, the only result i saw after this was the masking of the true identity of the bidders. That certainly makes it harder for average users to prove shill bidding, isn’t it?
Ebay wants your sale. They want your competitors sale. They want them all, and they want their cut. They don’t give a hoot about a buyer with a legitimate, but small complaint. What am I going to do… sue?
Ebay knows it. I’m not familiar with amazon,. so I can’t speak for them.
however, this has taken the op off track.
How easy is it to retract a bid, and as a seller, do you have any ability to refuse a bid retraction?
Exactly. A Rolex doesn’t keep particularly good time (the $20 digital watch on my wrist does better) nor is it especially expensive to make (no more than $1000, a tiny fraction of the price). No, the point of a Rolex is to be too expensive for a poor person to buy, so people who see you wearing one know that you’re rich enough to throw away tens of thousands on a watch.
I suppose you could also look at it as an art piece, but they’re not unique individuals crafted by the artist but mass produced in a factory, and I sincerely disbelieve that most of the folks who buy them are wealthy watch enthusiasts. No, this is a status symbol, valuable because it is valuable in a thoroughly circular-logic sort of a way.
Trivially easy, takes seconds, and “no”.
A Rolex watch keeps very good time. excellent time. But that 20 dollar watch on your wrist probably keeps time just as well. For some people, it’s not about that. If it was, Rolex would not exist. But Rolexes are worth more than you might think.
Most of the watches sitting at the high end are indeed status symbols, but there is more to it than that. Many of the very high end watches are hand assembled, and have very tight tolerances and requirements. Many of them are also automatic watches (never need winding or a battery), and a lot of folks look at the watches as you said a work of art. There is also a lot of stuff going on with the technology in the watch, and real watch folks can discuss this stuff at length. I am not one of these people.
I can say this. Rolexes that are gold are made out of gold, not gold plated. They have a smooth movement that is almost impossible to duplicate (I’ve never seen a duplicate mimic the movement, but maybe they have created the same movement, making the knock-offs impossible to detect. They are made out of 316L surgical steel (many of the knockoffs are doing this now, but it increases the price significantly). and the labor required to build a rolex is very expensive, since it must be manufactured in Switzerland. That’s the law. Sapphire crystals vs plastic crystals also add value.
Are they worth $20K? Not to me. But they are to a lot of people or they wouldn’t be in business. Most of it is status, but they are very capable time pieces. Your $20 watch probably tells time just as well, but there is more to it than that. That;s why women will spend $1K on a pair of shoes, or $2500 on a handbag. image plays a large role in these purchases.
Knockoffs have gotten better and better, and you can buy a fake Rolex for pennies on the dollar. However, they might not have everything; many of these watches don’t have warranties, and they aren’t exactly waterproof. They don’t have to be. Also, alot of the subdials don’t work, but they are on the watchface to make the watch look more authentic. The more expensive the fake, the closer the fake is to the real thing.
Don’t kid yourself. The high end watches tell time very well. and the mechanisms inside the watch give a lot of enjoyment to the guys who are into that sort of thing. Swiss watches also have certain standards that must be met before they can be labled Swiss Made.
Finally, a watch like Omega’s moon watch has to pass some very stringent testing requirements, including accuracy of time, watertightness, shock resistance, accuracy of the chronometer, among other things.
But yes, many folks buy the watches because they can, and they want you to know they can. The problem with something like a rolex is that they are copied so much, seeing one doesn’t necessarily mean its real, so the impressive part has lost some of its punch.
ETA - as for resale, real watches can be an investment, but the knockoffs are just that. a knockoff. Some watches increase in value as the years go by because they have a collectible quality that the market searches for, but forget about this in the knockoff world.
It is somewhat easy, but eBay sez buyers can only do it a few times before their accts are restricted.
which again goes to my op, since the watches I was looking at had bid retractions by folks that have many bid retractions as part of their record.
not just one or two, but there would be many, and they were all within the last 6 month period.
Can you, as a seller, report these people, or is it not worth the trouble?
Do you have a link?
EBay keeps track of such things.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/bid-retract.html#cond
*We carefully investigate all bid retractions to determine whether they are appropriate and conform to the rules for buyers. Abuse of bid retractions can result in the suspension of your account.
*
I have never seen buyers with multiple, repeated bid retractions.
Right-- that’s what I’m saying. They’re expensive to make, but nowhere near as expensive as the actual price tag; the markup is enormous. They are art pieces, but they’re also manufactured goods, and the production run is limited to keep the prices extremely high, much higher than the market would bear if not for the artificial scarcity.