jagd wrote:I just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on this situation.

There is a reseller on Ebay (i won't say what he resells but it isn't D&D) who buys up ALL items of a certain type (much like the coug and H1). What he doesn't win are bidded up to the stratosphere.

Ok not very ethical but nothing against ebay rules..

Thing is he resells all of the stuff with very High Buy-it-Now prices. Consequently he uses another account to bid on EVERY OTHER AUCTION WITH A BUY-IT-NOW that offers similar items just to ruin the BUY-IT-NOW so that only his items remain with the BUY-IT-NOW.

I'm not sure what people think about BIN (I personally think it works great - shame Ebay upped the fees on it) but I just think this is downright unethical.
i doubt it is against ebay policy though. Thoughts anyone?

It sound to me like the the guy is a Jerk off, but personally I dont think that there is much you can do as I would imagine that unless he is not paying for the items he ends up winning, Ebay would not care at all. It sounds just like cougar though, because he is notorious for knocking off BINs that start with low opening bids. In that circumstance it really is up to the seller to set his auction up to prevent that from happening. When I am selling, most times I do not use Buy-It-Now at all, unless the item is fairly uncommon, it usually carries a good price, and that if somebody uses the BIN, I set it up with the notion that I probably would not have gotten that much without it. As an example, I have a listing of some 30-40 auctions running currently, but the only one I put a BIN on was my Dragon Magazine Archive. I set it up with a 0.01 opening bid, a $150.00 BIN, and a relatively low reserve of $35.00 (as a rule I almost never use reserves). I also listed in my auction what my reserve price was so that people knew what they would be bidding against. I used the opening bid of $0.01 to attract attention and I set the reserve so that somebody couldn't come in right away and knock of the BIN with a very lowball bid, thus ruining the opportunity for someone who really was interested in it that might be tempted to use the feature for that price. Just my .02

I don't know how popular it would be, but I would like to see the BIN option stay available even after a bid. A seller would have his BIN option until the bidding reaches the BIN price. Is this a dumb idea?  :?
I too have run into characters like this on ebay that just bid (with no intention of winning) to cancel the BIN.

Ekim Toor wrote:I don't know how popular it would be, but I would like to see the BIN option stay available even after a bid. A seller would have his BIN option until the bidding reaches the BIN price. Is this a dumb idea?
I too have run into characters like this on ebay that just bid (with no intention of winning) to cancel the BIN.

I emailed this as a suggestion to eBay last year.  I asked if there could be a separate BIN reserve so that it didn't disappear as soon as an opening bid was placed.

Unless I'm doing something wrong, the minimum reserve in the UK is now £50!  So, you can't have a low start, reasonable reserve and BIN.  The start effectively becomes the reserve if you want to keep the BIN for a while.  Otherwise someone just places the 99p opening bid and spoils the BIN.

I got the usual autogenerated message.  But nothing since.

bclarkie wrote: the fact that by having a bidder choose the Buy It Now option, it is actually saving EBay money. The shorter amount of time it is listed as an active listing on EBay, the less money they spend to have to pay for the extra bandwidth space.

So, if the BIN stayed active even after someone had tried to spoil it with a crappy opening bid, wouldn't that be an incentive for eBay?  Someone could still come along and end the auction early despite not being the first bidder.

johnhuck wrote:So, if the BIN stayed active even after someone had tried to spoil it with a crappy opening bid, wouldn't that be an incentive for eBay? Someone could still come along and end the auction early despite not being the first bidder.

That is true, but a couple things also would be factored into it. First off, they would have to an invest a fairly substantial amount of time and money to upgrade the technology to make that change site wide. Secondly, and more importantly, why would they go to the trouble and spend the money, when they already have 2 things in place to effectively do that now, and the costs for both ways are already being paid for by the sellers through their fees.

The first thing a seller can do to combat the problem is to set a higher minimum bid. As we all very well know, a higher opening bid equals more fees to Ebay. The second thing that a seller can do to combat the problem is to set a very low opening bid, and then set up a reserve price. Now the reserve price, just like a higher minimum bid equals more fees to EBay. Also, the higher the final winning bid, which is now guaranteed by the higher opening bid/reserve price, once again equals more fees to EBay. So in effect, you are either saving them money on bandwidth, or you paying more to ensure the auction stays up longer. Truthfully, Ebay wins either way, and the fact is, Ebay has the people who use it by the balls. It will only make changes that if it will benefit their bottom line and not ours, so were all pretty much screwed either way

If you set a reserve just below your buy it now, than the buy it now stays until you hit just below your reserve.

Now you state the guy bids all the items into the stratosphere, but also say sellers deserve a decent price for the items they sell.  Well, if he is bidding the items up, aren't all other sellers getting good prices?  It is the buyers who are getting hammered.

I can't set a reserve less than £50 (in the UK) and I don't want to deter bidders by setting a higher starting price. So, I would like to set a separate reserve just for the purpose of BIN at £15. The bidding can continue as normal. But the BIN stays in place until the price reaches £15 at which point the BIN is removed. If the bidding doesn't reach £15, it still sells as there isn't a selling reserve.

Does that make sense?  

My thoughts exactly. I hate seeing the "99cent" bidders (that never bid again) kill my BIN.