Subject:
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Re: When is "Not an Auction" really an auction?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Fri, 3 Dec 1999 06:53:50 GMT
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Viewed:
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242 times
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Richard Franks wrote in message ...
> In lugnet.market.theory, Frank Filz writes:
>
> > Just curious, how do people feel about "I'm thinking of selling XYZ. If
> > I get a huge response, I will auction it, otherwise I will come back
> > with a price, and sell to the first offer"?
>
> It's a bit of a waste of time, but it is *open*. I can choose to deal with • that
> person - I know exactly what they intend to do, or I can walk away. Being • open
> is the best thing as far as I am concerned.
Now to somewhat answer my own question. I sort of did this with my
advertisement that I was seeking interest in parts from 5978 Sphynx Secret
Surprise. I got a bunch of responses, which convinced me that it was worth
buying 8 sets to part out. I also got one request to buy a complete set. I
ended up setting prices using MA12 as a guideline (which were much higher
than some of the offers made). Once I did that, I e-mailed everyone and let
them know what the price was, and what was available to them (taking order
of receipt of the original requests). I got responses back from about half
of the people, who have all mostly accepted my prices, and purchased the
items. Now the only problem is that sluggy me hasn't put the price list of
what is remaining up so that anyone who didn't want to deal with the sale
until there was a hard offer in front of them could make purchases.
I've also participated in a couple auctions from what was originally offered
as a sale. I can see why this is distasteful, and resist doing it myself
(without an upfront warning that if I get overwhelmed with responses, I'll
consider an auction), but I can also see why someone who grossly
underestimated the demand for something deciding they should be able to
capitalize on it. The only real annoyances that I've had in these instances
are when the auction then generates no interest (either the interest was not
very solid then, or everyone else got pissed that the item was auctioned
when the original deal was a straight sale), and when the auction ends up
dragging out the resolution (mostly because the auction is set with too long
an interval between advancements, in this kind of situation, you can almost
immediately start advancements since people have already expressed their
interest, you don't need to wait for sufficient interest to gather before
starting advancements
I am actually much more annoyed by the sealed bid type auctions since I
often have no idea of a fair price to offer. They also invite some confusion
as one of the implications is that the seller doesn't want to deal with a
lot of questions. In one such auction, I was confused about how the shipping
was going to be, so I made an offer which included shipping (and stated
such). The seller misread my e-mail and assumed that I was making an offer
exclusive of shipping (which is what he sort of asked for, so I'm partially
at fault, but I thought I was being clear). He ended up meeting me in the
middle, and I accepted that, partly because I think I actually got the
benefit of sort of a proxy bid as a result.
Frank
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: When is "Not an Auction" really an auction?
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| (...) It's a bit of a waste of time, but it is *open*. I can choose to deal with that person - I know exactly what they intend to do, or I can walk away. Being open is the best thing as far as I am concerned. If the seller, mentioned earlier in the (...) (25 years ago, 2-Dec-99, to lugnet.market.theory)
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