Think I'll sell my wiper blades.

[fatboyoz]

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... NA:AU:1123

Tad expensive?
Colin.

[john.p.clegg]

Yep...

John

[elanfan1]

It always make me smile when people comment on things being expensive on ebay. It is not the sellers fault that 2 people wanted these desperately such that they both bid with a couple seconds to go and put in prices that they thought would be killer bids way above the bid price at the time. Normally this tactic works in that you tend to flush out the normal bidders and win the item at just above a normal price - it would seem here that 2 people had the same idea at the same time for the same item. I wouldn't say that this is a normal marklet price just a set of circumstances combining. All that said if the bidders weren't prepared to pay the price they bid then they should not have bid the amounts they did.

I'm not saying the OP's original post was negative to the seller in context as it seemed pretty neutral to me but there are often comments on here that seem to have a go at sellers achieving high prices for rare items - guys its not the sellers fault its the bidders that set the price.

[Robbie693]

ouch!

I bought a set of the same wipers from the same guy for 20 quid! I thought that was a bit extravagant

Robbie

[69S4]

It always make me smile when people comment on things being expensive on ebay. It is not the sellers fault that 2 people wanted these desperately such that they both bid with a couple seconds to go and put in prices that they thought would be killer bids way above the bid price at the time.

On one of my first forays onto ebay I wanted to bid ?45.00 on an item but somehow it went in as ?4500. Good job someone else didn't put in a killer bid.

These days I get the kids to do it

[billwill]

I really dislike the ebay bidding method it just ends up with no action until the last few minutes of the auction. Can you imaging the chaos that would ensue in a real auction room if the bidding was like that.. e.g. the bidding on item 219 will end at precisely 3:22pm highest bit at that time wins.

Madness.

On the CiX conferencing system (which opened way back in 1987) a far more sensible bidding method was used in the auction section, which worked well and was a better model to off-line auctions. Alas CiX is somewhat moribund nowadays.

Basically the bidding finishes when there have been no further bids for a given time. The seller specifies that time interval from standard options when he puts the item up for auction. Typical time periods were 48 hours excluding weekends or 24 hours including weekends etc. It all worked very smoothly and more sensibly than ebay.

[summerinmaine]

I really dislike the ebay bidding method it just ends up with no action until the last few minutes of the auction. Can you imaging the chaos that would ensue in a real auction room if the bidding was like that.. e.g. the bidding on item 219 will end at precisely 3:22pm highest bit at that time wins.

Madness.

On the CiX conferencing system (which opened way back in 1987) a far more sensible bidding method was used in the auction section, which worked well and was a better model to off-line auctions. Alas CiX is somewhat moribund nowadays.

Basically the bidding finishes when there have been no further bids for a given time. The seller specifies that time interval from standard options when he puts the item up for auction. Typical time periods were 48 hours excluding weekends or 24 hours including weekends etc. It all worked very smoothly and more sensibly than ebay.

Sounds like a business opportunity staring you in the face. Meg Whitman, the billionaire (in US terms) former CEO of eBay is currently running for governor of California (the ~8th largest economy in the world) with only the "experience" she gained at eBay.

[512BB]

Well Jim,

Be prepared for your taxes to go up then if she gets in, just like the bloody final value fees! From 4% when they first started, to 10%!!!!!!! now!!!!!!. Thats what happens when you have a monopoly, you can demand MONOPOLY money!!!!!!

If some other bright spark started another on line auction site, with the clout to promote it, ebay fees would soon come down, its amazing what a little competition does to prices.

Leslie

[theelanman]

ouch!

I bought a set of the same wipers from the same guy for 20 quid! I thought that was a bit extravagant

Robbie

me too....although I cant say if it was the same bloke or not.....
but I got my speed blades off ebay for ?20.......

[Fred Talmadge]

Well Jim,

Be prepared for your taxes to go up then if she gets in, just like the bloody final value fees! From 4% when they first started, to 10%!!!!!!! now!!!!!!. Thats what happens when you have a monopoly, you can demand MONOPOLY money!!!!!!

Leslie

On the other hand what experience did Arnold Swartsenager or Ronald Raegan have?

[billwill]

> Sounds like a business opportunity staring you in the face.

It would be very difficult to go up as a competitor against eBay nowadays it would cost a fortune to deflect even part of their customers to a new auction supplier and eBay would retaliate so you would go broke. I doubt that the principle could be patented because of various things including prior 'publication' at CiX.


There are easier ways of losing lots of money

[Robbie693]

Here we go again:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TRICO-SPEED-BLADES-15-INCH-RARE-Lotus-Elan-2-/320615787683?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item4aa630aca3