OT: Ebay Policy Change

[Leon]

Originally Posted by glchen

Regarding allowing buyers to cancel their purchases an hour after they win an auction, I would just think of this as ebay is trying to become more like Amazon or even Walmart/Target where buyers are allowed to return items. ebay wants to position itself as one big superstore which everything buyers want rather than just a big auction house / flea market. So think of it that way. Regarding binding contracts, I thought many states including California where ebay is located had a 2-3 day "cooling off" period where contracts could be cancelled. Obviously, I'm not a lawyer so this might have nothing to do with what ebay is doing.

I am no lawyer either but In Texas certain purchases have a 3 day cancellation clause automatically with them. I believe it is mostly larger purchases, especially real estate (believe it or not).

A quick search turned up this...

https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov...mer/3day.shtml


.

[D. Bergin]

It subverts the entire auction process, along with allowing supposed shillers to throw up bids acting as "hidden reserves", with no repercussions whatsoever when they cancel their bids right after the auction ends.

As usual, it also creates more animosity between buyers and sellers, when it becomes more and more difficult to tell what is a shill bid, and what is just part of standard bidding procedure.

It also lends more credence to serial retractors, who are not actually shillers, but have become savvy "bidders", creating doubt in the auction system, manipulating auctions to serve their own purpose, whether it be financial or simply egotistical.

Plenty of honest sellers will suffer when accusations start to get thrown their way, because of these jag-offs, who will go from thoughtlessly throwing out bid retractions on the last day, sending an item tumbling downwards, to throwing out cancellations on the hour after an auction closes.

Ebay creates all these loopholes, and then play f@#*ing stupid when people start to take advantage of them.

[bobbyw8469]

Ebay creates all these loopholes, and then play f@#*ing stupid when people start to take advantage of them.

+1

[drcy]

eBay could put a limit on the number of retractions and backings out a buyer can make. That would help with the serial bid retractors, while allowing for a few honest mistakes.

I can understand a mistake bid or two, but don't know how someone could make more than two a month. Stay off the sauce. I recall making one and that was about fifteen years ago. I typed in an extra zero in my bid. If you're making five or ten a week, I think it can be safely defined as abusing the system.

I do agree that backing out of winning bids is a bad idea for auctions. For centuries the entire auction process has been based on the saying and rule "Goes to the highest bidder." The seller is required to sell to the highest bidder and, if the bidder can't or won't honor his bids, he's not supposed to be participating. Some would compare not honoring your winning bids to not honoring your gambling debts.

There's an entire Laurel and Hardy short about a grandfather clock they have to carry home after accidentally placing the winning bid on it at an auction and being threatened over if they didn't pay what they owed. Alas, the clock is run over by a car before they can get it home and Oliver's wife isn't too happy about his expenditure on a pile of scrap wood.



But, as I said, an honest error in bidding once in a while is understandable and excusable.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by glchen

I would just think of this as ebay is trying to become more like Amazon or even Walmart/Target where buyers are allowed to return items. ebay wants to position itself as one big superstore which everything buyers want rather than just a big auction house / flea market. So think of it that way.

+1

And along these same lines, I actually posted this exactly a month ago over on the non-sports side in another eBay gripe thread (amazing how often these things pop up):

Bottom line is that over the last few years, eBay has moved from looking at themselves as a platform that anyone can use to sell their stuff to seeing themselves as the overarching retailer (think Amazon without the warehousing responsibilities) and all of the individual sellers are just ants feeding merch into the machine. If you don't feed it in fast enough, you get penalized (I mean, not rewarded) for not shipping the next day. If there are any complaints about your merch, or how it was packed, or how quickly it got there, or how your tone sounded in the invoice you sent, or how you didn't promptly communicate your eternal gratitude for gracing you with an incremental bid on this poorly-described fuzzy-pictured obviously sub-par piece of merch and how dare you look at me that way and I don't like the way that your screenname makes me feel there's no way this is real and it wasn't delivered in time for my cousin's birthday didn't you know it was the day after the auction ended blazy blah blah... Any of that, and you darn well will be refunding the buyer's money including their shipping cost (because the overlords have already removed the funds from your scrip account), and you'll probably have to pay the buyer's return shipping as well or just let them keep it, and you'll still get the big red N(egative) on your account that you deserve because it's obviously the seller's fault no matter what happens. No, wait, eBay is the seller now, so you REALLY deserve what you got, and we're going to dock your pay (I mean, not reward you) at the end of the month too because you made us look bad.

Anyway, just more of the usual ranting and raving, but at the end I always duck my head down and head back up the ant hill with my next load of mid- to low-end merch. There's really no other good way to list/move a high volume of relatively low-priced material anywhere else. I don't want to take over the B/S/T boards anywhere (would be more on the baseball side at this point), and setting up my own website hasn't helped with anything sales-wise due to the lack of an advertising budget. I may hate a lot of eBay's practices and policies, but they still do a much better job of getting eyes on the items (though not as good as they used to).

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by drcy

eBay could put a limit on the number of retractions and backings out a buyer can make. That would help with the serial bid retractors, while allowing for a few honest mistakes.

Sounds simple, and I think Ebay actually had a cap on bid retractions at one time, sending out a warning to prospective bidders when they were doing it.

They stopped that practice a couple years ago or so for whatever reason, and it has run rampant ever since.

I'm sure there are tons of people who read these boards who have a ton of bid retractions, but will never admit to it. There's too many of these guys out there right now, for it not to be the case.

I could even go as far in my own auctions to outline a policy of losing your bidding rights in my auctions with a retraction or cancellation without a good excuse to me personally, I don't like the perception of shilling, don't bid on it if you don't want it, blah, blah, blah............but Ebay would shut ME down faster then I could formulate a sneeze during allergy season, because that would break with the continuity of their own policies.

It would make ME the bad guy.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Only list Buy It Nows with an immediate payment required.

Problem solved.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Only list Buy It Nows with an immediate payment required.

Problem solved.

So no more auctions?

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

So no more auctions?

Dave,

I love true auctions. I really do. But for the last few years eBay has been trying to slowly 'force' sellers to go to a BIN only. All their changes indicate such. And that's a shame. True eBay auctions will soon be a thing of the past.

I first noted this well over three years ago in my post here...

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...=134438&page=3

Post #21
eBay wants to become one big online store and do away with auction style listings. All of their changes suggest this. This new change is nothing different and is just another step in doing so. They want sellers to offer free shipping and this is one way to make it happen. Think about it, you can't even charge for insurance anymore (or at least state that in your description). This new change is one way of forcing the seller to offer free shipping. Sellers who list true auction style listings aren't going to offer free shipping because if they take a loss on the card, they sure aren't going to take a loss on the shipping as well. So, why not just offer BIN with BO options with free shipping? That's what eBay wants and they'll get their way one change at a time.

[4815162342]

I don't think that they want to completely do away with all auctions, just auctions from small-time sellers. eBay is two businesses: retail and auction consignment. If you want to sell, it's just cheaper and easier to consign.