[Treischl]

This may seem a little off topic, but a lot of us get our material by shopping on eBay. Some of us increase the thickness of our wallets by selling things we no longer need on eBay. I had not used eBay in about 4-5 years and I got a rude awakening in the last few weeks! Read on!

I had (4) really primo precision ballscrews and recirculating nuts that had come out of an EDM machine. 20mm dia, about 17 inches of travel. I posted them on eBay with a starting bid of $100 as a group. 7 days later, no bids. With about 5 seconds left, one bid, for $102.50. Sold. WHAT!!!! There were 26 watchers!

Then I listed a hand carved swan bow saw that I had sold a duplicate of 7 years ago for about $375. Started that at $100. With 36 minutes left, no bids, 37 watchers. I ended the auction. I wanted to know what was going on!

Did some research. Seems the popular thing to do on eBay these days is to use an automated bidding system referred to as a "Sniper". Basically it waits until the last few seconds of an auction to start bidding. Since eBay auctions end at a fixed time on a clock, the bidding doesn't get a chance to go up where it might go in a real auction. Think of it this way: In the last ten seconds or so, eBay receives about 25 bids of $101-102.50 for your item. It has to sort them out. By the time it does,the auction has ended. It refuses to accept higher bids after the time has ended. Your item just sold for a nice low bid!

Now I am not whining about this practice, it is what it is. eBay is not going to change it. But if you are selling, you need to be aware of it. Here is the problem: If you put a high reserve, you don't many bids. If you put a high starting bid, you don't get bids. So what do you do?

You get yourself "verified" by eBay so you can list your item as "Buy It Now-Make An Offer"

I did that and relisted the bow saw at $300. Within hours I had an offer of $200. Amazing.

If you are buying and want to get a good deal, you might want to consider getting yourself one of those sniper programs. Otherwise you stand an excellent chance of being outbid by a computer program on things you want.

See, it does work both ways. I don't like it, but there is nothing I can do to change it.

[ger21]

Even though they used a sniper, there just wasn't any demand. I've used a sniper for many years, but frequently get outbid. While a sniper can get you items cheaper, if there's demand for that item, then you need to place a high enough bid to win it. Typically, I'll figure out what I'm willing to spend, and enter that amount. When I lose an auction, it's usually by $1 or $2, whatever the bid increment is. If I really want something, I'll make my bid what the item is worth, not just what I'm willing to pay.

For some items, timing plays a big role. I sell some items that I make, and can go weeks with listings ending with no bids. Then I'll sell 3 in one week.

I've also found that most "watchers" don't seem to place bids, so it's not necessarily an indication of whether or not an item will sell.

And lastly, I've found that more people seem to prefer buy it now, rather than bidding.

[Riceburner98]

Sometimes when I "watch" an item, it's because I have one similar to sell and I just want to see what the going rate is.. I too usually get more watchers than bids on stuff that I sell.. What I've learned most recently on eBay is that you now get pretty well hosed as a seller. I sold a couple things and got a $40 invoice from eBay. I immediately said "WTF", and after calculating it out you lose something like 12% now. I think it was a 9% hit from eBay directly, then 3% from Paypal. And now they charge a percentage of the shipping cost too, so you're getting nailed even harder to sell heavy things. It's getting a little nuts.

Wish I had seen the ballscrews, you would have at least got $103 for them! Probably a little more.. I "snipe" auctions sometimes, but not with a program. I just manually enter a bid near the end. If I win, great, if not, I guess that guy wanted it more. What's annoying is when an auction ends at 3 or 4am - I always get outbid on those (unless it's something really good and I stay up,) and sometimes for more than you can buy the thing new in a store..?

[underthetire]

I was shocked at my last invoice from Ebay. Sold a airplane transmitter for 100, a couple parts for a mustang, total was about 250.00 Then comes the 33.00 invoice. I now sell any of my car parts on specific forums, with a reasonable price. That 10.00 extra on Ebay I made cost me 15 more !

[Treischl]

ger21:

There was a demand alright, right after I ended the auction, I received 4 messages from people using automated bidders asking why I had ended the auction because they had placed bids timed for the last few moments. They are looking to get stuff as cheap as possible (nothing wrong with that), but as a SELLER you need to understand how those things work.

