Subject:
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Re: CFD: e-bay (aka ranting and raving)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 10 Feb 1999 07:15:07 GMT
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Viewed:
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512 times
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Adam Yulish writes:
> <snip>
> > On about 2/3 of the auctions I've participated in, or followed, there has • been
> > a similar flow to the bids. Several people bid on it in the first day or so
> > (sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on how popular it is), it reaches • a
> > fairly reasonable price, and sits there, uncontested, until 4-6 hours before
>
> I'd say more than 2/3. Almost all of the auctions I've been in as a
> buyer and a seller follow this pattern.
>
> > cases, the last few minutes. This sometimes pushes the price beyond
> > reasonable(2), but more often, the 'high bidder' is over-turned on his high • bid
> > by the absolute minimum necessary, before they have a chance to react. One
>
> Remember that in a proxy bidding system such as eBay, the highest bid
> is defined as "just a little more" than the second highest bid. All
> winning bids are like this, unless it's a dutch auction format. I just
> saw a rather humorous (in a sick way, I guess) example on R.T.L. where
> two eBay bidders just assumed that they were going to be the highest
> bidders no matter what, and they accidentaly pushed themselves to
> something like three times the value of what they wanted to buy.
> Remember also that (for eBay), if you look at the bidding list after an
> auction is complete, the highest bid is truncated to fit this "proxy"
> system. If all it took was $51 to win, and the highest bidder went $75,
> it will still show as $51.
I know that. My point was two-fold. One was that the system encouraged
waiting until the last minute to knock the other bidder out, instead of
allowing him time to reconsider his 'proxy' - as in the example I stated, where
someone logged 7 new bids in the last hour (or less, probably), trying to 'just
push it' a couple bucks each time, until either they won the set, or they
pushed the price up past what they were willing to go. The more honest option
would be to bid when you first see it, with your maximum. E-bay encourages
this behavior. The other prong of this was to try and point out the rather
seductive trap of the "it's only 50 cents more" bidding and rebidding, which,
as you pointed out, recently burnt someone bad.
>
> > I can understand, from e-bay's point of view, why they run it like this, but
> > (to be blunt) why would anyone use it? As far as I can tell, the only
> > advantage to using e-bay, either as a buyer, or a seller, is the exposure. • (for
> > sellers, a greater market, for buyers, greater diversity)
>
> That "only", for many sellers and buyers, is indeed the sole reason to
> use eBay (and other online auction services). Unparalleled exposure.
My rant was meant with the 'Lego' aspects of e-bay in mind. That exposure, to
an interested community, is provided free on RTL and Lugnet.
> > As to the exposure, you're not going to catch very many AFOL's that aren't
> > aware of RTL & Lugnet - if you're net-aware and an AFOL, they're both pretty
> > hard to not notice - so why not just advertise there?
>
> "AFOL"? New term for me--it means...? As a seller, half of my buyers
AFOL=Adult Fan Of Lego
> have been RTLers and/or Lugnuts. The other half has never heard of them,
> and don't have even the little techinal know-how to figure out how to
> access either one. People who use WebTV (and that level of user is the
> fastest growing segment of the Internet userbase) aren't likely to even
> know what a "newsgroup" is.
My other longwinded and rambling post addressed this.
> > know, why don't we set up a service on the internet to do something people • are
> > fully capable of doing themselves, if they bother to work a little? We can
> > charge people a fee of some kind to use our service, we'll design it in such • a
> > way that it always seems like a bargain, but it will really just add an
> > unnecessary layer into transactions where we can skim a small amount, and • make
>
> Bother to work "a little"? For the kind of exposure that eBay has? I
> dispute that. The Internet is the largest medium ever developed for
> large-scale sellers and small-time buyers. Paying a 1-2% fee for the
> priviledge to access that is something I'll do ten times out of ten, if
> it saves me 50% on computer hardware, helps me find lego pieces I've
> been searching for for two years, and thrills my buyers with sets they
> haven't been able to nab yet. Yes, I agree that there are a lot of
> things that could technically (meaning less cost and more efficiency) be
> done better than eBay and other online auctions are doing now. But
> they're minor compared to the massive exposure that benefits the buyers
> and sellers.
Again, I was refering specifically for the on-line Lego community. My other
post explains my reasoning in more detail.
>
> > All e-bay does (especially in the Lego community) is add an extra layer • where
> > an outsider pulls money out, and provide an interface for speculators to get • at
>
> I don't consider 2% to be much money to be pulled out, especially when
> most bidders are willing to top their bids at the last minute by more
> than 2%. Which brings me to my ranting and raving for the evening (hey,
> no wisecracks about having already done so :)
That two percent is two percent going to an organization that doesn't even care
about Lego, and is in it for the profit. And for 500 items on any given day,
that 2% adds up to a whole bunch of money that just doesn't come back in.
> I simply do not understand why people get upset at being outbid at the
> last minute. This is a *proxy* bidding system. I put in the maximum that
> I'm willing to pay. If I bid $50, and get upset about being outbid at
> $51, then $50 wasn't really the maximum I was willing to pay. "But of
> course I'd be willing to go a little more if it means digging up some
> change out of the couch!". What, and the other guy wouldn't? Those two
> people I mentioned earlier must have thought they had $2000 worth of
> change in their couch. :) The reason "sniping" has become such an issue
> on online auction services is because most bidders are looking to pay
> the least amount they can, when that's not the way auctions work for any
> online or real-life formats. Bidders aren't honest with themselves about
All real-life formats I have ever seen or participated in are once-twice-sold
type of auctions. Sniping simply can't happen in that style of auction.
> what they're willing to pay. If I bid $50 at the beginning of an
> auction, and at the last minute someone jumps in with $50.01 (and this
> has happened to me), more power to 'em. That's one cent more than I
> would have honestly been willing to pay. If I was going to quibble over
> couch change (or much more), I should have made that part of my original
> bid.
More power to you, actually, if you can honestly avoid the very sedutive trap
of "it's only a dollar more" that I suspect makes e-bay the vast majority of
its profit.
Although my own stance is very similar to Todd's on this.
James
http://www.shades-of-night.com/lego/
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: CFD: e-bay (aka ranting and raving)
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| (...) I agree wholeheartedly with the "more honest" option, but I do so because it renders someone else's "dishonesty" ineffective. They can spend all the time and money they want. Against me, it is either enough or it isn't. No extra money or time (...) (26 years ago, 10-Feb-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: CFD: e-bay (aka ranting and raving)
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| <snip> (...) I'd say more than 2/3. Almost all of the auctions I've been in as a buyer and a seller follow this pattern. (...) Remember that in a proxy bidding system such as eBay, the highest bid is defined as "just a little more" than the second (...) (26 years ago, 10-Feb-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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