highsea said:
What you are doing is scamming ebay and the honest bidders. You (and your friend) don't want to pay the reserve fees or the listing fees to protect your investment, so instead you shill for each other. Very unethical behavior.
There is another cue seller who posts here and sells on ebay. His m.o. is to list the cue with no reserve, then if he doesn't get what he wants he ends the auction at the last minute. I have been burned once by this, never again. When I bid on a cue, I do not place a bid on a different one until I am outbid or the auction is ended. If I only have $1000 to spend, I can't bid on 3 cues, can I?
What do you say to the guy who places a bid on your auction, and then missed out on a different item from a seller who really was serious about selling the item? When you make an auction on ebay, you are entering into a contract. You shouldn't do that if you don't intend to uphold your end of it, regardless of whether you will get caught or not. It's just a chickenshit practice. I will never bid on one of your items or your friends, and I hope someone complains to ebay about your practices.
I've explained myself once, but I'll do it again. I'm simply trying to level the playing feild and protect my investment.
If there was a way to put a reseve on an item without the bidders knowing, I'd be more than happy to pay the fees.
I'm not the least bit concerned with the few dollars it would cost. I'd give that much money to anybody who walked up to me on the street and asked for it. I'm worried about the psychological impact those
little blue words at the top of the screen have on bidders.
RESERVE = FEAR = NO BIDDERS. It's as simple as that. Nobody likes knowing they're going to have to pay top dollar to get what they want. Everyone wants something for nothing.
As for ending an auction at the last minute, it's not possible. A seller can hardly touch his listing after the 12 hour mark. I find that especially crazy since ebay is suppossed to be working for him, not the buyers. On top of that, most of the bidding takes place in the last few minutes. It's completely absurd. It's like slapping a straight jacket on the seller. He has to pull a Houdini act just to break even.
What do I say to the bidder who doesn't get a cue because a seller ended his auction early to protect his investment? Tough luck! What do you say to the seller who's forced to sell a $1500 dollar item for $200 just so ebay can collect their final value fees? Why should a seller be forced to sell his goods for peanuts. Ebay is clearly flawed in favor of the buyer. It's not fair, and It's not right.
With that said, what is a seller suppossed to do? Should he continueously run his auction with a reserve, not sell the item, and keep paying the listing fees for nothing, or should he run his auction with no reserve, get cut-up by the scavengers and their low animal cunning, and take a hopelessly blind gamble? It's a textbook catch-22.
If the system wasn't so screwed-up, sellers wouldn't have to protect themselves like they do.
I guess things would be okay if everybody just sold junk they found in their basements as a hobby, but that's not the case. There are thousands of people trying to make ends meet by selling items with subjective values on ebay, and if they don't protect themselves, they're going to starve.
For those of you who don't know, ebay doesn't care about the seller. They're interested in ending auctions, bottom line: boom, boom, boom...Final value fees, final value fees, final value fees. It's the nature of the beast; so, the sellers have to find a way to manuever themselves into a postion of power. That's the way it is; so, we play the hand we're dealt.
Personally, I'm not trying to steal anything from any one. I'm trying to keep people from stealing from me. I don't have to steal. My brain works. I can make my own money. I just want a fair shake at selling my cues.
gets for there merchandise.
