Ebay rant

I'm trying sell some paintball stuff on ebay and something that REALLY pisses me off is happening. The auctions been up for a few days now, and a handful of people are watching, and bunch of people keep checking on it. However not a single freaking bid has been placed. I had to go back a put a reserve on it because if it went at the starting price I would be losing a lot of money (I know that's the risk you take with ebay). It just makes me really mad when people just sit on an auction. Bid already you bastards!

That's what the reserve feature is for Good luck with your sale though!

i'm guessing you haven't played in awhile and whatever your selling is now not worth much. Otherwise you wouldn't be as worried.

I'm guilty of that myself. I usually put it on the watch list and bid in the last five minutes. Otherwise you are just driving the price up. Unless it's a reserve item, then I will bid it up to my price or the reserve. That will tell me whether or not to come back in the last five minutes and bid again.

Sorry.

That's pretty much the way the game is played now. I rarely bid on anything that i think may be of interest to anyone else... I program in a last second snipe bid.

This doesn't help me against a determined bidder or another sniper, but it does seem to keep the emotional/impulse bidders from increasing the price.

Because of this a lot of sellers are going to reserve auctions (which dissuades some bidders altogether), high opening bids, or illegal shill bidding... a successful practice which is becoming rampant in my experience.

Shesh, get over yourself. Almost all the bidding takes place at the last moment.

Yeah, doode. Personally, I go for 3 seconds. That is, I put my maximum bid, whatever it is worth to me, in at the last 3 seconds of the auction. If it goes for more, oh well, wasn't worth it to me.

digdug18 wrote: i'm guessing you haven't played in awhile and whatever your selling is now not worth much. Otherwise you wouldn't be as worried.

Actually I'm selling a paintball gun that goes for $329 when brand new (http://www.spyder.tv/section/products/mr_series/mr3.html) that's just missing some dress up accesories, with two C02 tanks, a pod pack and a JT Mask with a full head cover. For less than $200 (the reserve is anyways).

Ah I know I'm bitching, but its nerve wracking watching your auction not do ANYTHING after 3 days.

A long time ago I figured out how to get more on ebay than I though something was worth:

Start the bidding at a penny or $1.

What drives up bids on ebay is that guy who just has to put a bid on it now (which they'll gladly do when it's ridiculously underpriced).

That leads to the next phenomenon...the folks who just have to have the highest bid on it before they go to bed (or are otherwise done looking at ebay for the day).

Trust me, the more bids you have (no matter how low they start) the higher your item will sell for.

Of course, this is all assuming the item is something someone wants. There's no accounting for something nobody wants (though, that's rarely the case on ebay...as long as it can be shipped for a resonable price).

All that said...I haven't touched ebay in several years as a seller...and about a year as a buyer, I think.

Clem

I wouldn't bid on it myself until the last minute, it's the way the game works. I also wouldn't bid on it with a reserve. And these days, for a discretionary item, you're probably not going to get even 1/2 new price for an incomplete used one, even if you had a lot more pictures and it looked a lot better in them. People just aren't buying stuff.

If it doesn't sell, re-list it. But next time thoroughly wash and armor-all all the parts, lay them out on a white background, and take close up pictures of each component you are selling. Lots of pictures of different stuff= lots of stuff, which will increase bids. Clean + shiny = nice and like new, which will increase bids.

Also, looking at completed listings, the last one that sold was much nicer and more complete than yours and only got $112. There have also been several in the $140-150 range, one that included another marker in a 2-for-1 deal, and none of them got any bids. Market price on e-vil-bay is clearly in the $100 range, and you'll have to be top of the market to get that. Sure you have some accessories that could bring up the value, but unless you clearly market them with the marker, and they are worth something to someone, than they add nothing.

That could be a top of the line mask and I'm going to throw it away if it looks at all like you broke a sweat wearing it, same goes for what looks like a dirty black bag in your pic. They add no value to me now, but if they were clean, shiny, and clearly pictured they would add to your listing.

It also gets easier to sell stuff with a lot more feedback. Somewhere around the 600 point stuff started selling a lot better, but even 25 would be an improvement over 6. One tactic for bumping that score up without much fuss is to buy some music or books or something on half.com. Feedback left for you there shows up on e-bay and for sheeple just looking at the numbers that could make the difference.

Advertise it, spam your favorite forums with your item and a link to it. Relist it if it doesn't sell, all those watchers will get an e-mail that it has been relisted. Use LOTS of keywords and use misspellings of keywords too to help people searching find your item(s). Also, free shipping when you can will help motivate some buyers.

Only a fool would bid days in advance. Why drive the price up ahead of time?

Woody wrote: Only a fool would bid days in advance. Why drive the price up ahead of time?

That's something that drives me nuts. Some people just don't get it.

I also will not bid on an item if there's a reserve. The only time I would consider it, is when the reserve price is in the ad, and it's very reasonable.

I never understood why Ebay didn't extend the auction if a bid is made in the last couple of minutes. If the auction is supposed to end at 1:00 and someone bids at 12:59, extend the auction to 1:09. This prevents sniping, driving up the profits for both the seller and Ebay (assuming they get a percentage of final sale).

