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EBay Drops Charges for Developers Network
Rob writes "Seeking to make its presence in third-party rebranded commerce applications more ubiquitous, eBay Inc is lifting all of its API and transaction charges for developers. It's the latest action a series of moves to expand the eBay developer community. Last summer, the company opened up a collaborative website, the eBay Community Codebase, to provide a hosted project developer site for anyone willing to open source their code."
I didn't even know they were suing them. Not a great way to get developers to help you out.
Anymore if I happen to hop on eBay, all I see are hundreds (if not thousands) of the same HOT TICKET, LIMITED AVAIL, CANT FIND THIS ANYWHERE regurgitated items being sold over and over again to the public and over-inflated prices (dont even get me started on shipping at ebay).
It's less and less a viable place to do business, as a consumer or a retailer, as the site is flooded with the same crap, mostly imitations, be hawked as hard to find, rare items that are actually useless junk. I don't even want to start talking about all the dam *FAKE* items out there, where you can buy INFORMATION leading to a purchase...
I'm done with you eBay.
Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
RE: the sniping argument. What you said is totally accurate, but in reality doesn't work quite that way.
People like buying things for less than they're willing to pay. That one fact alone is why sniping works. "I'm -willing- to pay $50 for this item, but damn I'd be excited as git out to pay $35." - if that $35 bid holds, I'll be a lot more interested in getting the item than I would be if it were $50. That's why sniping works. The difference between 'willing' and 'excited about'.
If sniping were removed, this dynamic would change, and things would work as you suggest. Prices would walk up to the comfort level and stay there. I'm comfortable paying $50, you're comfortable paying $45. Things end, I win.
Event Management Solutions : http://www.stonekeep.com/
all of this sniping nonsense just proves how ridiculous people treat an auction like ebay (which usually leads them to grossly overpay).
While a good number of people do indeed overbid because they get drawn into the competitive spirit of winning the auction, there's a simple reason why sniping is still effective: savings. Sure, you can enter your maximum bid straight away. But there's also the psychological advantage of deferring your bid until the end, for items with no bids on them. As a simple example, let's say that I see some widget for which I would pay up to $20. I place that $20 max bid right away, starting at $1. Somebody else sees that there's action on the item, and places their max bid at, say, $10. Instantly the bids increase to $11. Is that someone else going to get caught up in the action and bid $21 or more? Possibly, and in that case, I simply walk away because my max was exceeded. Or I could win it at $11. Or at $12. Or up to $20. Whatever.
On the other hand, I know that a great majority of eBay bidders are into sniping themselves. If there's no bids on that widget with only 30 seconds to go, that other person might try to snipe it for $5. Having sold a few items, and bought quite a few more, I know that the most activity usually comes in the last minute, and usually for fairly low amounts. Me, I'll be entering my $20 maximum in the last 10 seconds. In this case, I'll walk away with my widget for a paltry $6 after bids. I seldom get outbid by someone who has the same strategy as this -- everyone else puts in a low bid, and maybe one more marginally higher bid before the time expires.
Sure, this is all relatively unknown info -- there's no guarantee there will be another bidder, there's no knowledge of what the bids will be, etc. But it's a pretty good approximation of how a lot of eBayers purchase items, so I'll try to use that past behaviour against them to get me the best bang for my buck.
The only way bidding before-hand benefits you is if a second last-minute sniper enters the same or a lower amount as you have previously bid. If you enter your max right at the last minute, you're guaranteed to get the same results as early bidding, but with a greater potential to save a few bucks.
In fact the snipers are often shooting themselves in the foot with their technique ... - an item unnaturally low up until the end
Again, this is why sniping works. With a few exceptions, other snipers aren't putting in their max bids. They're putting in bids a few bucks more than the current price, trying to get the best deal. The one or two people that put in the max bids at the last second are the winners, barring any overly-competitive bidders as you suggest.
EBay is rapidly turning evil. Their fees are simply too high. Between the listing, final value, and PayPal fees, they're cleaning up, and not in a good way.
They make it so damn hard to use anything other than PayPal for payment, and PayPal is a carefully-designed system that forces users to pay high credit-card rates on all transactions, even cash/echeck. Their "free" limits are so low they are a joke.
Yes, it is possible to bid.
The reason sniping works is that bidder's idea of the max they will pay varies over time. For example, I am resolute, and do enter my max of $50 on day 1. Current price is $10.
Some guy comes along with the same max in mind, thinks "hey, good deal, I'll try $20". They bid, price goes to $21, I'm still the leader. They think "Well, I'm willing to go as high as $50", so try again. They bid $40, price goes to $41, I still lead. Now it's "Damn. Ok, I'll go my max, $50..." They bid $50, I still lead because I was first, price is $50.
And here's the problem. The guy's next move is invariably "Son of a bitch. OK, I REALLY want this thing, I'll go $55." Auction fever sets in, and he raises his high beyond where it was initially.
Ok, in this case I didn't win the auction and can try again on a different item, but it's also just as common that a guy had an initial max of $40 in his mind, but lets the fever drive him up to $45 or $50, and I end up paying more. If I had sniped my $50 at the last second and the auction had been sitting at $10 all week, he'd have at best only put in his max of $40 (and likely would have put less hoping for a deal), and my snipe of $50 wins the item at $41 tops, because he never had time to consider raising his bid.
That's why the snipe is effective: ultimately it works because it doesn't allow time for second thoughts. It also doesn't allow any time for shill bidding.
Nope, not true. If there's not enough to go a full increment, the item gets raised by whatever the difference is.
For example, if you bid $21 on something early, and the current bid is $5, and I snipe with 2 seconds left and happen to outbid you by pennies, say $21.12, I win the item for $21.12, even though the next bid increment was $22.
Which really is the way it should be, I was willing to pay more than you, I get the item. The alternative would be for eBay to award the item to you for $21, but those lost cents are going to add up in the long run with millions of auctions. And eBay wants their cut of those pennies.