4 ms·

ebay doing its hardest to be like amazon, while their actual auction experience is getting worse and worse.

thaumasiotes 12y ago
They're doing that on purpose. I think a major turning point was discovering that "buy it now" auctions (i.e. normal, fixed-price sales) were massively more popular than auction auctions.
- ps4fanboy 12y ago
  Thats because they failed to ever fix bid sniping, switching to dutch auctions would have been better for everyone. Edit: Dutch auction is the wrong term and I cant track down the actual name. But essentially the auction gets extended by 10 minutes every time someone bids if the auction is going to end in less than 10 minutes.
  - bato 12y ago
    Beaten to it. Sniping is hugely frustrating and the main reason people either use buy it now or plain old ads (cf gumtree/Craigslist etc)
    - aianus 12y ago
      Why is sniping frustrating? How can sniping make me lose an auction if their snipe bet is lower than what I entered as my maximum?
      - michaelt 12y ago
        While it does not frustrate me personally, it does seem rather pointless to list an item for several days or weeks when the actual sale takes place in the last five minutes, and to show a 'current price' which has little relevance to the final price. Ebay might as well call it a sealed bid second price auction and be done with it.
        justincormack 12y ago
        You need to list it for a while for discoverability. Having a low price makes it seem more attractive while you browse.
        michaelt 12y ago
        Having a low price makes it seem more attractive while you browse. I can see how buyers would find that - and by extension sniping - frustrating.
  - bjterry 12y ago
    By a Dutch auction, are you referring to a sealed second-bid auction, or are you referring to a second-item auction? Or are you actually referring to a descending price Dutch auction?[1] If you are referring to a sealed second-bid auction, you're right that it would definitely eliminate sniping, but it probably wouldn't be beneficial for eBay, so it's not going to happen. First, with eBay's current bidding system items are already auctioned for a very full price, and it's better for eBay for prices to be high. Theoretically a sealed-second bid auction would cause people to provide their maximum willingness to pay, but as a matter of uninformed consumer behavior I wouldn't be surprised if prices were actually lower with sealed bids. Second, with the current system people are much more engaged with eBay than they would be with sealed-bids, because eBay gets to send them status updates on their auctions when they get outbid, which can cause them to either go back to the site and increase the bid (and potentially bid on something else while they are there), or bid on an alternative item which decreases the cycle rate for bidders. Third, bidders may actually prefer the current system, because they can know before the auction ends whether they have been knocked out or not and can move on to acquire goods through some other means. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction Edit: Actually, it turns out that if everyone on eBay were using sniping, it's essentially the same as a sealed second-bid auction, economically, because of the proxy bidding (or very close, due to the way bid increments work). But time extension is a different issue. Given that prices would be open still, I would expect that the prices end up near the same place that they do with sniping. Potentially the prices would be slightly higher because all of the bids would be open rather than just the bids made before the deadline which could foment more competition, so that criticism doesn't apply. In any case, from the consumer's perspective if you want to win the auction it doesn't really change your strategy. You should bid the maximum amount you would be willing to pay and make sure its more than anyone else would be willing to pay. With proxy bidding you can always win by paying too much. If you've ever lost because of sniping it's because you didn't set your bid high enough to beat the snipers. (What, you thought you would get a deal on an auction site? No, this is winner's curse territory.[2]) 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winner%27s_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winner%27s_curse
- ps4fanboy 12y ago
  Anecdote about eBay, I sold an iPad on the site about 3 years ago, it got bought "Buy it Now" 3 times in a row from fraudsters even after restricting countries and ratings ppl just refused to acutal pay for the goods. However after one "Free" re-listing ebay demanded that I pay them, even though the item had not sold. So in effect ebay has created an economic model where they benefit from scammers and fraudsters. I never sold anything on the site again.

They're doing that on purpose. I think a major turning point was discovering that "buy it now" auctions (i.e. normal, fixed-price sales) were massively more popular than auction auctions.

ps4fanboy 12y ago
Thats because they failed to ever fix bid sniping, switching to dutch auctions would have been better for everyone. Edit: Dutch auction is the wrong term and I cant track down the actual name. But essentially the auction gets extended by 10 minutes every time someone bids if the auction is going to end in less than 10 minutes.
- bato 12y ago
  Beaten to it. Sniping is hugely frustrating and the main reason people either use buy it now or plain old ads (cf gumtree/Craigslist etc)
  - aianus 12y ago
    Why is sniping frustrating? How can sniping make me lose an auction if their snipe bet is lower than what I entered as my maximum?
    - michaelt 12y ago
      While it does not frustrate me personally, it does seem rather pointless to list an item for several days or weeks when the actual sale takes place in the last five minutes, and to show a 'current price' which has little relevance to the final price. Ebay might as well call it a sealed bid second price auction and be done with it.
      - justincormack 12y ago
        You need to list it for a while for discoverability. Having a low price makes it seem more attractive while you browse.
        michaelt 12y ago
        Having a low price makes it seem more attractive while you browse. I can see how buyers would find that - and by extension sniping - frustrating.
- bjterry 12y ago
  By a Dutch auction, are you referring to a sealed second-bid auction, or are you referring to a second-item auction? Or are you actually referring to a descending price Dutch auction?[1] If you are referring to a sealed second-bid auction, you're right that it would definitely eliminate sniping, but it probably wouldn't be beneficial for eBay, so it's not going to happen. First, with eBay's current bidding system items are already auctioned for a very full price, and it's better for eBay for prices to be high. Theoretically a sealed-second bid auction would cause people to provide their maximum willingness to pay, but as a matter of uninformed consumer behavior I wouldn't be surprised if prices were actually lower with sealed bids. Second, with the current system people are much more engaged with eBay than they would be with sealed-bids, because eBay gets to send them status updates on their auctions when they get outbid, which can cause them to either go back to the site and increase the bid (and potentially bid on something else while they are there), or bid on an alternative item which decreases the cycle rate for bidders. Third, bidders may actually prefer the current system, because they can know before the auction ends whether they have been knocked out or not and can move on to acquire goods through some other means. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction Edit: Actually, it turns out that if everyone on eBay were using sniping, it's essentially the same as a sealed second-bid auction, economically, because of the proxy bidding (or very close, due to the way bid increments work). But time extension is a different issue. Given that prices would be open still, I would expect that the prices end up near the same place that they do with sniping. Potentially the prices would be slightly higher because all of the bids would be open rather than just the bids made before the deadline which could foment more competition, so that criticism doesn't apply. In any case, from the consumer's perspective if you want to win the auction it doesn't really change your strategy. You should bid the maximum amount you would be willing to pay and make sure its more than anyone else would be willing to pay. With proxy bidding you can always win by paying too much. If you've ever lost because of sniping it's because you didn't set your bid high enough to beat the snipers. (What, you thought you would get a deal on an auction site? No, this is winner's curse territory.[2]) 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winner%27s_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winner%27s_curse
ps4fanboy 12y ago
Anecdote about eBay, I sold an iPad on the site about 3 years ago, it got bought "Buy it Now" 3 times in a row from fraudsters even after restricting countries and ratings ppl just refused to acutal pay for the goods. However after one "Free" re-listing ebay demanded that I pay them, even though the item had not sold. So in effect ebay has created an economic model where they benefit from scammers and fraudsters. I never sold anything on the site again.