eBay is a complete failure

[Rapier]

Only 2 or 3 days after this post, and I can truly say I've learned to play ;-) With success. I can do little but agree and now that I understand the "max bid" system which I did not in the LEAST, I can only agree with pretty much every response I received that was well thought out and informative.

Without the "max bid" system, and when trying to use eBay as a replacement for a live auction ... one can go a little MAD. I now treat it as a silent auction; bid and walk away.

 

[Veritas II]

Only 2 or 3 days after this post, and I can truly say I've learned to play ;-) With success. I can do little but agree and now that I understand the "max bid" system which I did not in the LEAST, I can only agree with pretty much every response I received that was well thought out and informative.

Without the "max bid" system, and when trying to use eBay as a replacement for a live auction ... one can go a little MAD. I now treat it as a silent auction; bid and walk away.

 

[ouch]

Without the "max bid" system, and when trying to use eBay as a replacement for a live auction ... one can go a little MAD. I now treat it as a silent auction; bid and walk away.

I guarantee you'll save a lot of sanity this way.

It's so easy to become emotionally attached to an item. Just remember you'll almost always be able to get whatever you're looking for somewhere else, and probably at a better price.

 

[global_dev]

Rapier,

that was truly a great concluding response. many people just walk away from a discussion on ebay bidding/sniping.

It put a smile on my face to read it, as it is a frustrating task of understanding the way ebay works and how to leverage the available tools.

 

[strohman]

eBay gets a lot of bad press for some reason. When it comes to selling, I am getting tired of the fees eBay charges, especially when you add the PayPal fees. (Considering that eBay owns PayPal.)

But as a buyer, I love eBay! I find things there that I can't find anywhere else, and many times I get lucky and win an item for less than I ever expected to pay! There are so many items listed each day, that some get overlooked!

Personally, I rarely ever have any bad transactions on eBay. I always get my items, or in the event that I don't, I get a refund from eBay.

 

[Fortitudo Dei]

I'm familiar with both Ebay's "silent" type auction and our local live-type auction provider Trade Me. Trade Me differs from Ebay in that any bid placed in the last two-minutes extends the end-time by another two minutes (a similar system to GunBroker). This originally started off as an option available to sellers, but was so popular it is now standard for all auctions. As a buyer, a "set-and-forget" maximum bid with automatic minimum bid increments still works under this system but automated sniping doesn't.
I know many Ebay fans will state in regards to their rules that "if you don't like, don't play" but I suspect that many will not have had a great deal of experience with other alternative systems.
Being very familiar with both, IMHO the Trade Me "live"-type auction is the superior system which creates a more even playing field, makes participating in an auction much more fun as a buyer (but you can still "set-and-forget" if you wish) and often results in a price which better reflects the true market value. There is also no listing fee (the seller only pays if the item sells).
The result is that our live-auction system has come to dominate the market (relatively speaking) to a level that Ebay’s shareholders can only dream about and locally Ebay is almost a total non-entity (NZ is the only English speaking country in the world where Ebay has virtually no market penetration of any kind).

 

[rosborne]

Wow, just saw this, another I got sniped thread. How original.

 

[Longsword]

But as a buyer, I love eBay! I find things there that I can't find anywhere else, and many times I get lucky and win an item for less than I ever expected to pay!

+1

Same for me.

 

[mftoms59]

MASSIVE EDIT: I had clearly not grasped the idea of "Max bid" and found myself in a highly frustrating situation. Rest of post left unchanged for posterity, but take my initial complaint as a lack of "understanding" of the eBay "system" for someone well acquainted with live auctions, peppered with a crap-load of initial frustration. Seeing as this thread won't go away now, I am adding a "reply" from several days later as a prologue.
>>>
Only 2 or 3 days after this post, and I can truly say I've learned to play ;-) With success. I can do little but agree and now that I understand the "max bid" system which I did not in the LEAST, I can only agree with pretty much every response I received that was well thought out and informative.

Without the "max bid" system, and when trying to use eBay as a replacement for a live auction ... one can go a little MAD. I now treat it as a silent auction; bid and walk away.
>>>
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eBay !!! Wow, hadn't been there in years, my account is unused for >5 years. Figure I'd go see what the straight razor scene is like. Wow ... what a fiasco. I started by "watching" a bunch of different pieces on a few different country sites, the ones I can read.

In an auction (M-W: a sale of property to the highest bidder), the sale goes to the highest bidder ... not the biggest tech weenie that sets up their sniper program "the bestest." With eBay, the way it presently is, everyone loses; the seller doesn't win because someone out there was likely ready to bid higher had they seen the increased bid more than 3 seconds before closing. The majority of the actual collectors and average buyers don't win because it is in no way a battle to the highest bid, and the bounty does not go to he/she who most wants the item, and likely would most have cherished it. I tried ... I would have paid at least 15-25% more for several of the items I bid on, instead, a 1$/1Euro/1GBP increase at the last second takes it on pieces bidding up in the 100-400$/euros. Yes, I could have increased the "max bid" and this is what I will do, however, this won't fix the problem of sniping.

eBay could to introduce two concepts: Time without bid and percentage incremental increases.
-Time without bid: Auction does not close until there has been 1 to 24 hours without further bids.
-Incremental increases: No bids that are less than 5 to 20% in increase are registered.
Then maybe, the actual highest bidders would get pieces ... not the sniper weenies who add 1$ at 6 seconds.

The experience was incredibly frustrating in the end I am responsible for my decision to use eBay, if I wish to continue using eBay. Yes ... I'm upset, such beautiful items seeing their owners decided by such an ungracious and ungentlemanly method of last second meaningless increases.

I lost out on one razor to a last second bid, but also won one.

The one lost was over what I was willing to pay, and the second was something I REALLY WANTED and do to the bidding being lively, I was on the razor's listing for the last 5 minutes of bidding, placing my last bid to regain the razor with only seconds left.

So... for things I REALLY WANT I ALWAYS AM ON THE LISTING FOR THE LAST REMAINING MINUTES.