Are eBayers Mad???
 

I needed a HMDI cable for my father. On eBay UK there are a lot of people selling HMDI cable "buy now" for 99p which includes postage. However I found someone selling by "auction" at a starting price of 1p, so I set a maximum bid of 99p working on the theory that if I got it for less I got a bargain, but if someone bid me up to my maximum it would reach the same price I would pay elsewhere on "buy now". I lost the auction, the winning bid was £1.70 - nearly twice the price of exactly the same item from other sellers. In other words there were at least two people bidding well above the "buy now" price. And when I looked at the "you have been outbid" email eBay sent me, the bidding happened moments before the end of the sale. So at least two people had been desperately price sniping, hoping to beat everyone else in overpaying for an item !!??!!! |huh

Oh, and a few days ago I bought the third Settler's game on eBay. The game box names it in Roman numerals - "Settlers III". Searching eBay UK for that title I found that the cheapest available was already over five pounds for the re-issue with on-disk manual, and the original release with printed manual was over fifteen pounds. I then did a search for "Settlers 3". Under that title there were several copies of the re-issue at under one pound, and I eventually bought the original release with printed manual (the version was over fifteen pounds when listed as "Settlers III") for less than two pounds! I thought a few people do not think of "alternate titles" but the majority must be this stupid going by the number of cheaper copies selling as "Settlers 3".

I saw only one seller sensible enough to list the item as "Settlers III / Settlers 3" so as to get bids from everyone.

Surly the mistakes made by both the cable buyers and the people listing the game as "Settlers 3" are schoolboy errors. I'm amazed that there are people this eBay illiterate in this day and age.

Funny how people can get caught up in a auction. Even eBay isn't a perfect market!

I don't know if it's the new meds or this story, but...|zzzzzzzzz

I miss the early days of eBay when it was more individuals and not store fronts.

I'm shocked at how much some items are going for. Then again I've been very happy to sell things there for much more than they were worth.

I've never used ebay |couch|

Years ago while the wife and I were traveling I picked up an ebay magazine at an airport terminal on layover that talked about setting up store fronts, marketing and other ebay related stuff. The one thing I remember was that their own research showed that items sold better/higher when you started the bidding at $1 because this would draw people into the bidding and like Art stated "Funny how people can get caught up in a auction"

I ordered something from ebay and it not only came used but it was ripped and nearly mangled. 10/10 would shop again