Ebayers Anonymous

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Tue Sep 18, 2007 8:49 pm **Post subject:**

johnathome wrote:

I guess the moral of ebay is 'Bid late and bid your max'

exactly, there is absolute no difference between sniping or not sniping.

With sniping you enter you maximum bid, when bidding if you don't enter your maximum bid its your own fault.

In fact, your at an advantage if you don't snipe... consider you bid at £50 and the snipe is at £50:
a) you bid £50 and a bid goes through at £24
b) a couple people bid, and the price goes to £30, with you still winning
c) ten seconds from bid end, the snipe goes through and the price goes up
d) the auctions ends and you win at £50

There's even the chance that all the snipes won't go through and it ends lower than £50 with you winning. So there is absolutely nothing wrong with sniping, in fact the objections are more about the dishonesty / lack of bidding an amount your actually willing to bid.

What sniping gives you as an advantage is you don't get sellers artificially inflating the price, give other bidders a gauge of how much your willing to pay and try and edge it up. It makes the auction more like a blind auction where you bid but your bid is only known to you.

All that said, i've not used a snipe for ages, i've not been arsed.

Quote:

A DVD arrived today in the mail. The DVD itself was OK, the price was very low, the box was a slimcase, which disappointed me a bit. One corner of it stuck out of the envelope, which is not very good packaging-wise of course. Should I give this guy a positive feedback or a neutral? I didn't get any feedback from him yet.

Its not original packaging or its pirate? Contact him and ask him if he can send you a replacement DVD case and proper cover.

Then either leave no feedback, neutral or negative depending on his answer.

Should always try the contact route first if your unhappy.

I've just ordered a dock for a laptop but it hasn't come with the keys, before i leave negative/neutral i've asked him to send em. Always give them a chance

Be aware, poor sellers will retaliate with negative/neautral feedback to you. Its the nature of the feedback system ebay have adopted (to maximise their business, not help either buyers/sellers).

Slayer · **Posted:** Tue Sep 18, 2007 8:57 pm **Post subject:**

spudthedestroyer wrote:

With sniping you enter you maximum bid, when bidding if you don't enter your maximum bid its your own fault.

In fact, your at an advantage if you don't snipe... consider you bid at £50 and the snipe is at £50:
a) you bid £50 and a bid goes through at £24
b) a couple people bid, and the price goes to £30, with you still winning
c) ten seconds from bid end, the snipe goes through and the price goes up
d) the auctions ends and you win at £50

There's even the chance that all the snipes won't go through and it ends lower than £50 with you winning. So there is absolutely nothing wrong with sniping, in fact the objections are more about the dishonesty / lack of bidding an amount your actually willing to bid.

OK, now I understand more about it. Maximum bid is a little obscure to me still, is it the amount you actually want to pay for the object? And you need to bid that as late as possible, right? If it closes before that you can get it cheaper, right?

Quote:

Its not original packaging or its pirate? Contact him and ask him if he can send you a replacement DVD case and proper cover.

The sleeve is proper (not photocopied or something), but the case is a slimcase and I just happen to dislike slimcases.

I conclude that this guy deserves a positive feedback then?

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Tue Sep 18, 2007 9:05 pm **Post subject:**

ebay max bid is where you enter how much your willing to pay, but the bid will be the minimum and it will automatically increase to your max... yes

@ case, sounds like you should give him positive yes

He can't help that, the packaging/shipping he can.

Slayer · **Posted:** Tue Sep 18, 2007 9:41 pm **Post subject:**

How does it automatically increase? Does it react to overbidding automatically? And does it do so by cents, or Euros, or what?

@ case: I gave him a positive. Some things can be added now by buyers that are invisible for sellers (delivery time, product description, mailing costs and communication).

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Tue Sep 18, 2007 9:50 pm **Post subject:**

Ebay itself? it stores your maximum and bids up to it.

Ebay:
Essentially before it does an insert for a new bid, it does a select; it compare the two values, if the inputted value is less than or equal to the maximum bid entered by someone else, their bid goes up to that value and the new bid is logged but they are asked to bid again because the maximum already entered is higher/equal to their new bid.

Snipe:
The same, but done by the snipe site which parses the bid again page and then increases the bid. This is obviously much slower as its done via parsing xml and network, whereas the inbuilt ebay is all done with script/validation/database triggers.

