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 Replies: 17 / Views: 4,975 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1590 Posts |
After almost a year away from selling on ebay, I posted some new auctions and noticed that the "3 day" auction is no longer free. I wondered why this would be, and the only answer I could come up with is that there are fewer auctions on ebay, and they are trying to make the volume look artificially large. Looking at Lincoln Wheat Cents, I noted that there were about 55,000 coins up for sale. When you took the BIN out; it reduced the number to about 8000. When you sampled that number you found that about half of those are commercial sellers with high starting prices, or lot sellers. The rest are what I would consider hobby sellers. Combining multiple sales per seller and it becomes apparent that there are only a 200 to 400 non commercial sellers, at any one time, selling Lincoln Wheat Cents. I also saw a thread on here where commercial sellers were saying auctions are a thing of the past and that they just have to wait long enough for a buyer to come along. I've seen a lot of these same coins, time after time, month after month; and in some cases year after year. And the reason most of them don't sell, is that there are still enough auctions where the sell price can be half, or better, than the BIN's. A lot of the BINs are higher than what I sell in my shop. Much higher in many cases. I guess it is a case of sellers who want to sell one coin for high retail than 20 coins at low retail. I know that sellers are getting frustrated with ebay and all their cost. I know that with fewer true auctions buyers are getting frustrated with ebay because of all the high coin prices ( after all dont' you come to ebay to get a DEAL? If you wanted to pay retail, you could go to a LCS or a show). My question is: are we finally seeing the twilight of ebay as an Auction site? Has ebay priced itself out of business by being too greedy and punishing sellers? |
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Rest in Peace
United States
17900 Posts |
Many of the consistently best sellers start every auction at 99 cents and it is OFTEN the case that the closing price is higher than many BIN for the "same" coin.
Patience is required for nice items selling at auction rather than BIN or BO. But there are many tens of thousands of auctions closing every day. If you can't find what you want at auction, consider expanding your want list.
Auctions are alive and well for sellers with good pictures, low starting prices, and who promptly answer any questions and ship quickly.
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Pillar of the Community
 Canada
5397 Posts |
The day of the .99 coin auction are long over. BIN / BEST OFFER for coins is the new reality if you do this for a living.
List it forget it. The secret of being a successful coin dealer is treating customers well and selling nice coins at competitive prices. Also you have to buy right if you are going to be profitable.
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Moderator
United States
54282 Posts |
One day listings use up 7 times the computer resources than a 7 day listing. Three day listings use up 2.3 times the computer resources than a 7 day listing. Computer resources being listing addition processing, listing ending processing, invoice processing, etc. Although reducing those duration listings might save ebay a bit of money, they are willing to CHARGE people that insist on them. So it is a WIN-WIN (for ebay). Show your financial support of the Coin Community Family (click here)See my topic on Mexican Numismatic Medals (click here) |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1590 Posts |
Moxking; I have to agree that starting an auction at a high starting price is a great way NOT to sell something, or to sell it at slightly higher than the starting price. My most successful auctions were started at .99 cents. They far outweigh the auctions where I lost money. Probably at a hundred to one. I've been a dealer for a few decades now. Like most dealers I buy most of my Lincolns for 2 to 5 cents each. For me it is all about making a profit. Not selling at RedBook or CoinWorld prices. If I buy 200 Lincolns for $4 and sell them for $200; I'm a happy camper. And I do this inside of a month. Now I do sell high grade and more desirable coins for a better price, but I price my coins to sell. NSS-52; my "other" job is in IT. It is all a matter of storage. Processing is so negligible that I don't know any IT manager that worries about it, or uses it in cost analysis. It could potentially cost more only if you have more data that needs to be stored than you have servers or hard drives available. Longer duration auctions lead to more data storage. Most of that is mute as the amount of storage is static. It is kinda like the gas tank in your car. Whether it is empty or full; it is still there and cost you no more, nor less than when you originally bought your car. It only cost you more when you have more gas to store than you tank can handle and you have to buy a spare gas can. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1211 Posts |
OP: I don't see a correlation to your premise as compared to the argument you make. Also, the " ebay is greedy" argument is tired. Try selling anything and reaching such a wide market with a lower operating cost. |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
5397 Posts |
Jerseyben .......so true. Also you even get some free record keeping with ebay and PayPal. The cost is cheap compared to what my bricks and mortar used to cost. Most sellers who do the whining are not too good at business math. |
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Moderator
United States
54282 Posts |
Quote:
It is kinda like the gas tank in your car. Whether it is empty or full; it is still there and cost you no more, nor less than when you originally bought your car. It only cost you more when you have more gas to store than you tank can handle and you have to buy a spare gas can. I think it is like that -- longer duration listings mean less trips to the gas station. Every listing takes up a bit of storage. ebay has to keep that listing stored for a fixed period of time. Longer listings mean LESS total listings. So I think it does save them storage, or the need to buy more storage (gas cans). Show your financial support of the Coin Community Family (click here)See my topic on Mexican Numismatic Medals (click here) |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1590 Posts |
