If the change as Bruce suggests is to curb ebay-generated off-site deals, then that will never happen because ebay is a market and a market by definition is only a forum for offering and is always of limited time, goods or buyers. People seek opportunities and will pick or make a market based on enlightened fiscal self-interest and there will always be unethical substrata seeking to exploit that. Now and then someone sends me an ebay email or non-ebay email offering an item similar to that on which I have bid and which I delete.
On the other hand, few efforts to protect a market by indirect action or by trying to corner it through controlling a significant component have been successful. Ebay should do a better job monitoring its email system and dealing with those people and it's not by hiding bidder id's because most solicitations are for stuff worth less than $200 and my id is still viewable on those auctions. If someone has been bidding as a shill to get the price to $200 and other bidders have taken note of their competitors before that, then a shill might be found out; it might be too risky for a seller not to have a shill come in until after $200. Of course that means watching auctions earlier or not bidding if the price has exceeded $200. However, before now I could check out the seller and other bidders whose feedback and info might give me a small indication of the propriety of the auction. Now I might NOT bid on big ticket auctions of a seller with any degree or certain types of negative feedback, but so too bad for that seller. If an item worth at least $200 is set to start at $200 or goes past $200 from a lower start, then the bidder is going to have to set his max and stay at it however the bidding progresses. There's no big difference in the new system than with a private auction, except now at least there's an idea of how many bidders there are and how each of their bids go, which is actually an inprovement from the anonymity of private auctions. Craig, Vancouver ----- Original Message ----- From: Bruce Hershenson To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 9:49 AM Subject: [MOPO] EBAY DOES IT AGAIN! I see Kirby asked for my opinion of the latest eBay change. I just wrote about this in my latest e-mail club message. For any MoPo members not in my e-mail club, here are my thoughts on eBay's latest mis-adventure: EBAY DOES IT AGAIN! eBay is constantly tinkering with their site (you know the old expression, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"?; eBay's motto seems to be, "If it ain't broke we will tinker with it until we finally break it!"). What is their latest misadventure? They have taken all eBay auctions and made them "semi-private"! Their stated purpose is to stop all of the fake second chance offers that are made all the time, and they SAY that they are limiting this move to just items over $200 (because that is where the most fraud is), but I don't believe them for a second! If that were true, they would not have made the "view seller's other items" page not show the high bidders' IDs, only a weird "Bidder One", "Bidder Two", etc., because any scammer can still see all the bids on any sub-$200 item (and those that are still under $200, but will end up over). Only honest bidders are hassled by this latest development, because they can no longer see the list of high bidder IDs (the! y have to click on items one by one to see the high bidder, and they can't even do that if the item is over $200). What do I think is really going on? I think eBay has finally realized that a huge amount of sales take place "off site" and that many people only LIST items on eBay, but then contact the bidders (or prospective buyers contact them) and then a deal is made off eBay. I think eBay wants to stop this, and is using the "scammer defense" as an excuse to soon make ALL auctions private. I think that eventually buyers and sellers will not see very much about each other until AFTER the deal is completed (much as things currently are for sellers on Amazon). What does this mean for sellers on eBay, and for me personally? I think it will likely have little effect on my sales, since all of my sales were completely "private" for a couple of years (and before that, all my major sales were "private" as well). It was only a few months ago that I returned to all "public" sales, and there was little difference in them then, and I would think therefore this latest change will mostly be a "non-event" for me personally, especially since most of my items stay under $200 for almost the entire time they are for auction (and since all start at 99 cents, you can see the bids of those that end up over $200 while they are still under $200). For instance, this week just FOUR of my items are currently over $200 as of right now. The only likely change I can see is that those people who used to place early bids on items as a form of smart "advertising" for themselves (they know hundreds of buyers click on MY items, and if their user ID is on MY ! items, some of those bidders might wonder who those sellers are and check out THEIR items for sale, and doing this is FREE to them!) may well now do far less of this kind of early bidding. But otherwise I think my items will be largely unaffected (especially since most of my items are under $200 for most of the time, and therefore you still CAN see the bidders; you just have to do more work to view them). But what about OTHER eBay sellers? I fear that this latest blunder on eBay's part will have a chilling effect on the selling of all over-$200 items on eBay. There has been a steady reduction in such items over the past couple of years, and I fear this latest move will likely accelerate that process. And I think that is the last thing eBay needs, for eBay is fast becoming a gigantic yard sale, mostly over-flowing with unwanted material, and a lesser and lesser number of true rarities (my auctions excepted!). I also am afraid that once eBay does what I believe they will do and expand this to ALL items, that it will be the nail in the coffin of most smaller eBay sellers. Many bidders were already afraid to bid with sellers they don't know even when the auctions were public. How will they feel if all the auctions are "private"? I may well make the next poll be about this latest eBay change. I wanted to first give them a week to see if they withdraw it (if there is a lot of public outcry against it). If it appears this latest move is very unpopular with MY buyers (or that it will have an adverse effect on my results) then I will accelerate my plans to sell through a venue other tha eBay! Stay tuned to these club messages for the latest developments! Bruce Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.5.1/327 - Release Date: 28/04/06 Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
