OK, first let me say that I'm all for open and honest auctions. They're good for the buyer and they're good for the seller. I've been on both sides of the transaction and I've had good outcomes in many cases. But lately I've been really miffed about the way auctions are going down at eBay and I'd like to hear your experiences.

First of all, if you've ever been to a live auction you know that there's an auctioneer and he keeps the bidding moving, and if he's about to pound his gavel and close the bidding he gives everyone another chance to make a final bid. That gives everyone a fair chance to get an item they really want (and are willing to pay for), and it's fair to the seller because he gets the best price for his goods. But eBay sets a hard-and-fast deadline, so people sit on their hands and don't place a bid until it is only seconds away from expiring, and then they bid and no one gets a chance to make a counter-bid. That is causing sellers to place their items at a higher starting price, because they can't count on them ever reaching their fair market value.

A better system would be that if an online bid comes in right before closing it then automatically extends the bidding deadline another minute or two. That gives people a chance to submit a counterbid. If another bid comes in, the deadline is extended again, and the auction remains open until all bidding has paused for at last a couple of minutes.

Now things have gotten unbearable with an application that eBay itself seems to be hawking called "Countdown." It was offered to me the last couple times I lost a bid when someone outbid me in the last second or two of an auction. I was offended by the offer so I didn't follow up and I don't know what it costs or what it does, but it was presented as a way of getting an unfair advantage over other bidders by giving users an instantaneous pipeline to the bidding action.

There is something else out there (or maybe the same app) that automatically bests any bid by $.50. ... I have bid on something days in advance, only to have my offer outbid by $.50 again and again until I got disgusted and stopped. Days later, I check and see that the item actually sold for that last bidded price. This has happened too many times to be a coincidence. If an item has a bid of $3.50 and I bid $3.83 and I am immediately outbid at $4.33 and then I bid $7.32 and it instantly says the new bid is $7.82, something is fishy.

Whether eBay is hawking a proprietary system that gives subscribers an unfair advantage in auctions, or whether these are third party apps, the purity of the free-market auction process is compromised, and both buyers and sellers are being abused.

What do you think?

I've been away from eBay as a sellers for a several years now (mid-2008, I put some extra items when my parents sold the family house and I had to get rid of my children's stuff) for reasons close to yours:

eBay is not an auction house

Although they still describe themselves as an "online auctions" on eBay.com, they removed all traces of "auctions" on most of the European eBay websites because they have been sued for circumventing what the legal auctions are and therefore re-branded themselves as a "marketplace" instead.

Legal auctions:

• Don't have a straight cut-line but will extend by the time needed for the final best bid to be expressed. Then the 3 hits of the hammer will close the sale. There are no last-minute snipping possible.
  In that respect, eBay is hurting the Sellers because they could get a better price if they put this extra bidding time like Yahoo Japan Auctions always has (extra 5mn when a bid comes in the last 5mn)
  
• Will guarantee the Seller gets the full auction price. Extra fees (usually +50% of the closing price) are on the buyer's side.
  In that respect again, eBay is hurting the Sellers since you can't -- officially -- overcharge for credit card or Paypal. In the end most sellers will embed these costs in the shipping'n'handling fees and pay lower fees to eBay on the "auction" ending price.

I'm not even mentioning the eBay fees raising every year without any new features for most people to back that increase. Except please eBay shareholders of course. I hate how they try to keep sending you joyful/friendly messages to explain "upgrades" when really it's screaming "corporate greed" out loud.


eBay is not protecting its buyers ... and they shouldn't since the real customers are the sellers!

Now on the buyer's side (and that was a reason to stop buying on eBay almost completely for me):

• They improved "security" by making all the bidding process anonymous. Officially they didn't want bidders to be solicited for other auctions (they want you to pay for options to be more visible) or simply offered an identical deal outside of eBay, based on the sale that just took place (contacting bidders #2, #3, etc.). That's a major step back where you don't know who's bidding against you. And more often that not, the seller is also bidding against you with $0.50 snipping engines to get you to your max bid.
  That hurts buyers and is totally illegal. It's called shill bidding when you ask a partner (yourself, a friend, a snipping software house) to make fake bids. If the partner in crime reaches the best bid, you won't sell to him and won't be mad at a non-paying bidder. But you will make a second pass at the bidder #2 and offer the best bid minus one increment. Do not ever ever ever accept second chance offers. Or accept them only if you consider that the best bidder backed away and recalculate the final price as if these bids never took place (against bidder #3 + 1 bid increment). You can try, sellers will never bow to that. It's destroying their scam because playing with 2 auction riggers is a lot more complicated and more obvious!

eBay became an unfair place for honest sellers, an organized scam place for naive buyers, more than 90% of the items are from established businesses anyway (an they are offering lower buyers' guarantee than regular shops), no more independent, local, friendly people emptying their basement/attic.