By the way, I sent them all a message telling them they could make an "offer" after I relisted it using "Buy It Now-Make an Offer", not a one has done that. Just confirms in my mind that they do not want a level playing field. So be it. We can all play the game.

Your remark about buyers seeming to prefer "Buy It Now" may indicate that they are tired of the snipers? There is an interesting article about all this on Wikipedia.

As for some of the comments about eBay taking a cut on shipping? I can almost understand that! Some of the sellers are selling things dirt cheap and then charging outlandish shipping fees to make a profit. Some people's children! I tell ya!

[Riceburner98]

True on the shipping.. I guess we had to see that one coming! Buy-it-now for $.01, $34.00 shipping, what a deal!

[MaxMekker]

I only buy thing's on ebay with "buy it now" don't bother with auctions, "make an offer" is also some thing I can use if I want to.
Just my opinion :-)

[Hans_G]

For ebay auctions, there are 2 kinds of bidders- those who get it and those who don't. The ones who get it, snipe. As a seller, you want to draw in the other kind of bidder- the ones who think they might get the $1000 widget for $9.99. It's fun to be "winning" that valuable item with only 3 days to go. Get 4 people to bid on an item at $10, 11, 12, 15 and they will start to think "you know, it's still cheap at $50, 100, 200". That's why setting a low initial price works. But there does need to be a market for the item.

The price of the item is set by the second highest bidder. The guy who buys it pays one bid increment more.

[dertsap]

I was shocked at my last invoice from Ebay. Sold a airplane transmitter for 100, a couple parts for a mustang, total was about 250.00 Then comes the 33.00 invoice. I now sell any of my car parts on specific forums, with a reasonable price. That 10.00 extra on Ebay I made cost me 15 more !

and on top how much did paypal gouge you for
I do online auctions daily and its sick how much I shell out to ebay fees and paypal

[Mountaincraft]

ger21:
Your remark about buyers seeming to prefer "Buy It Now" may indicate that they are tired of the snipers?

Personally.. I prefer the whole 'buy it now' thing over the auctions... I search all those first, and only go the auction route if absolutely necessary.. I tired of the "get my hopes up and lose by a dollar in the last minute" routine a long time ago.....

[tjskcnc]

On eBay, I just put in what I am willing to pay. It automatically bids up to my max. After that, someone else is welcome to it.

[louieatienza]

I'm a sniper, been doing it since I started on eBay, which is about 2001. Itt's the only sane way to bid, so that I don't get caught up in the heat of a bidding war... and I've been there!

What sucks now is that you HAVE to use PayPal unless you have your own credit card machine, so you Pay eBay a 3% commision over the listing fee, then pay PayPal a 3% fee, and PayPal is owned by eBay, so in actuality you're probably paying about 10% as a seller. Every live auction I've ever been to, the buyer pays all the fees - the cost of getting what you need....

Here's the deal: Pick a threshold, the highest you'll pay for something, and set that as your snipe price. Set up the sniper bot to place the bid about 4-6 seconds before the auction end. Prepare to lose out to another sniper at work with a T1 line and four friends on standby, or maybe with multiple accounts. I don't care if the winning bid is $1 over my max bid.

Sometimes sellers employ shills to jack up the bid. I can spot them a mile away (just check the bid history and their past purchases). Sometimes people do it just to screw around with other prople on popular items. Check everyone eho's bidding as well as the seller. If there are people bidding with 100% positive feedback, but their bid history shows all they bought were tee-shirts for the last 2 months and now are bidding on a ballscrew, that's a good sign to bail. Likewise with the seller... not all the time but be cautious. Email the seller for more pics. See how fast the response is.

Another dirty eBay fact of life is the backdoor deal. I've been backdoored a few times, and have to admit I've done my share of backdooring. I do try to make it beneficial to the seller by offering a "package deal" on their stuff. I laugh at what I've paid for things, you never know. The worst they can say no, and you move on...

