Ebay- behavior

[obimark]

Riddle me this? Is Ebay full of nothing but "bottom feeders" now?

Why would an auction with 12 watchers! have no bids? Why watch the auction?
Just hopeful the starting price will come down?

Maybe I am different, but if somethings costs more than I am willing to spend I don't usually watch the auction.

 

[ggunn]

Riddle me this? Is Ebay full of nothing but "bottom feeders" now?

Why would an auction with 12 watchers! have no bids? Why watch the auction?
Just hopeful the starting price will come down?

Maybe I am different, but if somethings costs more than I am willing to spend I don't usually watch the auction.

I haven't bought anything on eBay for a while, but when I did in a lot of auctions all the action happened in the last few seconds before it closed. I think that many folks watch an auction to monitor if the price changes but don't bid until the end because bidding earlier drives up the price. They hope to get their one and only bid in so late that no one has time to outbid them.

 

[2.6kHz]

Would not be surprised if they are using your auction to appraise their gear they are trying to sell on their local craigslist. Lots of people use ebay as a price guesstimator.

 

[RoadRanger]

Riddle me this? Is Ebay full of nothing but "bottom feeders" now?

Why would an auction with 12 watchers! have no bids? Why watch the auction?
Just hopeful the starting price will come down?

Maybe I am different, but if somethings costs more than I am willing to spend I don't usually watch the auction.

I'll "watch" to see what something ends up selling for - or to see if it expires and is relisted for less. I actually have bought stuff that went down .

 

[Gorn]

Calling someone a bottom feeder is a strong statement. Someone who's watching an auction but not bidding is deserving of that label?

 

[strictlybass_ic]

I haven't bought anything on eBay for a while, but when I did in a lot of auctions all the action happened in the last few seconds before it closed. I think that many folks watch an auction to monitor if the price changes but don't bid until the end because bidding earlier drives up the price. They hope to get their one and only bid in so late that no one has time to outbid them.

Would not be surprised if they are using your auction to appraise their gear they are trying to sell on their local craigslist. Lots of people use ebay as a price guesstimator.

Yes to both of these. Also, I use my watch list as a shopping list. Yes, I'm very interested in your bass, and if I can rearrange finances sufficiently before auctions end I will bid on it. In the mean time I don't want to re-find it to check the details.

I use eBay all the time, mostly for small odds/ends buy-it-now type stuff. Larger purchases are a lot more rare (been burned by crap sellers) and often conducted on the classifieds here instead (much better people to work with). I like to think I'm not a bottom feeder, but I've stopped selling there due to impressively bad buyer conduct. I feel your pain on that front.

 

[lfmn16]

I don't think that trying to get something for the best possible price makes you a bottom feeder. I watch a lot of items which I may or may not buy. If something is of interest, I'll 'watch' it. Often after I think about it, I'll decide not to bid but don't always remove it from my watch list.

 

[Jeff Elkins]

Would not be surprised if they are using your auction to appraise their gear they are trying to sell on their local craigslist. Lots of people use ebay as a price guesstimator.

This ^^ - not just Craigslist, but as an overall appraisal tool. I value my gear based on what it's worth to me, but sometimes I get curious about what it's worth to the marketplace in general. I watch ads on eBay and TB for this reason.

Calling someone a bottom feeder is a strong statement. Someone who's watching an auction but not bidding is deserving of that label?

Aaaaand.... this ^^

 

[Passinwind]

Riddle me this? Is Ebay full of nothing but "bottom feeders" now?

Why would an auction with 12 watchers! have no bids? Why watch the auction?
Just hopeful the starting price will come down?

Maybe I am different, but if somethings costs more than I am willing to spend I don't usually watch the auction.

My watch list is three pages deep at the moment. I might eventually buy three things on it, or not. The rest of the list is useful for part numbers, descriptions and tech specs, a list of vendors who sell stuff similar to what I often use eBay for, and so on. Does that fit your definition of bottom feeding? I either do buy-it-nows, best offers, or bid once and forget about it. Bidding earlier or later makes no difference at all, in my world view, but I'm not trying to "win" auctions, just to buy stuff I want or need at whatever price point I'm comfortable with.

 

[obimark]

This ^^ - not just Craigslist, but as an overall appraisal tool. I value my gear based on what it's worth to me, but sometimes I get curious about what it's worth to the marketplace in general. I watch ads on eBay and TB for this reason.



Aaaaand.... this ^^

Ok- Bottom Feeder might be a bit too harsh- but I've seen this on several of my auctions, get 12-20 watchers- no bids, lower the price a bit, then get 3-4 bids that take it over the original asking price anyhow... go figure. Guess you can't under-estimate the desire for people to feel they are getting a "deal"- whether true or not.

And yes I am well aware of the last minute- one and only bidder scenario... but here I am talking about 12-15 watchers with no bids at all.

