Do you think buyer side offerings would be useful?

[danovcya]

Right now, everything being offered is by sellers, they offer a product, tag it, categorize it and then the buyers sift through it all and find offers that suite them.

However sometimes I see products I like but the asking price is in that range that makes me go "eh ... I want it but don't really need it ... I should wait till it falls to $X"

What if ebay offered a buyer side offering where I write:

Product: Spyderco Centofante

Condition: New

Buying from: North America only

Price including S&H: $55

And then sellers can access the buyers offering data base, sort it the same way buyers can (eg. Price + S&H: Highest first) see something like my offer and then click the "Sell it now" button where the seller commits to selling X product for the agreed price the buyer was offering.

Do you think that is something useful as a buyer or seller?, ebay programmers, is implementing something like this feasible?

Thanks.

[toby_le_pue]

They had it and just cancelled it a few months ago because it wasn't being used enough.

It was called Want it Now.

[danovcya]

Damn, I did not know of it eventhough I have been using ebay for a whole now.

Was it not used enough by buyers or sellers not caring for the offers made?

[msmaggie060]

In some categories (mine, for instance), it was used a lot. I checked it everyday and sold a lot of items that way. More importantly, it also helped sellers to know what items buyers were looking for. Unfortunately it was probably cancelled by eBay because it did not bring in enough $$ for them and/or used up too much room on their servers.

It was a very useful tool for both buyers and sellers and its a shame that ebay cancelled it!

[queenpalmer]

As a seller I never looked into the "want it now" option.  Better marketing of this option and its ramifications would have helped.  I am more aware of the Canadian Ebay logo change than anything to do with "want it now".  My fault? I don't know.