Note: on Best Offer, if you lowball more than three times on Best Offer in an attempt to fish for the bottom line price, you may get locked out altogether from the auction - Beware! I find when you get up to about $300, you can make an offer $100 less and about 60% of the time it's accepted. The rest, either the offer is declined or a counteroffer is proposed. This is a good time to haggle as the seller is motivated to move his stuff. If you can exchange information outside of eBay you might be able to work something out; but them you won't be under the "umbrella" of buyer protection.

Speaking of "buyer" protection, eBay has gone out of their way to protect the buyer in such a way that they hurt part time or small business sellers. Thye won't release money until positive feedback or 30 days have passed, and even then they slack off, making interest every second your dollar is with them, and then charging YOU a fee for being THEIR bank. This IMO gives the buyer too much leverage, and unless you are a larger seller that can absorb costs in the short run, you're footing the shipping costs AND are out your merchancise. Again I believe this is eBay's attempt to shut out some of the smaller sellers, and use our money to earn interest.

Treischl, how did you end the auction with 36 minutes. From past experiece, once there's a bid, the auction cannot be stopped 12 hours before auction end. I've had to get a friend to bid the item and win it back for me, and I had to absorb the fees.

As for timing, you almost never want to sell something between December 26 and April 15, but usually after tax season, things pick up. Conversely this is a good time to buy, as there aren't as many bids. Unfortunately, you just blew a wad for Christmas, and your credit card is maxed!

As for shipping: I wanted to get one of the air cooled spindles and VFDs on eBay. In fact I just received it today, and the quality so far looks realy good, to my surprise. The shipping on the spindle was $110 or so, and the VFD about $44 - or vice versa. The package deal cost was cheaper, but the shipping was $222! I made an offer $100 below the BIN. Got the counteroffer for $50 off. I then made the counteroffer for $85 off BIN, explaining their shipping 'gaffe'. They accepted the counteroffer! So I got he package deal, and an net reduction in the shipping, and I saved a few dollars overall, without lowballing. A win-win...

[louieatienza]

I'm a sniper, been doing it since I started on eBay, which is about 2001. Itt's the only sane way to bid, so that I don't get caught up in the heat of a bidding war... and I've been there!

What sucks now is that you HAVE to use PayPal unless you have your own credit card machine, so you Pay eBay a 3% commision over the listing fee, then pay PayPal a 3% fee, and PayPal is owned by eBay, so in actuality you're probably paying about 10% as a seller. Every live auction I've ever been to, the buyer pays all the fees - the cost of getting what you need....

Here's the deal: Pick a threshold, the highest you'll pay for something, and set that as your snipe price. Set up the sniper bot to place the bid about 4-6 seconds before the auction end. Prepare to lose out to another sniper at work with a T1 line and four friends on standby, or maybe with multiple accounts. I don't care if the winning bid is $1 over my max bid.

Sometimes sellers employ shills to jack up the bid. I can spot them a mile away (just check the bid history and their past purchases). Sometimes people do it just to screw around with other prople on popular items. Check everyone eho's bidding as well as the seller. If there are people bidding with 100% positive feedback, but their bid history shows all they bought were tee-shirts for the last 2 months and now are bidding on a ballscrew, that's a good sign to bail. Likewise with the seller... not all the time but be cautious. Email the seller for more pics. See how fast the response is.

Another dirty eBay fact of life is the backdoor deal. I've been backdoored a few times, and have to admit I've done my share of backdooring. I do try to make it beneficial to the seller by offering a "package deal" on their stuff. I laugh at what I've paid for things, you never know. The worst they can say no, and you move on...

Note: on Best Offer, if you lowball more than three times on Best Offer in an attempt to fish for the bottom line price, you may get locked out altogether from the auction - Beware! I find when you get up to about $300, you can make an offer $100 less and about 60% of the time it's accepted. The rest, either the offer is declined or a counteroffer is proposed. This is a good time to haggle as the seller is motivated to move his stuff. If you can exchange information outside of eBay you might be able to work something out; but them you won't be under the "umbrella" of buyer protection.

