HP Forum Archive 17

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eBay - For Sellers Message #1 Posted by Ron on 14 May 2007, 7:55 a.m. If you are an eBay seller, you may want to take note of this. I search daily for a certain calc. On Saturday I did the search, and at least two new auctions came up, but they weren't new. They were several days old. Point being, that the eBay search is missing some of the auctions. I had wondered at some of the low prices I had been seeing in the closed auctions lately, and this helps explain it. I contacted eBay about the problem, expecting their usual "you don't know what you're doing type of canned answer," but actually got a real response. They said it is an intermittant problem that they are working on. So anyway, consider this if you're about to list something, or if you've recently received a very low final bid for your auctions. I don't know if there is any recourse for this, or not. Maybe you can refuse to make the sale, because of technical difficulties in the eBay system, or whatever. I guess you would have to discuss that with eBay and/or the high bidder.

Re: eBay - For Sellers Message #2 Posted by Howard Owen on 14 May 2007, 11:43 a.m., in response to message #1 by Ron When I sell, it's in very low volume. I always do a search to be sure I'm showing up. I imagine the first question eBay might ask if I attempted to wiggle out of a sale on the basis you mention would be "how do you know you couldn't be found?" And if the answer was "I tried it and it failed" the next question would be "why didn't you contact us then?" Regards, Howard

Re: eBay - For Sellers & Buyers Message #3 Posted by Dave Shaffer on 14 May 2007, 12:55 p.m., in response to message #1 by Ron Have you noticed that for "high-value" items (I haven't figured out where that kicks in - seems to be >$100 at least), eBay no longer gives the bidders ID, but rather just a bidder number (i.e. there will be Bidder #1, Bidder #2, etc.)? There is no way (that I've seen) to relate "Bidder #1" to a real individual (except to Bidder #1 him/herself as well as the seller). I can understand eBay's logic about protecting bidders' identities to prevent spam and other nefarious happenings, but I think this takes away some of the logic & experience that one might use for bidding. If you know who you are bidding against, and have competed with him/her before (or just watched them in action - Cobubba!), your bidding strategy might well be different. Seems to me that there could be a unique bidding-only ID for everybody (you could even chose your real ebay ID if you wanted to). That name would always show up when you bid, but would not have any way of being related to an actual person or e-mail address. Has this affected or bothered anybody here?

Re: eBay - For Sellers & Buyers Message #4 Posted by Forrest Switzer on 14 May 2007, 9:30 p.m., in response to message #3 by Dave Shaffer Dave, Yes, it bothers me, but I believe the seller may be able to see the bidders names. I cannot tell how they make the choice of when to give the bidders names and when to not give them. I would like to see who I am bidding against and be able to see where they live, their feedback, etc. I know they give some of that information if you hover over a part of their bid information or if you click on the bidder number. Still I prefer the old way of just showing the bidders. Also, I think the seller has the option to have a private bid anyway, so this appears to be an eBay attempt to protect bidders even if they did not request it. Forrest

Re: eBay - For Sellers & Buyers Message #5 Posted by Ron Ross on 14 May 2007, 11:22 p.m., in response to message #4 by Forrest Switzer I also believe it is a sellers option to make the auction private. Shilling then becomes even harder to detect. However, it can still be good thing for the seller as it eliminates the friendship factor. There are certain names on ebay that I recognise and though I may want an item, simply refrain from bidding if I see a forum member or other associate bid. This is my decision (and therefore shouldn't be construed as bid fixing) and in my little mind helps eliviate the price inflation of the calculator world just a wee bit.

Re: eBay - For Sellers & Buyers Message #6 Posted by Gerson W. Barbosa on 20 May 2007, 5:49 p.m., in response to message #5 by Ron Ross Quote: However, it can still be good thing for the seller as it eliminates the friendship factor. There are certain names on ebay that I recognise and though I may want an item, simply refrain from bidding if I see a forum member or other associate bid. Good point! At least once this happened to me. About two years ago, I was interested in an HP-35, but I refrained from bidding when I saw the higher bidder was one of the forum members. He eventually got it for a reasonable price, by what I can remember - it's one with back label in Spanish, if I am not wrong. Yet I was willing to pay at least 50% more. By the way, I used to be gwbarbosa at eBay :-) Regards, Gerson.

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