Good project if you live in NJ...

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Curt A
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Re: Good project if you live in NJ...

Post by Curt A »

brianu wrote:Why even bother making an offer and waiting and risking losing out on a deal like this when the buy it now is/was so cheap to begin with? I mean no offense here, but does an asking price, no matter how low, always have to be the start of a negotiation?
It wasn't a "Buy It Now", but there was only one bid which ended at $175...
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HisMastersVoice
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Re: Good project if you live in NJ...

Post by HisMastersVoice »

Curt A wrote:
brianu wrote:Why even bother making an offer and waiting and risking losing out on a deal like this when the buy it now is/was so cheap to begin with? I mean no offense here, but does an asking price, no matter how low, always have to be the start of a negotiation?
It wasn't a "Buy It Now", but there was only one bid which ended at $175...
That was a "Best Offer" if you click on it to expand the bid detail. When a best offer is accepted, it appears as a "bid" which ends the auction/listing.
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gramophone-georg
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Re: Good project if you live in NJ...

Post by gramophone-georg »

brianu wrote:Why even bother making an offer and waiting and risking losing out on a deal like this when the buy it now is/was so cheap to begin with? I mean no offense here, but does an asking price, no matter how low, always have to be the start of a negotiation?
This seems to be the latest rip eBay is on. In fact, if your item is up for as little as a week eBay will sometimes jump in and stick a "best offer feature" on it for you- unannounced, which is angering a lot of sellers because they aren't informed that eBay did that and they think people are being bottomfeeders.

This constant meddling by eBay in things often unannounced is the reason I've been boycotting selling on there since 2010. eBay doesn't own any merchandise, but they want to micro manage every aspect of every listing, creating problems. The ONLY thing eBay lets a seller assume full control of is the risk... often created by eBay.

Rant over. :)
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HisMastersVoice
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Re: Good project if you live in NJ...

Post by HisMastersVoice »

gramophone-georg wrote:This seems to be the latest rip eBay is on. In fact, if your item is up for as little as a week eBay will sometimes jump in and stick a "best offer feature" on it for you- unannounced, which is angering a lot of sellers because they aren't informed that eBay did that and they think people are being bottomfeeders.
I've not heard of this, have you personally had this happen? As an active eBay seller I've never had this happen in my 18 years of using it.

Don't get me wrong, eBay does plenty of things that I could rant about. Like charging final value fees on shipping money now (though we can blame the people who charge $40 to ship a "$1" item for that.)

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gramophone-georg
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Re: Good project if you live in NJ...

Post by gramophone-georg »

HisMastersVoice wrote:
gramophone-georg wrote:This seems to be the latest rip eBay is on. In fact, if your item is up for as little as a week eBay will sometimes jump in and stick a "best offer feature" on it for you- unannounced, which is angering a lot of sellers because they aren't informed that eBay did that and they think people are being bottomfeeders.
I've not heard of this, have you personally had this happen? As an active eBay seller I've never had this happen in my 18 years of using it.

Don't get me wrong, eBay does plenty of things that I could rant about. Like charging final value fees on shipping money now (though we can blame the people who charge $40 to ship a "$1" item for that.)
I am actually the admin of a private discussion board of eBay and ecommerce sellers so I actually have a really good ear to the ground on this. If you review the sometimes twice yearly, sometimes more often than that eBay Seller Updates you'll learn way more than you want to know about the many ways eBay can boink you. There's also a quite good online publication called 'ecommercebytes.com' that seems to do quite a good job of keeping up on eBay shenanigans.

I'm heavily invested in this because I am partners with two other people in a fledgeling online collectibles marketplace. We are visible online, but haven't been promoting it yet due to dissatisfaction with the software. Hunting around for a better replacement package.

Here are some of the things eBay has implemented that sellers are not happy about:

1. The "Forced Best Offer" thing: They'll add this to fixed price listings that they feel have been on too long with insufficient interest. They were doing it on auction listings that had no bids by about Day 3 for awhile, too, but seem to have stopped this. I guess they are auto emailing sellers now after they have done this, at least.

2. Forced "Instant Payment Required" on fixed price listings. This is a pain in the behind to buyers of multiples (like me with records). Instead of hitting "buy it now" and merely committing in order to request a total when done buying, the buyer is forced right to a checkout page where they have to complete the transaction including full boat shipping on each item RIGHT THEN in order to take the item off the market. If the buyer tries to bypass this by using the cart and then hitting "request total", a pop up informs the buyer that this seller does not offer combined shipping discounts, even when the sellers listing states they do.