I ran away.

And I started LDDb.com, filtering sellers one at a time to make sure we do not bring the wolf in the sheep's house.

Julien

Very interesting reading Julien. I've never really given it much thought, but your points make a lot of sense.

Thanks for deepening my understanding of the flaws in the system that I noticed. I would always much prefer to sell at an honest price to a collector at LDDb. But eBay still reaches a wide audience that doesn't already have all the treasures we would like to sell. I'd like to hear if anybody has any other alternatives to dealing on eBay?

J

I sell there, try not to sell much under 10 bucks. Not worth my time and effort. I sell in the niche and dont have to worry about people copying my stuff because they burn me once they dont get to buy again. All in all it is a place to sell. I dont do many auctions there anymore. Maybe 2 or 3 a week.

The cost of setting up a Seller shop on Ebay is far higher in the UK than say the US giving an unfair bias to certain territories.
In addition the free insertion fee offers every few weeks do not apply if you are wishing to sell outside of the UK.
I found this hugely prohibitive when selling laserdiscs on Ebay since the target audience for laserdiscs is international.

As a trial I ran my own store on Ebay for 1 year.
The monthly subscription fees were really expensive to keep the store open.
Whilst I did sell most of what I listed a huge slice of the profits went to Ebay either directly or indirectly (via paypal).
The only good part was I made contact with some great collectors after 1 or 2 disc sales and many have been regulars ever since.

If you are going to sell laserdiscs on Ebay my advice is sell them as auctions rather than in a shop.
List them as Buy It Nows as collectors (if they are anything like me) are impulse buyers!
If the price is right they will sell.
I tried almost every method available - buy it now, auctions with low starts, make me an offer, monthly discounts and the buy it now was definitely the most successful.
This was the primary reason for moving my stock to a shop on LDDB.com where I have continued to enjoy sales and regular return customers.

Don't get me wrong - I love Ebay - that is where I bought the majority of my laserdiscs, but you can get burned really easily as well.
I've lots of stories of being sold junk - covers wrecked, discs warped or rotted etc.
The secret if you are a buyer is to know what you are after, what it is worth and how likely it is to be rotted if you are dealing with an unknown seller.

I did buy a very expensive watch from eBay in 2010 but only after I took a week to double-check the seller's credit, asked for private feedback from 3 others previous buyers in 3 separate countries in Asia and calling his bank in the USA to inquire about his creditworthiness and possible past history trouble.

Yes, I'm that paranoid!

Julien

I sell on Ebay , but only rare and higher priced items...I started with Ebay in the beginning and now they have left a bad taste in my mouth...I now sell on a site called Bonanza which I highly recommend....It is seller friendly and I sell quite a few items there...Including my laserdiscs...Bonanza is more like a store not an auction where you can recieve best offers,,,,I find the best place to sell laserdiscs is right here...I tweet this site all the time and tell all my laserdisc buyers about it...Julien does a wonderful job here and I can not say enough good things about this site or him...
I have been selling online now for almost 20 years and I know quality when I experience it - you get quality here!!!

Everyone has had some good things to share here.
Julien you nailed it spot on.
My brother was a fan years ago and now will not go near there....
Flea bay he calls the site now.
I list a few LD titles there I do confess.
However I am leaning away more and more for the obvious reasons already pointed out in this thread.
The amount of throw away titles I have bought there is not even funny...
not to mention titles that have arrived broken from novice sellers.
I will second what debreeze stated about finding a quality site !
My Hat is off to Julien for all the tangible work that stares at me every time I log on to the LDDB.
Not to mention all the one on one attentivness when help or intervention is needed by the administrator.
Gotta give ebay one credit though...... It is how I found out about the LDDB !!!!!

I buy from there since I don't know where is to look. I could only find a copy of Baoh on eBay. They should protect the sellers more I don't see how anybody makes money from it. I've probably lost more than I made with bad decsions on the shipping costs. I came under what it actually cost to ship it and I never could get it right so I've stopped for now though I do better at least when I was in texas going to thrift stores and half price books and some flea markets.

