I miss the good 'ol days of eBay auctions. Back when auctions were auctions. The very fist week I listed stuff about six-and-a-half years ago, I sold $770 in miscellaneous stuff. I thought I had died and went to heaven! Stay at home with my kid. Run around to sales and auctions while she was in school, picking up all sorts of neat stuff at great prices. Then list it on eBay and watch the money roll in. How cool was that?I had this fun software which made a "cha-ching" sound every time I received a bid on something. It was awesome. I would list stuff and then sit around and "refresh" all day just to hear that sound. Made me feel like I was actually doing something.
"Back in the day", if you wanted to keep track of stuff you possibly wanted to own from eBay listings, you had to bid. That was prior to sniping software and the "watch it" feature. Bidders actually did what bidders are supposed to do... bid on stuff!!
Now you get "watchers". Watchers are really just bidder-wannabes. They watch. And watch and watch and watch. They never actually bid. But oh, how they love to watch! If a seller is really lucky, they will, from time to time, get a last minute sniper. Snipers are bidders who bid on stuff at the last possible second, hopfully for the opening bid. They use special software to do this.
I've always been in favor of the proposed "continuous auction". I think that's what it's called. The gist of it is that an auction will stay open as long as there are bids. The auction has a scheduled close, but if a bid is received within the last 15 minutes of the auction, the clock is reset for an additional 15 minutes. If another bid comes in after 10 or 12 minutes, the clock is reset for another 15 minutes. The auction ends only when there has been no bids received for 15 minutes.
This type of auction is much more like a live auction in that the winner is truly the high bidder. With eBay, whoever has the fastest computer wins. Kinda like a cowboy showdown... the fastest gun wins the shootout.
Anyway, I listed an auction last night starting at .57 cents with a Buy It Now of $8.99. I was hoping it might force someone to either BID or BUY. If you place a bid on an auction that has the BIN feature, it removes the Buy It Now. If you choose to use the BIN feature, it removes the bidding feature and the auction closes out early. As it turns out, it did work. Someone purchased the card using the Buy It Now feature, and purchased another card as well. Yeah!
Since it worked yesterday, I decided to try it again. The angel card shown here has a starting price of .37 cents or Buy It Now for $6.99 on eBay. Bid or Buy?
4 comments:
Hi Joann! Thanks for visiting my blog and the nice comments. I love the fresh quality and style of your drawings and in particular love this one of the angel. Please feel free to add me to your links and I will do the same. Deb
Hi, Deb & Kathy: Thank you both so much for the wonderful compliments! I have never listed anything for such a low starting bid, but just felt I needed to do something to generate some interest. It worked a few days ago, but so far I still haven't received any bids on this (numerous "watchers" but no bids). Anyway, I'm not overly concerned as this auction isn't for the original art, but a print. However, if either of you would enjoy winning a quality print at a really cheap price, bids are always appreciated! ;) HUGS! ~Joann
What a delightful picture! I love the colors and the bird in the hand! Well I can't remember the good old ebay times (I'm no ebayer myself, my daughter is doing it all for me and we're using ebay since 2003 I think), sounds like long ago. Anyway you have very fair prices with you buy at once auctions. I wish you good luck!
Thank you so much for visiting my blog, Joann. This post really resonated with me. Lately I've been getting all these watchers, but no bids and no sales. It's been a struggle not to get negative. Who are these people and why are they doing this???
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