Reply With QuoteI watch certain watches to see the end sale price to gauge what I should be paying or selling one for.
Firstly, I've got two watches up for sale there, both "Buy it Now or Make Offer", i.e. not sales by Auction. One of them has 10 people watching, the other has 4. Why do Buyers watch such items? I could understand watching an item when following an Auction, seeing where the bidding is going, deciding to snipe or not, etc, etc. But "BIN" sales tell you nothing - it's either sold or it ain't - so why watch them?
Secondly, one of those two aforementioned watches has a automatic rejection of any offer below $75. So this one dude (who is becoming a nemesis ***) keeps sending me PM's to offer $65 . . $70 . . $72 . . . $73 . . . i.e. all less than $75. What's next? $74.99?? I've told dude three times already that he has to offer $75+ and still he persists. Why?
Thirdly, I've an actual Auction running in which I state quite clearly and openly that there is a reserve price and that it is $125 (an experimental frivolity filter). I even go as far as to say that bidding a buck will not get you the watch. The watch now has one bid, yep, $0.99 - about a buck :lol: Probably one of you lot taking the p1ss :wink: About the only logic in making that kind of bid is, perhaps, to be in the running for lower offers in the event that watch doesn't make it's reserve. Any ideas?
*** pain in the ass :x
I watch certain watches to see the end sale price to gauge what I should be paying or selling one for.
A sad footnote . . . his last message said that his last offer (was it finally for the "right" amount, I wonder) was refused because he had exceeded eBay's number-of-offers-per -item limit. I didn't even know there was such a limit.Originally Posted by xpatUSA
Ah, yes, done that myself now I come to think of it. Another way for popular models is to view completed listing and note the prices they sold for (or didn't, for that matter).
I must confess I watch BIN items if I am interested but think the price is on the high side; often these items (OK, wristwatches) fail to sell and are relisted at a lower price, or sometimes as a regular auction with a low starting price.
you can only make 3 "best offers" on a listing, if it doesnt sell and you relist he will be able to make another 3 offers
There are some strange people out there on eBay. :)
For point 1, if I had an item to sell, and I wanted to see what other similar items would sell for, I'd watch and item with no intention of bidding.
For point 3, I don't buy much on eBay now, but when I did, I'd often put in a 'placeholder' bid - I know it's under the reserve, I know it won't win the item, but it's a way to watch the item in My EBay.
HTH.
I often watch stuff without actually bidding to gauge prices and interest for the future should I decide to pursue.
A number of folk on Ebay will make silly low offers on the basis of if you don't ask, you don't get - annoying though it is. In the case you mention where it's the same person repeatedly just block them from bidding/offering and they will move on to annoy somebody else. :)
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
If I see a buy it now for an item I'm after and I also see an auction for the same or similar item, I watch the bin item and bid on on the auction item, if I don't win the auction item I can then return to the bin item
With regard to point 3 - you've obviously started the listing at 99c, so that is the amount that will be automatically lodged as the opening bid. The opening bidder may have placed a bid for 150 usd, but until someone else places a higher bid your item will stay at the opening bid amount.
I don't see the point in setting a reserve (apart from the obvious one :lol: ) I simply list my items to start at the lowest amount that I will accept for it. Thus weeding out the wallies who think they're going to get a $200 watch for 99c.
I watch things I come across as a reminder for the future (i.e., I'll be needing one of those so I'll keep it in my watch list for future reference). So then I have loads of ended items in my watch list that I can't remember why I was actually watching them...
I also sell occasioally and watch things for price comparisons.
The most common pain in the neck I have is from people wanting me to ship internationally. I clearly state I will not ship outside of the UK, and lock the sale to anyone who doesn't have a UK account, mainly for simplicity, security and to keep shipping costs down.
But EVERY item I sell, there's 2 or 3 people asking me to unlock it...
I tend to use the watch function on BIN sales as a kind of bookmark so I don't have to buy stuff at the spur of the moment.
I might watch a BIN item if I think it's a bit over-priced, just to see if it gets re-listed.
There are some bizarre sellers on ebay too. I'm toying with the idea of buying a Squeezebox duet. Now I can buy one of these off Logitech direct for £289 or much cheaper on the internet after a 30 second google search. So why on earth are there sellers on ebay listing these for £350 (+ P&P :roll: )?
What's your eBay ID?? I feel some monumentally dumb questions coming on! :lol: :lol:
That might be like "if you ask 100 girls a day . . . . ."? With a market as huge as eBay, there's bound to be one or two that will cough up without even bothering to look elsewhere.
Some of the offers people make using best offer are hillarious, i have sold £500+ items with best offer and you would always get some chancer offering £150 :lol:
There seems to be a Buyer's market at present. There's way more watches up for sale than before the Crash.
Bought this for $125 a couple of years ago, dirty, not-running, no strap:
So I put it up for auction with a reserve of $125, the which I even disclosed in the description.
Well, it got bid all the way up to $122.50 and then didn't sell (even with 4 bidders, 11 bids and over 50 watchers). "Aha!", I go, they're waiting for second chance offers - so I sent one out to the $122.50 guy . . . no go! So out with another to the $120 guy . . . nope!
I learn from this that:
There's nowt so queer as folk.
This is no time to be selling good watches.
By the way, the break-even point for auctions vs. fixed price sales is approx $183 in the USA. That means that, all other things being equal, auctions are cheaper below that price.
I might be one of theose guys watching....
I watch things that are of interest, but have not made up my mind about whether or not I really want to spend the money to get them, or while I try to figure out how much they are worth and how much I feel like offering.
Most of the times I have had a bid rejected I never got anything from the seller, the time on the offer expired, so I would have to go back and incrementally try and find the lowest price he would accept. If he is becoming a pain just ignore him until he exceeds the minimum.
Do you send a message with a minimum accept? that would sort of defeat the purpose wouldn't it?
Here again, I will state the way I operate on auctions: I make a bid that is the minimum increment above the current, knowing it will probably outbid. This puts the auction on my "Bidding" list at the top of the page where it is easy to see. Then when it reaches the very top with the clock ticking I can snipe.
Sorry, Ken, I didn't really understand the questionMost of the times I have had a bid rejected I never got anything from the seller, the time on the offer expired, so I would have to go back and incrementally try and find the lowest price he would accept. If he is becoming a pain just ignore him until he exceeds the minimum.
Do you send a message with a minimum accept? that would sort of defeat the purpose wouldn't it?
The guy wasn't using the eBay system for making "best offers" he was just contacting me via eBay messaging, but the same principle of incremental testing applied, I guess. However, I did tell him quite early on what the minimum acceptable offer was but he kept right on going, and going, and going, just like the bunny :wink: Turns out he was blocked anyway (my guess, international address) and when he fixed that, his last offer was rejected on the grounds of too many offers on the same item. Ho. Ho. And, BTW, He was the high bidder on this last sales fiasco (the Elgin).
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