Ebay Dilemma

veronese68

So, my bike is on Ebay and the auction finishes on Sunday. It's currently at £75 with lots of watchers. I've just had an email through Ebay asking to come and see it and offering me £275. I was hoping for £300 so the offer is in the right area.
Should I let the auction run or should I accept the offer? Assuming the guy does turn up with the cash.

rolf_f

If it's already got bids you should really let it run. It's really annoying to be watching an auction that you intend to bid seriously on only to find it ending early for no reason.

If you want a minimum price, you have the reserve function to protect it but you are getting more bids in the first place by not putting a reserve on it. You could have posted an initial auction with a BIN and/or Best offer and reserve to test the waters but, as it is, you've set it up as a conventional auction and you should let it run. If the emailer is prepared to pay £275 for it before he's seen it, then chances are it will make that anyway. If you'd done a good job with presenting the bike and the auction you'll probably be OK - decent bikes don't usually seem to end up great bargains on Ebay!

DrLex

Personally, I'd let him come over before Sunday & bring the cash; quicker, can't be much less than after fees, and avoids "not as described" fuss.
If you do let it run, beware of the dishonest buyer who pays by paypal, collects and then files a "not received" dispute to get a free bike.

Wheelspinner

Rolf F wrote:

If it's already got bids you should really let it run. It's really annoying to be watching an auction that you intend to bid seriously on only to find it ending early for no reason.

If you want a minimum price, you have the reserve function to protect it but you are getting more bids in the first place by not putting a reserve on it. You could have posted an initial auction with a BIN and/or Best offer and reserve to test the waters but, as it is, you've set it up as a conventional auction and you should let it run. If the emailer is prepared to pay £275 for it before he's seen it, then chances are it will make that anyway. If you'd done a good job with presenting the bike and the auction you'll probably be OK - decent bikes don't usually seem to end up great bargains on Ebay!

This.

As a buyer I hate when something I've bid on gets cancelled, even though there's nothing you can do about it, but as a seller, I've found that Rolf F's Law above applies more often than not.

rolf_f

DrLex wrote:

Personally, I'd let him come over before Sunday & bring the cash; quicker, can't be much less than after fees, and avoids "not as described" fuss.
If you do let it run, beware of the dishonest buyer who pays by paypal, collects and then files a "not received" dispute to get a free bike.

That's what receipts are for. Am I being naive to believe that Paypal do take note such things?

bigmat

Just do whatever suits you best. B*ll*cks to eBay etiquette, if £275 feels like a good deal then take the money.

ToeKnee

Second hand values, especially cycles, on eBay seem to be very strong. Also, bidder have learnt that the best way to bid on an item is in the last hour of the auction - often using automatic bidders OR to make an early, often cheeky, offer. I'd let it run.
[opinions expressed in the post are the views of the poster and they disclaim any and all liability for anything and everything]

il_principe

Let it run. You know what ebay is like, there's always a last minute flurry of bids. Frankly I'm always amazed that anyone bothers bidding until the last 5 mins, as doing so earlier just drives the price up. But hey, people are stupid...

tgotb

What most of the others said. EBay's a sellers market for items with a liquid market (like bikes). If someone's offering you £275 for it now, it's because they don't think they'll get it for £275 in the main auction. They'll almost certainly bid £275 anyway, if not more, so you haven't lost that buyer.

Listen to the market...

walkingbootweather

Let it run. If your bidder is really that keen chances are that they will bid at least £275 anyway, so provided someone else makes as offer you are going to make your money. If you were feeling particularly devious you could get a mate to bid £274 near the end. If the worse happens and your mate wins get them to cancel the bid so you don't pay fees (I've had people win stuff from me and then change their mind). You then know the market value and can explain to the original bidder that you've been let down but they can have for £275.

rolf_f

Il Principe wrote:

Let it run. You know what ebay is like, there's always a last minute flurry of bids. Frankly I'm always amazed that anyone bothers bidding until the last 5 mins, as doing so earlier just drives the price up. But hey, people are stupid...

Five minutes isn't that much better than 5 days. You need to bid in the final 10 seconds to fend off manual response bids.

pitchshifter

£275 Cash is more than £300 on ebay (after 10% fees and paypal fees if they go down that route)

However... Never underestimate the lunacy of people on ebay. I sold a Hi-Viz helmet cover (its just not me) for more than it was at CRC. Madness..

What bike is it?

Edit: Kona Jake? I reckon you'd get a bit more than £300 for it on Ebay.

veronese68

Il Principe wrote:

Let it run. You know what ebay is like, there's always a last minute flurry of bids. Frankly I'm always amazed that anyone bothers bidding until the last 5 mins, as doing so earlier just drives the price up. But hey, people are stupid...