 

[ArtechnikA]

We've got a bunch of stuff listed as we begin to liquidate my MIL's estate.
Same scenario - lots of watchers.
My wife is watching a lot of stuff too - as a cross-check on pricing.
I expect a lot of people watching our stuff are themselves sellers of the same stuff ;-)
And there are a few fairly rare items I'll watch when I see them to keep tabs on current market value.

 

[Winfred]

Riddle me this? Is Ebay full of nothing but "bottom feeders" now?

Why would an auction with 12 watchers! have no bids? Why watch the auction?
Just hopeful the starting price will come down?

Maybe I am different, but if somethings costs more than I am willing to spend I don't usually watch the auction.

They're just bargain hunting, and comparing prices. It's the nature of the beast on ebay.

And yes, it does drive prices down on used gear. The bigger issue, though, is the enormous amount of used gear available everywhere, including ebay. Supply far exceeds demand. Shoppers can be very picky when that happens.

 

[stacker]

I've had an expensive-enough guitar on sale on ebay on and off for nearly two years since I decided to sell it and every time I list it it gets about twenty watchers. I'm sure they have the same instrument (or something similar) and are waiting to see if it sells and how much for.

Bottom feeders? You mean 'low rollers'? I used to get them quite a bit in days gone by; not so much now.

 

[Winfred]

We've got a bunch of stuff listed as we begin to liquidate my MIL's estate.
Same scenario - lots of watchers.
My wife is watching a lot of stuff too - as a cross-check on pricing.
I expect a lot of people watching our stuff are themselves sellers of the same stuff ;-)
And there are a few fairly rare items I'll watch when I see them to keep tabs on current market value.

That is exactly right. I used to sell full-time on an eCommerce site, and ebay, for a music store. I constantly watched our competitors gear.

If I'm selling an item for $300 (free shipping), and a competitor is selling the exact item for $295 (free shipping), I'm never gonna make that sale. So we'd undercut prices if we could afford it. If we couldn't, we took the item down.

Private sellers trying to move used gear have it just as tough these days.

 

[Jeff Elkins]

Ok- Bottom Feeder might be a bit too harsh- but I've seen this on several of my auctions, get 12-20 watchers- no bids, lower the price a bit, then get 3-4 bids that take it over the original asking price anyhow... go figure. Guess you can't under-estimate the desire for people to feel they are getting a "deal"- whether true or not.

And yes I am well aware of the last minute- one and only bidder scenario... but here I am talking about 12-15 watchers with no bids at all.

Dude, I feel you. I didn't quite catch that you were a seller--I read the question as a judgement on the world in general!

I've never been brave enough to sell anything on eBay. Discussions like this keep me on Craigslist and Talkbass.

 

[GregT]

Recently I sold a Lakland Duck Dunn on eBay. It had over 40 watchers. It took a long time to sell because it was priced pretty high. One guy finally, after more than a month, started asking questions and we made a deal. Of those 40+ watchers, I remember thinking that some of them surely were fellow TB members seeing what it would sell for. I was not offended at all with all the watchers. I thought it was cool. If you are priced right on the edge, sometimes it takes a long time for someone to actually lay down that kind of cash.

 

[rogerbmiller]

LOL. Yeah, Ebay is the last destination for me whether buying or selling.

Honest people who are up there listing are doing BIN auctions to protect themselves from games bidders play and they are inflating prices to cover the usurious fees. Those holding auctions have coordinated shill bidders, and those buying have nothing to loose by poking offensive offers.

That said people are people and not all of them will meet your standards.

I cannot count how many "I want to buy your bass what is your bottom price" PMs I get on TB that go nowhere when I have the courtesy to repspond and essentially bid against myself.

I even had some major douche make me a low ball offer, and said he would pay me when he got his tax refund. This was in January, and he did it publicly on the thread, not via PM!!!

Plenty of places to buy and sell gear and plenty of honest people to trade with so I have learned that if something or someone rubs me wrong, I just walk away and wait for the next one. All good!

But yeah, frustrating!

 

[bassrich]

I haven't bought anything on eBay for a while, but when I did in a lot of auctions all the action happened in the last few seconds before it closed. I think that many folks watch an auction to monitor if the price changes but don't bid until the end because bidding earlier drives up the price. They hope to get their one and only bid in so late that no one has time to outbid them.

That is it in a nutshell, for me at least

 

[marko138]

I'll "watch" to see what something ends up selling for - or to see if it expires and is relisted for less. I actually have bought stuff that went down .

Absolutely what I do too. I'm watching a ton of stuff right now that I have NO intention of buying. But if it relists for less. BANG. I'm on it.

 

[FunkHead]

I always figure that 50% of watchers are not buyers but as stated above, "appraisers". I do the same thing. If you want to sell it then start it at $1.00 and let the buyers decide. Have the listing end about 9:30 PM for a maximum audience at listings end. Advertise it here first for one week and then you are allowed to refer TB to the Ebay auction.