SMC Discussion Areas

Anyone else notice Ebay now  hides the winner bidder  name on auctions?
I  guess they stand to  make more mone if they make it easier to allow shilling to  run rampant.

I agree however there is nothing anyone can do. No matter what nothing in the near future is going to compete with Ebay and if they do they will just buy them out (Craigslist). They can basically make their own rules and people have no choice but to use them. I hate Ebay but I still check the listings every day and I will continue to buy from them because there is no alternative that is worth using. They know that 99% of their members are this way so they can do what they want. It SUCKS  :darn:

I heard yahoo auctions was good. Anybody ever deal with that site?

Brian

Yahoo discontinued the auction service a looooooong time ago. At least four years ago, I believe.

We had an Auction System a few years back just for this very reason...
Unfortunately, we'll never gain the popularity greedbay draws so it was deemed unsuccessful...

Buyers would love the chance at a smaller or "more friendly" auction service. Of course, this is in direct conflict to the seller, who wants the most exposure possible in an effort to draw the most exposure/competition aka most bids. That is the very essence of an auction situation, and why sellers on ebay LIST items on ebay. That is where the buyers are.

The bottom line is that if you, as a seller, can get more exposure or draw more interest or more bids in another venue, then have at it. As much as I hate to admit it, I don't think you can. Ebay doesn't think you can. Ebay has created an environment, with it's history of LOW fees, that makes it hard to walk away from, even now that the fees are higher.

If you were to hire a local auction house, you would pay them a higher fee, the buyer would pay the comically euphemistic "buyer's premium" and sales tax, and the exposure would be considerably less. It is tough for anybody to make out better in a local auction situation.

Finally, ebay is not worried about losing sellers who list five dollar items. They are glad to see them go. Now that PayPal is required, there are not enough fees to be made on five dollar sales to make it worth ebay's while. Solution? Make it less enticing for a seller to list low price items. When enough of them go away, it lowers the overhead costs for ebay because computer server space and resources are not tied up with penny sales.

All kinds of reasons why ebay is not going away, and many sellers (not all) will continue to pay what is actually a reasonable fee given the exposure and convenience.

Well stated!