Of course, this was my thinking when I got outbid with a couple of seconds left. Then I won a couple of auctions by bidding with just a few seconds left and was happy they don't extend the auctions. Now, I just decide the max I will pay for something, enter my bid when it's convenient for me and walk away. If I'm the high bidder, great, if not then it was overpriced.

Get a few shill accounts (friends that no long use or rarely use Ebay are the best source) and bid on your own auctions. Sure you may get burned on a few but you can usually get pretty good bidding wars going.

Sure its not to the highest moral caliber, and its certainly against Ebay policy, but for my friends that are avid Ebayers, its the best way to get top dollar for no reserve auctions. Sucks to hear it but its the truth

Schmidlap wrote: Now, I just decide the max I will pay for something, enter my bid when it's convenient for me and walk away. If I'm the high bidder, great, if not then it was overpriced.

That's my mentality, too. Even on the first day of an auction, I'll place my max bid then just forget about it. It hardly "drives the price up", with my bid appearing as, say, 99c, until the final hours when the up-late'ers and snipers jump in.

I've only sold a few things on Ebay but it never ceases to amaze me that something stupid that I think nobody wants sells for stupid money and something that I think will do good no one bids on.

Luke wrote:

Schmidlap wrote: Now, I just decide the max I will pay for something, enter my bid when it's convenient for me and walk away. If I'm the high bidder, great, if not then it was overpriced.

That's my mentality, too. Even on the first day of an auction, I'll place my max bid then just forget about it. It hardly "drives the price up", with my bid appearing as, say, 99c, until the final hours when the up-late'ers and snipers jump in.

You are the guy that I'm always hoping to find when I put up an auction.

To drag this on just a bit further..what difference does it make in the end - if I'm only prepared to pay X amount, whether I bid at the start or in the final seconds?

Understandably, if everybody did that, it would prematurely jack the price up, but it seems no one ever does.

Luke wrote: To drag this on just a bit further..what difference does it make in the end - if I'm only prepared to pay X amount, whether I bid at the start or in the final seconds? Understandably, if everybody did that, it would prematurely jack the price up, but it seems no one ever does.

The difference it makes is that, as I explained before, someone wants to be the highest bidder the day after (or 3 days after) you put your bid in. They'll bid it up until they are the highest bidder. If the seller is lucky, there's lots of those "gotta-be-the-highest-bidder" folks out there.

I really think it's probably best explained as some sort of sociological phenomenon...but I'm not a sociological phonomenonologist...yet.

Clem

Clem's strategy of starting at $1 is dead-on in my experience. You collect a lot of watchers when something's super cheap, and generally it gets bid up faster too.

Other than that, the typical rules of any online ad apply: lots of pictures, clear, bullet-point text and good grammar go a long way.

speedblind wrote: Clem's strategy of starting at $1 is dead-on in my experience.

I agree.

I listed a Datsun 2000 roadster crankshaft for $75.00 and it died on the vine.

I relisted it at $10 and it sold for $105.00.

I'm another "start it cheap" guy. I hope to get as many watchers as I can. All the action usually starts in the last half hour. You want a lot of folks out there thinking how cool it would be to get that gun. After a day or two of thinking about it they decide it's worth more than they did in the first place. But if you hadn't gotten them in the door with the cheap opening bid you wouldn't get their higher bid right before the auction ends.

ClemSparks wrote: The difference it makes is that, as I explained before, someone wants to be the highest bidder the day after (or 3 days after) you put your bid in. They'll bid it up until they are the highest bidder. If the seller is lucky, there's lots of those "gotta-be-the-highest-bidder" folks out there. I really think it's probably best explained as some sort of sociological phenomenon...but I'm not a sociological phonomenonologist...yet. Clem

When somebody has the high bid on something they have perceived ownership, that is they think of it as theirs already. When someone else bids on it, they feel like someone is taking something that is theirs and will bid again and again to "keep" their item. It's great when you are selling something and have a couple of these idiots waging a bidding war against each other. Click on your bid history to expand and you'll see the same person bidding in small increments minute after minute until they are winning again.

Drewsifer wrote:

digdug18 wrote: i'm guessing you haven't played in awhile and whatever your selling is now not worth much. Otherwise you wouldn't be as worried.

Actually I'm selling a paintball gun that goes for $329 when brand new (http://www.spyder.tv/section/products/mr_series/mr3.html) that's just missing some dress up accesories, with two C02 tanks, a pod pack and a JT Mask with a full head cover. For less than $200 (the reserve is anyways). Ah I know I'm bitching, but its nerve wracking watching your auction not do ANYTHING after 3 days.

Get over yourself, you never gonna get much money for it, its a spyder. In my buddy's store(where i was at today) that gun sells new in box for $150. you may get $75 for the gun, about $10 for each Co2 tanks(provided they are 20oz tanks), and about $15-20 depending which model mask it is(spectra mask are worth more). I'm betting you'll get about $110 max.