ebay observation

Haven't been on ebay for awhile.
Checked my favorite brand tractor name under collectibles/advertising.
1807 hits.
114 were auctions.
1725 were Buy it Now.
What the heck are they doing with this site?
Nobody wants to auction anything anymore.
Isn't Buy it Now the same as a classified ad.
I thought it was bad enough to let sellers set a reserve price which effectively made it nothing more than a classified ad in the first place.
Just a note on the math.
From the 1807 hits, 114 auctions and 1725 Buy it Nows = 1839 total meaning 32 items are listed in both categories.
I wonder how many farmers would stick around at a farm sale if they found out 100 items would be auctioned and the remaining 1700 items all had price tags hanging on them.

I've bought and sold on Flea-bay. I agree its became more of a ad listing than an auction. Prices are climbing (in my opinion) also. Not sure if all the old iron is in the hands of brokers or just gone. Anyway all this longwindedness adds up to I agree much of the thrill of the original site is gone.

I don't know, I've bought several things on eBay using Buy It Now before. If it's something that's hard to find and I'm in the market for it, I'll definitely consider it. What drives me nuts more than the Buy It Now inflation-artists is the buyers who pay way over market value because they want to WIN THE CONTEST. When I bid on something I carefully decide what I want to pay, then bid my maximum (once). I see people come in and make 10 different bids in small increments trying to beat me, and I wonder if they have even thought about what they want to pay for the item beforehand

To me, Ebay is just a service that helps people buy and sell things that you can't find retail. If the seller is the only game in town (town being world) then I don't care if he's trying to use the Buy It Now feature to get a premium. He deserves a premium if he hasn't got a competitor and I need what he's got.

Right now, eBay is the only game in town, so they get to set the rules. You're right, it is evolving from an auction site to an on-line store. But that may open the door to another competitor who will go after the sellers that eBay has left behind.

Its up to the owner of something how they want to sell it.The Buy it now can work both ways as I have bought some buy it now items well under market value.ebay isn't set up so buyers can buy things at rock bottom prices sellers use it to get the most $$$ they can for their stuff.No one owes you a bargain.

I agree that Ebay has changed quite a bit over the years. However, I agree with tjdub. It's just a place to look when you need stuff. I just bought a shop manual using BuyItNow. The price was reasonable and I knew right away that I had it and it was at my door before a lot of other auctions were even over. If the BuyItNow price was set too high, I would have just passed on it.

I now use other online auctions a lot more along with CraigsList. I DO think that online auctions tend to get higher prices than in-the-flesh ones because obviously the audience is larger. Unfortunately, I think this is causing more people to forego the traditional method of having a true auctioneer at their homestead. I love hearing the sound of those guys rattling off at a mile a minute.

I gave up on them. I just bought a red 140 off COPART.COM.
Been watching NASCAR and saw the advertisement on there...they have some equipment junk on there...not a lot, you gotta search...but it's ok.

I agree with you on ebay's Buy it now listings but if you click on the auctions only button at the top of the page it will only give you the actual auctions.

tjdub, you don't suppose it is the seller trying to bump up the price? I think there is a lot of that going on.

been looking for a camera for daughter on there. Most are (new not used) buy-it-now. Many are 10 to $50 more than our local bust buy (best buy) and there you can go in see what you're getting.

I've got a Case 730 engine block on there now as a buy-it-now but use the "make an offer" feature too.

I think that must be true. Everytime I bid on one of their "auctions", it seems that someone will come in at the last second and outbid me by a couple of dollars. I wonder if the seller has someone bidding for them?

Lately, I just use the buy-it-now option and usually I can just buy it cheaper that way, rather than wasting 6 days waiting for the end of some bogus "auction".

> you don't suppose it is the seller trying to bump up the price?

Yeah, definitely a lot of that going on. I've had a seller email me before about an auction that I didn't win telling me that the winner of the auction backed out and offering to sell it to me at my highest bid. I replied and told him to start a new auction for it, but that I wouldn't be buying anything from him at any price.