Simple really, if you bid, enter your maximum, and other bidders will be blocked until someone bids over your maximum

If you do this later, then there's less chance a fake account can push the bid up, etc. Doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

Quote:

@ case: I gave him a positive. Some things can be added now by buyers that are invisible for sellers (delivery time, product description, mailing costs and communication).

These are invisible to buyers too, as far as i can see the info you give isn't used for anything productive

Slayer · **Posted:** Tue Sep 18, 2007 11:52 pm **Post subject:**

Mmm, well, maybe it will be something for the future then. Otherwise the whole feature is obsolete.

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:49 pm **Post subject:**

it is obsolete.

ebay can fix their system, pretty simply... the issue is they don't want sellers to have negative feedback because that will reduce sales and therefore profits. I really do believe that's why such a broken feedback system exists and will probably persist for quite a while.

Slayer · **Posted:** Thu Nov 15, 2007 9:29 pm **Post subject:**

Mmm, the latest three items slipped through my fingers in the last few seconds and went to someone else. Guess I got sniped here?

Since I've been searching for DVDs on ebay I must say it became some sort of an addiction, with the experience of a game and if you win, you get a nice DVD. Only drawback is that the "prizes" aren't for free

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Thu Nov 15, 2007 10:50 pm **Post subject:**

Quote:

Mmm, the latest three items slipped through my fingers in the last few seconds and went to someone else. Guess I got sniped here?

Did you enter your maximum amount? If not it doesn't matter, you got outbid :lol:

Slayer · **Posted:** Fri Nov 16, 2007 12:33 am **Post subject:**

Well, I guess it can't do any harm to bid higher next time

Slayer · **Posted:** Tue Nov 20, 2007 8:54 pm **Post subject:**

I learned from past experiences: today I won two auctions, one of which is the DVD for "Attack of the 50 ft. Woman" (the original). I saw a rip of that posted in the releasetopic for the remake, but it was only 400 MB or something. I can do a rerip later if anyone's interested.

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Wed Feb 06, 2008 7:28 pm **Post subject:**

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7228460.stm

Quote:

EBay to ban negative seller views

Online auction site eBay has said it plans to overhaul its feedback system and will ban sellers from leaving negative comments about buyers.

EBay said problems were occurring, and slowing down trade, when buyers left negative comments about sellers who then retaliated with their own views.

From May, those selling on eBay will not be able to leave unfavourable or neutral messages about buyers.

The move, which will affect users worldwide, has angered many sellers.

Sellers say it will leave them unprotected.

'Open forum'

The feedback forum was introduced by Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar in February 1996.

In a message then, he said: "By creating an open market that encourages honest dealings, I hope to make it easier to conduct business with strangers over the net.

"Now, we have an open forum. Use it. Make your complaints in the open.

"Better yet, give your praise in the open. Let everyone know what a joy it was to deal with someone. Above all, conduct yourself in a professional manner."

Tricky customers

Critics of the changes argue that by taking away a seller's right to complain about a problem buyer they will have very little recourse for action when a sale goes wrong.

And they complain that by still allowing buyers to leave dissenting comments about sellers, eBay has skewed the whole trading process.

When both sides have equal access and rights to leave negative comments about each other it is a well balanced trading process, they say. However, eBay counters that problem buyers can still be dealt with.

"If a buyer doesn't pay, the seller can easily contact eBay, we will review any complaint and maybe remove the buyer," a spokesman said.

The changes aim to "improve the overall customer experience", eBay said.

It added that many buyers would not leave negative comments for fear that sellers would retaliate.

As a result, buyers and sellers may not get a fair picture of what is actually happening between trading parties.

It maintains that the majority of transactions go "swimmingly".

EBay says that only a minority of sellers leave negative feedback for buyers.

bag woman · **Posted:** Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:29 pm **Post subject:**

i've just started bidding on ebay, and i'm already hooked. i've bought a few south park novelty items (cried when i lost my bid for the chef alarm clock), a few cds and dvds and waiting for other stuff to arrive. i get what i call ebay rage when i lose a bid tho', lol. so far so good, not had any problems (yet)...apart from tearing myself away from the site

Slayer · **Posted:** Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:32 pm **Post subject:**

I had one seller which had The Exorcist for sale. The picture showed the "version you have never seen". So I bought the DVD, to find out that it was not the longer version I had "never seen", but the shorter one. I communicated with the seller about this problem and he told me that when I was to give him negative feedback, he would give me negative fb as well. This, while I had paid for my item the same day, thus doing everything right. I postponed giving feedback, and I haven't given it until now.