The only way around that is for the seller to refund shipping overage amounts through PayPal... which means eBay still keeps the fees on the full shipping amount the buyer pays.

eBay personnel have also stated in their discussion boards that the Paypal refund *might* trigger an out of stock "defect" for the seller but I have not heard of this happening yet.

3. Increased the amount of "best offers" allowed from the same visitor from 3 to 10. If you can't make a deal in 3 tries, you will have to endure up to 7 more bottomfeeder best offer attempts from your "potential buyer". Waste of time.

4. On offers, eBay always stated upfront in the past that stated shipping charges were not negotiable. However, they dropped this- unannounced, of course- one day over the summer and now if a buyer submits a "best offer of $xxx including shipping"... it suddenly sticks.

5. Now they are playing all kinds of games with returns automatically processed, refunds automatically deducted, etc. when a buyer opens a case, and this new "3 day shipping" thing is a mess also- basically making sellers responsible if the carrier misses a delivery date.

And, as usual, eBay enforcement of this garbage is really hit and miss.

eBay is just treating sellers like their own personal wallet. They buy off scamming buyers with YOUR money, and the new rule now is that if they "have to step in" they get to keep the fees. Meanwhile, the happy buyer goes on a shopping spree and eBay doesn't seem to care until the scams start costing THEM money.

Fortunately, our niche consists of serious collectors who want the goods and aren't going to anger sellers who have what they want so eBay is still pretty viable for phono/ record guys, although the crapophone garbage is off the hook.

But in the auto parts world there are really serious issues. Several friends of mine in the business have pulled out of eBay because they can't handle the shrinkage. People buy new parts, claim they are defective, and open a case with eBay. eBay dings the seller for a return label and has PayPal freeze the funds. Buyer sends their old part, or a brick, or a phone book back and eBay refunds with seller's cash as soon as that label shows 'delivered'. They will NOT look at any evidence whatsoever that you got rooked. They'll claim they have no idea what you really sent, so they'll take the buyer's word... keeping the fees, of course.

I agree with you about the fees on shipping. The proper way to handle it would have been to kick those sellers off, but this is a classic example of eBay monetizing and making a new profit stream off a problem instead. The hell of it is is that those listings with huge postage charges on a cheap item are still out there- sellers are using that strategy to get around selling limits now since shipping costs don't count towards that. eBay stopped caring because now they are making money on it.
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colmike1
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Re: Good project if you live in NJ...

Post by colmike1 »

I had offered $200.00 and was denied, so, something fishy going on if it "sold" for $175.00.

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Re: Good project if you live in NJ...

Post by brianu »

colmike1 wrote:I had offered $200.00 and was denied, so, something fishy going on if it "sold" for $175.00.

Now I’m confused... when I looked at this auction before it ended, the price was 175 buy it now with an option to make a best offer... why would you offer more rather than just do the lower priced buy it now?

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Re: Good project if you live in NJ...

Post by VanEpsFan1914 »

brianu wrote:
colmike1 wrote:I had offered $200.00 and was denied, so, something fishy going on if it "sold" for $175.00.

Now I’m confused... when I looked at this auction before it ended, the price was 175 buy it now with an option to make a best offer... why would you offer more rather than just do the lower priced buy it now?
:) :)

Why, gentlemen, it never did sell for $175. I offered $275 and more if they would ship to Texas but was turned down because rgordon939 offered higher. What it was, was a simple case of collectors offering what they felt was a fair price for a good machine.

And we offered higher prices because the machine is worth a lot of money and we wanted a shot at owning it!

It's not entirely about money in the game of collecting, and the monologue of a collector bragging about owning the most machines bought at the lowest prices is a step below the PGA Golf Tournament for insomnia cures.

Still, a deal is a deal--I just don't think this was going to be the $75 Special folks thought it would be.

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Re: Good project if you live in NJ...

Post by colmike1 »

When I was looking at it it had a minimum bid of 175, but not a Buy It Now. It also had the best offer option, so I sent in my offer. Just a squirrely listing that just didn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense.

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Re: Good project if you live in NJ...

Post by brianu »

VanEpsFan1914 wrote:And we offered higher prices because the machine is worth a lot of money and we wanted a shot at owning it!

I don’t know whether I’d go that far... that machine needed a lot of work.

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