Speaking of "buyer" protection, eBay has gone out of their way to protect the buyer in such a way that they hurt part time or small business sellers. Thye won't release money until positive feedback or 30 days have passed, and even then they slack off, making interest every second your dollar is with them, and then charging YOU a fee for being THEIR bank. This IMO gives the buyer too much leverage, and unless you are a larger seller that can absorb costs in the short run, you're footing the shipping costs AND are out your merchancise. Again I believe this is eBay's attempt to shut out some of the smaller sellers, and use our money to earn interest.

Treischl, how did you end the auction with 36 minutes. From past experiece, once there's a bid, the auction cannot be stopped 12 hours before auction end. I've had to get a friend to bid the item and win it back for me, and I had to absorb the fees.

As for timing, you almost never want to sell something between December 26 and April 15, but usually after tax season, things pick up. Conversely this is a good time to buy, as there aren't as many bids. Unfortunately, you just blew a wad for Christmas, and your credit card is maxed!

As for shipping: I wanted to get one of the air cooled spindles and VFDs on eBay. In fact I just received it today, and the quality so far looks realy good, to my surprise. The shipping on the spindle was $110 or so, and the VFD about $44 - or vice versa. The package deal cost was cheaper, but the shipping was $222! I made an offer $100 below the BIN. Got the counteroffer for $50 off. I then made the counteroffer for $85 off BIN, explaining their shipping 'gaffe'. They accepted the counteroffer! So I got he package deal, and an net reduction in the shipping, and I saved a few dollars overall, without lowballing. A win-win...

Another thing with BIN. A lot of times the BIN is a bit high. A fair percentage of the time, the seller is chumming the waters for "outside" offers. eBay just becomes a worldwide classified ad. I sometimes try to email or even call the seller to maybe work out a deal. I know it's sounds dirty, but sometime you got to play down and dirty. I've given up on the eBay 'honor' system a decade ago...

[ger21]

What sucks now is that you HAVE to use PayPal unless you have your own credit card machine, so you Pay eBay a 3% commision over the listing fee, then pay PayPal a 3% fee, and PayPal is owned by eBay, so in actuality you're probably paying about 10% as a seller.

Ebay's new fees give you free listings, but 9% of the total sale+shipping costs.

So, with the 3% PayPal fee, you pay 12% of the sale price + 9% of the shipping costs.

So what I used to sell for $20, I'll now sell for $23.

[Treischl]

Louie:

I could shut the auction down with 36 minutes left because there were no bids. I could see what was going to happen. Like you said, the the snipers were going to start bidding with about 5 seconds left. Wonderful.

By the way, I just sold it for $200.

BTW, I am going to sell other stuff on eBay, I don't have a huge problem with all their "fees", etc. As I said earlier, a person just has to know how it all works and then adjust accordingly. That was the purpose of this thread, to make other people aware of what is going on with eBay so they do not get surprised. I am glad eBay is around, otherwise, some of this stuff would be almost impossible to sell.

[wcarrothers1]

Hehe..

Well now that ebay charges the % on auctions including the shipping I've moved most of my auctions to free shipping and just add it to the ask/buyitnow price. I do most if not all my sales as buyitnows. Much easier and they can sit out there for alot longer to.

Now the real question is what is Ger's ebay name so I can look up what cool things he sells.
b.

[louieatienza]

Louie:

I could shut the auction down with 36 minutes left because there were no bids. I could see what was going to happen. Like you said, the the snipers were going to start bidding with about 5 seconds left. Wonderful.

By the way, I just sold it for $200.

BTW, I am going to sell other stuff on eBay, I don't have a huge problem with all their "fees", etc. As I said earlier, a person just has to know how it all works and then adjust accordingly. That was the purpose of this thread, to make other people aware of what is going on with eBay so they do not get surprised. I am glad eBay is around, otherwise, some of this stuff would be almost impossible to sell.

Heck, this stuff would almost be impossible to BUY! My next two machines will both have NOS THK profile rails and blocks, and HSR and SHS blocks to boot! I'd be in the poorhouse if I had to buy them direct, and used seems to be a mixed bag.

Just wanted to give another perspective on eBay, from the "seedy" point of view. Maybe sniping is seen as "dishonorable," but it's a dog eat dog world on eBay...