I buy more on ebay but its addictive somewhat so I've only be able to stop ebay in spurts sometimes long sabbaticals and then I come back for some reason or another.

If I'm reading your post correctly it sounds like this is working as intended. If you have a bid down on an item the most any other buyer can outbid you for is $.50. The price only goes higher if a 2nd higher bid comes in.

In your example, and item has a bid price of $3.50 but you have no idea what the other buyer actually bid, it could be $100. If you bid $3.83 you will immediately be outbid and the auction price will raise by $0.50. If you were to bid $50 you would immediately be outbid and the new price would be $50.50. If you were to place a bid for $200 then the bid price would raise to $100.50 and you would be the current high bidder. I'm pretty sure that's the way it has always worked.

That's interesting. Are you saying there is an outstanding "blind bid" that is not shown in the current highest bid listing, and your bid won't register until you best it? Are you sure that's not a function of the seller's reserve? It doesn't seem to be in anyone's best interest to keep the latest bid a secret.

"J"

I'm not exactly sure how a "blind bid" works but it sounds similar. I don't believe the reserve comes into play here but there is an option for "bid increment" which by default is $0.50 but the seller raise or lower this to any amount they want. That determines how much above the current price you have to bid and explains why you were always getting outbid for exactly that amount.

I know if there's an item for $4.99 with 0 bids and you bid $100.00 you'll win that item for $4.99 if no other bids come in. The seller will never know the true amount of your bid and I feel that's a good thing since it cuts down on the potential for bid shilling as explained in post 2 (otherwise they could have a friend enter a bid for $99.50 to drive the auction price up to your max bid).

Well I thought Id try my hand at selling a few discs on eBay last night. Took f-ing forever to work out the shipping stuff from japan. Kept coming up that I was filling something about US shipping incorrectly. Any way finally managed to list, then after one hour my account was suspended for suspecious behavior. So that's the end of that I guess.

I have a pretty decent template for my ebay auctions. Pretty much goes like - Disc is in good shape with surface wear. Jacket has yadda yadda yadda. Shipping is x in the US, and ships at 2lbs around the world for the first 2 single discs. I will combine shipping. You are responsible for the fees and customs of your country. I ship media, if you live outside of the 48 states you might consider something other then media shipping as it will take up to a month to get to you. I insure everything thing that leaves the US. Lol, my disclaimers take up more room then my actual description.

RIght so I just rang Ebay Customer Support and they said my account had been suspended because they wanted to verify I am who I say I am (I got no emails about this mind. The email just said that I was suspicious and thats it. I had to ring from Japan to find out what was up- Thanks ebay). Then they told me that I have to FAX in a copy of my I.D and a utility bill that has my address written on it. After doing this, it will take ebay 7-10 days to email me with a decision as to whether my account will be reinstated or not.

Will never know... unless, using a different account, they put a $2,000 to know where the max bid price is and then "retract bid" back to normal.

Or simply win at $100.50 with $1,000 bid, then come back to you for a "second chance" at $100...

Both ways, they will know your max bid.

But the auto-bidding is not the main problem (that's fine and similar to auctions live process), it's the automated last-minute snipping without a time extension that frustrates most people. You know as well as I do that, in the heat of the last moments, your initial "max bid" is usually obsoleted because "it's only a few more $$$"!

Julien

Yeah I agree with this. My Ebay auction strategy is to simply enter in the highest amount that I'm comfortable paying and not worry about it after that. It works best in the final few seconds of the auction but if I don't feel like planning my schedule around Ebay I'll put in my max bid any time and if I win later then great, if not at least the person who did win was willing to pay more than me. I've never had a 2nd chance offer but I'd most likely decline after reading this thread.

I've always used eBay the same way ...

1. Determine the market price for the items I want.
2. Create a watch list.
3. Assume I'm going to lose more than I win and set my bids at or below market. Low Ball the common items.
4. Enter my bids using a proxy biding service ... keeps me from getting emotional about biding.
5. Repeat the process.

Works for me

I could see where shill bidding could be a real problem on higher price "rare" items. In those cases I would only conduct transactions with dealers I trust.

I was ok with your strategy until point 3.

I only bid on things I really want so my goal is to win those items not lose.
If we are talking about bidding on rare laserdiscs there aren't enough copies of many titles to adopt your policy. It could take forever to win with that strategy.
I would say my success rate is about 80% which is why I have been able to assemble a really comprehensive collection of music LDs in under 6 years.
So I win far more than I lose but I am very selective in what I bid on.