Ebay site changes for the worst

[I.M. OUTAHEREParticipant @i-m-outahere]

.A few years back i was in the market for a new brush cutter and was trawling around on ebay to see if i could dig up a good deal , i found a local seller of Chinese made machinery that was selling what i wanted as well as putting the same machine up on auction with a starting bid of a dollar . I had a look at their ebay shop and noted down the buy now price and put a bid in that was $50 less than the buy now price , i lost that one as a few other bidders beat me but one was happy to pay a price that was higher than the buy now price from the ebay shop! I noted down the name of that bidder ( or what ebay didn’t cover up with an asterisk) and went on to the next auction with the same result and surprise surprise the highest bidder did exactly the same thing and had the same name so i thought three times a charm and placed another bid with the same result . All the other bidders must have been doing the same thing as me and placed a bid just shy of the buy now price except this one bidder which i now suspected as being the seller trying to bump up the price and catch out any unaware bidders who didn’t know there was a shop where they could just order the machine and pick it up . I reported this to ebay but never heard anything of it and in the end i just bought the brush cutter from their shop.

I have seen this behaviour before at live auctions where the people that work there start bidding to drive the price up so i avoid them these days and with ebay i look at something that interests me and think about what it’s real value is and what it is worth to me and that is what i bid , sometimes i win sometimes i loose !

One thing i detest about ebay is that they allow overseas sellers to state that the item is local stock when they are clearly based overseas , it becomes tiring to have to check every sellers real location and i would rather that they just tell the truth and say where the item really is located – at least with banggood i know it is coming out of somewhere in China and it will take a few weeks to get here!

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by XD 351 on 18/09/2019 15:56:28:

One thing i detest about ebay is that they allow overseas sellers to state that the item is local stock when they are clearly based overseas , it becomes tiring to have to check every sellers real location and i would rather that they just tell the truth and say where the item really is located – at least with banggood i know it is coming out of somewhere in China and it will take a few weeks to get here!

Long story… some of these overseas sellers use UK-based fulfilment houses.

Following a number of major unpaid VAT 'issues' where sellers ran up a quarter's VAT bill on UK sales then 'disappeared' the HMRC has come down hard and made the fulfilment houses responsible for the VAT if the seller doesn't cough up .

The result being that the prices of these items has risen somewhat.

At least that's my understanding.

Neil

[Ian Skeldon 2Participant @ianskeldon2]

Err what is shillin ?

[Dave Shield 1Participant @daveshield1]

Old money

[Ian ParkinParticipant @ianparkin39383]

Its when the seller gets friends or acquaintances to bid on their auctions to drive the price up

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember19781]

[This posting has been removed]

[David Standing 1Participant @davidstanding1]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 18/09/2019 00:18:39:

The best technique is to wait until about three seconds from he auction closing, and bid what you genuinely feel is the most the item is worth to you.

if someone beats that using a 'sniping' program, good luck to them.

Neil

Exactly how I bid, and it frequently works. I bid so late I can't up my maximum bid if outbid, even if I want to, because I probably shouldn't!

[Ian Skeldon 2Participant @ianskeldon2]

Ahh thank you Ian and Bill.

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