JerseyBen. I agree it was a bit convoluted. The Premise is that ebay started charging for 3 day auctions as a way of compensating for lower absolute numbers of sellers. For example lets say that at time "1" ebay; has 100,000 items in a given category on sale at that instant. The perception is that ebay is successful and "the" premium auction site. At time "2"; ebay has 50,000 items in a given category, on sale at that instant. The perception would then be that ebay is no longer such a great place to shop. The answer? Extend auction durations so that at time "3+" there are 75,000 items in a given category, on sale at that instant. This appears to be what is happening, and a sampling of the data seem to show a positive correlation to that hypothesis. The why is part of the rest of the argument. How many businesses have worked themselves out of business through excessive greed? Saying a silver dollar is silver may be tired, but it is none the less true no matter how tired a listener is of hearing it. As a matter of disclosure; I have been a collector for 51 years. I have been a dealer part and full time for 45 years. I have a net worth that puts me in the top 8 percent of all Americans; which I feel reflects well on my business acumen. I have degree's in Aerospace Engineering and Mathematics. I worked in retail as the Chief Internal Investigator, for a national retailer; for 12 years. I also worked as an Intelligence Analyst for the Military. I currently work part time for the Government in IT. Edited by jmkendall
04/05/2016 2:14 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1699 Posts |
It could be that ebay knows that longer listings lead to higher final prices. Whether you believe it or not, ebay does want to help sellers. So, discouraging shorter auction listings is their way of giving you "business advice". Also, I assume 1-day auctions aren't charged? Could be because it's a sacred selling technique for many sellers. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7375 Posts |
I have an ebay store, and tried to list something last week for a 1 day auction, and they wanted to charge me a dollar. I see approx the same amount of auctions, maybe a few less, but it does seem the .99 auctions are fewer, and the starting price for the auctions has risen. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1326 Posts |
It seems that established sellers can trust the bidding process on ebay ... maybe enough to use 0.99 opening bids. But for less established sellers, it seems very risky. |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
4593 Posts |
If you think ebay doesn't have all the data, does constant big-data analytics and A/B testing, you are fooling yourself. And if you think there is ANYTHING they won't do to increase revenue and the stock price, again fooling yourself. http://www.wsj.com/articles/ebay-re...e-1453929766Jan 27, 2016... "The San Jose, Calif., online marketplace on Wednesday reported $2.32 billion in sales in the fourth quarter, virtually flat with a year earlier and the fourth staright quarter without growth. Profit dropped by more than half to $477 million." -----Burton 50+ year / Life / Emeritus ANA member (joined 12/1/1973) Life member: Numismatics International, CONECA Member: TNA, FtWCC, NETCC, EveryCountry (online) coin club Owned by three cats and a wife of 40+ years (joined 1983) Author: 3rd Edition of the Sample Slabs book, https://www.sampleslabs.info/ |
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Valued Member
United States
343 Posts |
Oh darn only half a billion PROFIT.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10982 Posts |
Quote:
Oh darn only half a billion PROFIT. Indeed. $477 million divided by $2.32 billion in gross revenue yields a net profit margin of 20.6%! Those are strong utility company type margins and Paypal was the big profit center all along anyway! Quote:
...Profit dropped by more than half to $477 million Apples to oranges. 4Q14 was ebay & Paypal combined. 4Q15 was ebay - Paypal as they were separate companies. Certainly the gist of the comment is correct though. Corporations exist to maximize shareholder equity. All else is secondary. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10038 Posts |
The ebay is greedy argument is not fantasy. And I was a math teacher! The problem is context. Yes, the market you reach is wider than anything else and so people who were not around when ebay started out think people are nuts for saying ebay is greedy. However... I was around close to when they started out. How they became a giant was they made it so inexpensive to sell something compared with the percentages of current prices. I kept a LOT more money from an ebay sale as compared to today. They used to allow you to contact anyone through their personal email address. So when I had multiple of one item, I generally made 3 or 4 sales at the closing auction price of the original winner b/c I contacted the other sellers who had bid close o the ending price. ebay allowed this, OK'd it, and got nothing from it... but did not care. They were becoming a giant by allowing such perks. It was the over-friendly atmosphere that made them their empire. When they aquired Paypal, those of us who were around figured they would do wht any business that desiures to become greater would do and, since they now owned it, would offer the services as a perk. Remember, the company was growing by leaps and bounds from a garage-born business into a world changing giant - and ti was because almost everyoine using ebay LOVED the system and so used it often. Then when they started selling stock, the entire system changed. prices went up, percentage of the take for ebay went up, no more contacting multiple sellers unless ebay got their cut also, and then their putting their nose into private affairs by automatically reporting profits to the IRS were just some of the "wonderful" changes they made. The issue I have with them auto-reporting profits is NOT about honesty in reporting income. The issue I have is that I don't want or need a nanny. I am a big boy now. My business is my own - they need to keep their nose out of it to make me happy. Yes... they HAVE the RIGHT to do these things since its their business. But the ebay of today is a LOT more greedy than the company they used to be when they were growing. Their growth was a typical example of what REAL (not today's media-tainted definition is) Capitalism can do and how it works. But now that stockholders are wanting their monthly pay, there are too many fingers in the pie, and the service ebay provides simply from market exposure (unfortunately) is the best available. Today's ebay is a lot more greedy and controlling than when ebay was loved by all its users. You did not hear complaining back then. When you heard the name ebay it was always on a context, of "Wow! This place is great!" And they also used to listen to us sellers. I have not used it to sell for years now b/c it is so terrible compared to what it was. They spoiled me. |
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Replies: 17 / Views: 4,975 |
Posted 04/05/2016 11:30 am