[wcarrothers1]

I've gotten most if not all of my parts through ebay. Not sure if the planetarys I scored on there or my 6 - 133" star rails with 12 blocks were my best catch.

But in anycase takes months to collect items that way at the right price. Of late the selection of planetary gear boxes has left alot to be desired though.

b.

[Fish4Fun]

I own a retail business, and I have thought about selling some items on ebay, but I have never done it for many of the reasons listed in this thread. I have been an ebay member since 1999, and I purchase a few items a month through ebay. My preference of BIN vs Auction depends a great deal on the item. For instance, "generic items" < ~$25 I prefer BIN, generally from a US seller if possible. In the inexpensive BINs I can typically buy things that are hard to find/expensive locally, but dirt cheap (even with shipping) through ebay. Items >$25, I typically "look" @ what is available in both BIN and Auction, but then I look for the same item via google search. On new items, google almost always finds a lower total price (incl S&H) than is available on ebay. Then we have used items, and this is where ebay can shine for a buyer. For instance, I found a 48V 12A Industrial SMPS on ebay. I watched it up until a minute or so before it closed, and then bid $125. I won it for $12.50 + $14 S&H! I almost hated it for the seller, but as a buyer, that is what ebay is all about. I needed a PS and was going to order one the next day if I didn't win that one, and the one I was going to order was $130 + $15 S&H, so for me it was a "big win". This type of "deal" is typically the exception rather than the rule in my experience, but I have been "lucky" many, many times.

To buyers & sellers, choose the closing date/time for your auctions carefully. I have found that Industrial/Business oriented items that close after business hours or on weekends typically bring less than similar items that close during "regular business hours". On the other hand, "hobby" items tend to bring a higher price if the closing time is between 18:00 and 21:00 EST on weekdays, or after "dark" on the weekends. Of course there are ALWAYS exceptions to those general rules, but in 12 years of ebaying, that is what I have found to be GENERALLY true.

Other pitfalls to watch out for include items with vague descriptions, "Don't have the ability to test, but APPEARS to be functional" and "AS IS". Every once in a while you will find a gem in these auctions, but mostly you are buying someone else's junk.

As previously mentioned by others, on New items > ~$50, you can almost always purchase the item directly from the seller w/o ebay, and the seller will frequently "throw in some accessories" or give you a discount. In my experience if the item requires "accessories" or "consumables", you are almost always better off getting them instead of a price discount. Most merchants when "throwing in accessories" do so with the cost of the items in mind and not the retail of the items; since they are typically items you will need to purchase anyway, getting $30 worth of items @ "cost" is like getting $50 worth of the same items @ retail. Something most people don't know is that merchants who accept credit cards over the phone/internet (ie "Card NOT Present"), pay a much higher discount rate than a "Brick & Mortar" merchant, as high as 8% to 10%. I have a "Brick & Mortor" store, and even my "average" discount rate runs 3%. This may not sound like a lot, but it adds up pretty fast. To put it in perspective, an employee making $7.25 an hour would "gross" $87 in a 12 hour day, my credit card "discounts" average $110/day. ("Discount" is the term credit card companies use to describe how much of your money they are keeping.)

I think this thread shows some very interesting pros and cons about ebay for both buyers and sellers alike. I wish I had found something like this back in 1999, LOL, I could have saved myself many "mistakes", LOL.

Fish

[Treischl]

Just wanted to give another perspective on eBay, from the "seedy" point of view. Maybe sniping is seen as "dishonorable," but it's a dog eat dog world on eBay...

I don't think 'sniping' is dishonorable, wrong or even seedy. It is what it is. Frankly, I cannot stand whiners. The purpose of this thread was to make others aware of what is going on over at eBay. I took my lump. Learned my lesson, and have adjusted accordingly.

It occured to me that quite a few people come here to build machines and then need to go buy stuff. Often eBay is where we go, sometimes we sell stuff we have hanging around to help offset the cost of our new machines. In my case, it had been quite a few years since I had sold anything on eBay....like Dylan said "the times they are a changing".