Watched a tractor sell once and placed a bid.
No reserve. Someone else was the winning bidder.
Two months later, watched the same tractor sell again by the original seller. No reserve. Placed a bid and a DIFFERENT someone else was the winning bidder. One month later, you guessed it. Same tractor, same seller. Never saw it sell a forth time and he did get more money on the third sell. I'm guessing he has more than one computer and ebay account to bid up his own stuff or he's got a buddy doing it for him. He really bragged up the NO RESERVE part of it so was not afraid of anything going too cheap. Obvious he had a back up plan.

Since I hooked up with a vendor who promised a car part (grill) they obviously didn't have in stock, my enthusiasm is greatly diminished. They gave me a run-around my money back, then called me twice offering me $5 the $10 to withdraw my negative comment on their feedback page.

I am going to play the other side of the fence a bit. Both as a seller and a buyer.

As a buyer I really appreciate the buy it now function. In a lot of cases when I am searching for something I don't necessarily want to wait the 4 or 5 or 7 days that it might take for the auction to end. I am looking for it now because I want it now. If I end up paying a few bucks more so that I can have it in 3 days as opposed to 10 I am fine with that.

As a seller I really appreciate the buy it now functionality as well. I have a few things that are listed on eBay right now that are not very common. Things like replacement remote controls for A/V equipment. Because they are very specific in use there usually are not a lot of people looking for them at the same time. If they were to be auctioned I would most likely end up receiving a lot less than what they are worth (priced one lately? ~$50).

I actually got a heck of a deal one time on an auction. The item I wanted and had been looking for was at auction and started at $.01 with free shipping. A couple weeks before someone had bought one just like it for $69.99 via buy it now. No one bid against me and I got it for $.01 shipped to my house. It was obviously worth much more than that but apparently I was the only one looking for one at the time. The day after it ended there might have been 87 people trying to find one. If I were the seller of that auction I would have been a bit disappointed. If there were no buy it now option I doubt another one of the system I bought would be listed.

Buy it now allows for there to be protection for sellers from getting rock bottom dollar for their items. This in turn allows sellers like me to list items that otherwise we wouldn't chance giving away for pennies on the dollar. As a buyer that means there is more stuff that might be rare in nature to choose from. I think it is a win win.

My final comment. If you were at an auction and there was something you had your eye on and the auictioneer came up to you and said for X dollars (which was a pretty fair price) you can have it right now, load it up and be home in 30 minutes rather than sitting around waiting for 2 hours to bid, what would you do?

Guys I have news for you. MOST AUCTIONS have a reserve on the higher priced items. I am talking about on-line and home grown ones both. Do you really think someone is going to sell a two hundred thousand dollar tractor or combine and not have the auctioneer have a "bottom sale" price???
THE Key, bid what you want to bid and if you get it GREAT. If you don"t what did it cost you???? As for the guy buying it back and reselling it. He was paying commission each time so I don"t see what your problem is.
Are you just ------ off because you did not get the bargain you wanted???? As my handle says I buy and sell equipment all of the time. I sell somethings absolute but most of the better stuff is going to have a minimum. I WILL tell you one thing if You have ever bought something of mine and it was knocked off to you, it was yours. I sure can"t come back after the auction and tell you that I have to have more then. So you decide how you would want it to be?

------ off! No. Just think my time is valuable and don't like to be jerked around just like any one else. If the guy has a reserve price, then just say so. Why all the cloak and dagger slippery sleezy stuff. Why sell it 3 or 4 times to different sellers each time. Worse yet, maybe he did sell it each time and each buyer demanded his money back when they found out he mis-represented the tractor. What are we supposed to think is going on other than he can't be up front about a simple auction. You know what they say, if you can't be trusted with the little things, then you sure can't be trusted with the big ones.