There were 5 bids in the first hour. One bloke crept the price up in £3 increments until he was winning at £11.50 with 6 days and 23 hours to run. Did he really think he was going to get it for that?
I think I'll let it run. I don't know why but it wouldn't let me set a reserve price, hopefully I won't need one.

gbsahne001

Personally I'd take the cash rather than pay ebay 10% and PP their cut, but as others have said ebay lunacy could apply, for instance I've just sold some cat related items for more than you can buy them on Amazon.

veronese68

pitchshifter wrote:

£275 Cash is more than £300 on ebay (after 10% fees and paypal fees if they go down that route)

However... Never underestimate the lunacy of people on ebay. I sold a Hi-Viz helmet cover (its just not me) for more than it was at CRC. Madness..

What bike is it?

Edit: Kona Jake? I reckon you'd get a bit more than £300 for it on Ebay.

Yes, the Jake.
We sell damaged items from work on Ebay. Occasionally we get more than the retail price for them. buyers can even link to us from Ebay and see the retail price. I think they get caught up in some sort of must win attitude and are a bit hard of thinking. Very odd.

rolf_f

A couple of times when this has come up before the seller has generally ended up at least as well off by leaving the auction to run as if he'd taken the offer. There was a classic case of a bloke who'd won a raced Sky Pinarello and put it on Ebay for £10k starting price and a reserve for which he got a load of abuse along the lines that he was a greedy git and the bike was worth little more than half what he was asking.

As it happens, he got several bids over 10k though the reserve wasn't met - certainly showed a few people on here up though!

mudcow007

BigMat wrote:

Just do whatever suits you best. B*ll*cks to eBay etiquette, if £275 feels like a good deal then take the money.

what he said....

plus it saves on eGay fees

rolf_f

walkingbootweather wrote:

Let it run. If your bidder is really that keen chances are that they will bid at least £275 anyway, so provided someone else makes as offer you are going to make your money. If you were feeling particularly devious you could get a mate to bid £274 near the end. If the worse happens and your mate wins get them to cancel the bid so you don't pay fees (I've had people win stuff from me and then change their mind). You then know the market value and can explain to the original bidder that you've been let down but they can have for £275.

Encouraging shill bidding isn't cool. I'm surprised you'd suggest such a thing - only a real lowlife would actually do this.

Broccoli glider

Encouraging shill bidding isn't cool. I'm surprised you'd suggest such a thing - only a real lowlife would actually do this.

That's life kiddo

bigmat

Broccoli glider wrote:

Encouraging shill bidding isn't cool. I'm surprised you'd suggest such a thing - only a real lowlife would actually do this.

That's life kiddo

I thought it was quite charmingly naive suggesting you'd actually need to get a friend to bid rather than just set up a proxy account yourself! Its not illegal is it?

rolf_f

BigMat wrote:

Broccoli glider wrote:

Encouraging shill bidding isn't cool. I'm surprised you'd suggest such a thing - only a real lowlife would actually do this.

That's life kiddo

I thought it was quite charmingly naive suggesting you'd actually need to get a friend to bid rather than just set up a proxy account yourself! Its not illegal is it?

Yes, it is illegal. Here, across Europe and in the States. I think Ebay invest quite a bit of time and money in catching shill bidders. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8632357.stm

Initialised

I tend to respond to questions like this by saying commit to it and I'll put it on BIN at your offer. Usually the item goes for more than the early offer anyway.

Dalton

Unfortunately you can not add a BIN price to a listing once bidding has started.

bigmat

Rolf F wrote:

BigMat wrote:

Broccoli glider wrote:

Encouraging shill bidding isn't cool. I'm surprised you'd suggest such a thing - only a real lowlife would actually do this.

That's life kiddo

I thought it was quite charmingly naive suggesting you'd actually need to get a friend to bid rather than just set up a proxy account yourself! Its not illegal is it?

Yes, it is illegal. Here, across Europe and in the States. I think Ebay invest quite a bit of time and money in catching shill bidders. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8632357.stm

Interesting. Thing I don't get is why eBay has the "second chance offer" thing - seems made to help people shill bidding.

ToeKnee

I bet you're glad you said no to £275 :!:

rolf_f

ToeKnee wrote:

I bet you're glad you said no to £275 :!:

Lol - indeed!

PBo

ToeKnee wrote:

I bet you're glad you said no to £275 :!:

His shill bidders have done a good job for him!!!

rolf_f

PBo wrote:

ToeKnee wrote:

I bet you're glad you said no to £275 :!:

His shill bidders have done a good job for him!!!

Lol again. The last hundred quid has been a zero feedbacker plodding it up in £20 increments! Decent top bidder at the moment though buy the look of it.

veronese68

Doing very well indeed. 5 people asked questions, a couple of whom have bid. The guy that has just pushed it up wanted it sending to Cumbria. I'm reluctant to ship, but will if necessary. The lead bidder put in what must be a reasonable bid a couple if days ago. Others have crept the price up, but this guy has obviously bid what he thinks it's worth.
Very glad I didn't take £275.

rubertoe

That did alright in the end!!

:shock:

veronese68

rubertoe wrote:

That did alright in the end!!

:shock:

Very much so.