new bidding system stinks!

[ammolitehunter]

The new bidding system in beta for jewelry and some other items soon to spread out through the entire system stinks.

BE AWARE!

With the new sysyem a buyer makes an offer and if the seller accepts--the sale is NOT done.The item stays open to bids--the successful bidder is in formed of seller acceptance and is told to pay now or risk losing the item to another bid.The successful bidder is also able to walk away from the accepted offer.

WHICH THEY DO!

This is very detrimental to the seller as it encourages people to play the fool making offers and who have no intention of buying anything.

I have had two such situations in the couple of days this has been in effect.

Why tinker with a system that was working perfectly well---I HOPE HIS BETA FAILS MISERABLY!

As it stands now a bidder can walk away from an accepted bid and this will cause a lot of trouble.

[femmefan1946]

What happens if you change to Fixed Price / Immediate Payment and add PayPal Required to your Seller Preferences?

It sounds as if the beta system is a version of Best Offer, something I consider as a negative selling point since it makes the seller appear unsure of the value of his items.

[nan*55]

I haven't dealt with this yet, but it sounds like I don't want too 😞

[ammolitehunter]

Re:

'What happens if you change to Fixed Price / Immediate Payment and add PayPal Required to your Seller Preferences?'

You are correct--this would short circuit this problem but I tried this once and my sales dropped by 50%

Had to go back to best offer.

People love to make offers in the hope of a bargain.

[femmefan1946]

The successful bidder is also able to walk away from the accepted offer.

WHICH THEY DO!

So.... your sales are dropping because of this in any case so why not go to the FP/IPR model and rid yourself of the thrill bidders?

[surplusdealdude]

If the buyer walks away from this, they weren't that interested in the first place.

If they weren't that interested in the first place, you'd have to file a UID or deal with a return.

Both of those options are more expensive or tie up your product.

At least this way, when you sell something, it's likely to stay sold.

[art-in-the-making]

IMO the cases of npb that Surplusdealdude is talking about are inconsequential compared to the other impacts of this program.

We, for example, have never had one single case of a best offer we accepted that the buyer has not followed through on, although "best offer" has been a significant part of our sales. Perhaps this would be more of a problem in categories that are not included in the new bidding system.

On the other hand, his assertion that "If the buyer walks away from this, they weren't that interested in the first place." is way off the mark. I can think of many scenarios where an accepted best offer might subsequently be reneged on by a buyer after several hours/days. For example, the buyer or the buyer's significant other finds an alternative probably inferior item at a lower price - decides what the hey, nothing to lose, a commitment on eBay isn't binding... and just walk away from the deal.

The darker underside of the new system is when buyers start to aggressively use it to spray offers all over the place and/or simply use the system as a bad faith means of determining what sellers are willing to sell for.

The so-called "problem" of non-paying buyers is nothing compared to the real ebay problem of sales tanking for traditional sellers.

[ammolitehunter]

You seem to understand the problems some us face,

If you are selling $20 items the problem is not so bad but if your average iten is $200-$300 like mine are--these problems intensify.

I was having almost no problem with no pays on accepted offers but it looks like Ebay is encouraging shoppers to spray offers all over the place to find a bargain.

I decided to put half my stuff on fixed price--do dicker no nonsense and had two sales overnight!

[art-in-the-making]

That's encouraging - hope it keeps up!

[surplusdealdude]

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@ammolitehunter wrote:

I was having almost no problem with no pays on accepted offers but it looks like Ebay is encouraging shoppers to spray offers all over the place to find a bargain.

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Do you honestly believe they don't do that anyway?