If the abovementioned change is made, I might give the feedback after all.

My biggest problem until now was with a US seller. This woman/girl is so impatient, that when I told her the bankcheque would arrive in two weeks and it didn't she opened up a dispute immeditaley, complaining to ebay that I was a non-paying buyer. I went to the bank to inquire about the bank cheque and it turned out they had told me the wrong transfertime: it takes six weeks for a cheque to arrive in the US, not two. So I emailed her about it and she removed the dispute. I will email her again very soon, because the six week' end is nearing. Because I don't want her to open up another dispute the very minute the six weeks are over, I'm gonna ask her to inform me about any problems.

I really don't get it that people do these things when they also have the possibility to ask me first. How hard is that?

bag woman · **Posted:** Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:38 pm **Post subject:**

some people, eh slays

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Thu Feb 07, 2008 10:06 pm **Post subject:**

well the thing is, having sold stuff, some buyers are complete retards.

I'd love to give feedback pre-emptive (which i do), but some buyers are dicks. They'll buy without reading or looking at pictures, complain, not pay, etc. In cases where they are annoying i choose not to leave feedback rather than leave negative, because i know they'll tarnish me for no reason other than retaliation.

I have to admit sellers are sometimes terrible and blackmail with feedback.

I honestly thing ebay have no intention of fixing feedback.

To fix it they could simple:
seperate the feedback into buyer and seller, you have two completely seperate feedback sections.
make sellers give feedback on payment
make buyers give segregated feedback (p&p, etc.)

They just choose not to to maximise their profits.

bag woman · **Posted:** Fri Feb 08, 2008 12:50 am **Post subject:**

hear hear spudsy

Oberon · **Posted:** Fri Feb 08, 2008 5:21 am **Post subject:**

spudthedestroyer wrote:

I honestly thing ebay have no intention of fixing feedback.

Yeah, the way I see it, the new system is really geared toward the
power seller who can absorb the negative feedback so it won't
affect sales. The casual sellers are left high and dry though. This
new system is a complete unbalance giving all the power to the buyer.
Scams have already begun with buyers claiming an item arrived
broken and demanding money back or negative FB would be left.
This scam is nothing new but now the seller can't let any other
seller know that the buyer is a fraud.

If you read the forums on ebay, there are A LOT of angry sellers.
Some have left for other sites like ecrater.com which offer free listings
and some are getting a petition together for google to start up an
auction site. I think with the management change at ebay, they
may be starting to drive themselves into the ground. Or another way
to look at it is perhaps the first steps to change ebay into an
overstock.com-like site. Basically, you would have nothing left
but powersellers (i.e. ebay stores) running the show. The negative
side to that would be the loss of the really unique items from the
casual sellers that you can find on there now. At the very worst, the lack
of competition would drive prices up.... :cry:

spudthedestroyer wrote:

To fix it they could simple:
seperate the feedback into buyer and seller, you have two completely seperate feedback sections.
make sellers give feedback on payment
make buyers give segregated feedback (p&p, etc.)

They just choose not to to maximise their profits.

That's not bad. :thumbsup:

My preferred way for feedback was the buyer leaves it first when
the item arrives. This way, the buyer can approve or disapprove on
condition, shipping, timeliness, etc. Once satisfaction is achieved,
then the seller should leave feedback. This always worked out best
for me.

George Tatum · **Posted:** Fri Feb 08, 2008 10:34 am **Post subject:**

I disagree, I have encountered a number of sellers who are absolute twats, selling shoddy goods and then leaving negative feedback just to retaliate for buyers who tell the truth. IMO the buyer shouldn't be able to leave feedback until the seller has done so, the current system is geared up too much towards sellers.

As you may have guessed I don't sell on ebay but I do buy.

Slayer · **Posted:** Fri Feb 08, 2008 10:11 pm **Post subject:**

Oberon wrote:

My preferred way for feedback was the buyer leaves it first when the item arrives. This way, the buyer can approve or disapprove on
condition, shipping, timeliness, etc. Once satisfaction is achieved, then the seller should leave feedback. This always worked out best for me.

Nice, but exactly this way one of my auctions happened: see the "The Exorcist" description above. If I would have been honest about the product etc, the seller would have given me negative feedback, thus retaliating on my honest opinion.

Ebayers Anonymous

Who is online