Grrrrrr! Another eBay seller rant on a Gillette Vest Pocket Vienna set

So the seller lists this and it's immediately added to my watchlist. It was an auction, not a Buy It Now. These Gillette's just are very rare. 3 days to go in the auction today and I see it at the end of my eBay watchlist as having ended and sold for $40. I'm thinking, how can that be.. it was an auction, not a Buy It Now, and it had 3 days left.

Then I see on that other "forum" a thread from someone who made the seller a $40 offer, seller changed it to a Buy It Now auction and it sold.

eBay Sellers: If you're willing to accept an offer, please add that option to the damn auction listing.

And while yeah, I'm annoyed about not getting this razor, the seller is probably even more annoyed since I informed the seller the razor would have went for $100 to $300 had he let the auction ride. Being that the tin case was in such great shape, I could have seen it easily going for $200+ as these are just so rare.

Anyway, end rant mode.

Pictures:

 

So, if you would have put a bid of some kind on it, let's say $50.00, would the seller have been able to cancel the sale on you and switch to BIN?

Anything that I am ever interested in, I immediately plunk down my highest dollar bid, and usually, I get beat by less than a buck in the last second of the auction. I do not use snipe-ware or anything like that, I just slap down what the most I am willing to spend and see what happens.

 

I have never done this with Razor's. But that's how I got my new boxed 32GB Zune Hd. I guess the lady I got if from won it at some Microsoft convention.

Some people just don't care, they just want some cash ASAP. I just made an offer and they took it. I think I've done it a couple of times.

"El que no corre vuela"

 

The trouble with putting your bid in at the beginning of an Ebay auction is that it gives people a mark to bid against. Also, they have a few days to talk themselves into going higher than they might have originally intended.

About the private offers sent to sellers, it really should be against Ebay's rules. Frankly, I'm surprised it's not, since they keep such tight control on pretty much every other aspect of buyer/seller communications & transactions.

Actually, I can't believe there are sellers dumb enough to fall for the early offer thing....but apparently there are.

 

these images are good for the heart, really beautiful!

 

I always put in a last second snipe to avoid bidding wars, but I guess this is the downside of that. Didn't know about this Gillette Vest Pocket model, or that it was that rare and valuable. I've seen the German brands of similar design, and got a rather nice Lunawerk one for about $17.00.

Saw what must have been that other thread you mentioned, but he didn't say that he'd made a BIN offer to end an auction early. I understand why you're annoyed, but if it's within eBay rules, what can you do? I haven't sold anything on eBay yet, but I think an early offer like this might set off alarm bells for me if I did. A more alert seller might have closed the auction entirely in order to do more research.

 

If there ANY bids the auction can't be changed to an Buy-it-Now.. so no harm in putting a low bid on it.

That said, I've done exactly what the seller did albeit with camera gear.. I had a lens up for auction. It had a bunch of people watching it. I got an offer from someone who was traveling and wanted the lens to arrive before the auction end date and the offer was acceptable.

I see no harm in do this. If you are REALLY interested in an item, don't wait to bid on it. If you're casual about it, expect that it can be yanked before the end of the auction...

 

Then that someone got exactly what he deserved for being both smart and proactive - a $200-$300 razor for only $40 (btw - just who determines what a razor is worth? Is there a "Kelly Razor Blue Book" or is it simply speculation driven?). It also goes to show what can be a very effective buying strategy on eBay. Crowing about such purchases on the Internet, including how the seller missed out, is a really dumb thing for a buyer to do, IMHO. It could quite possibly mean fewer such bargains in the future.

eBay auctions are about making a deal, not catering to someone else's notions of fair play. It never hurts to ask, and creative wheeling and dealing can result in some very good bargains. If that fantastic find, gotta have razor comes up for sale, why not go for it? The worst that can happen is the seller says No.

For those who prefer things a little less rough-and-tumble, there are always the marketplaces on the various wetshaving forums. One may not get the deal of a lifetime, but one can also avoid a fair amount of aggravation.

 

I don't fault the guy who made the offer.

I do fault the seller because it goes against Ebay's rules (I assume...).

I expect if someone were to put in a complaint in to Ebay about a seller who has ended an auction early like this, then that seller would be cautioned or maybe even excommunicated:shocked003 from that site.

I had a situation recently where I had won a pretty cool blade bank for a low opening bid. Next thing I knew, the seller sent a message saying the item was broken - I don't believe for a minute that it was, I think the seller knew it was worth more than what I'd won it for & didn't want to give it to me for that price. I almost asked them to email a photo to prove it was really broken, but really, how much energy does a person want to put into something like that?

 

Like I said.. if you're a seller and you're willing to take offers, then add the MAKE OFFER option to the listing. Otherwise if you list it as an auction only then let it ride to the end.

 

Were there already bids cast against this item when the seller switched to a BIN? The reason I ask is that it used to be once the first bid was cast the seller had crossed the Rubicon and couldn't change the auction to a BIN. Ebay rules didn't allow it--supposedly.

 

I can't think of any reason someone would/could complain. Because they didn't win an auction on an auction site? There are a thousand techniques and styles to winning and buying on ebay and just as many for selling.

Assuming it went down as you describe, no rules were broken. You can revise an auction at any time while the auction is active.. As long as there are no bids, you can do whatever you want including change the start price, add or remove a reserve, or end it early for any reason (including changing it to a BiN auction with or without a ready buyer in the wings). But once the first bid is cast the auction is locked with the exception of revising the description and posting answers to bidders questions...

 

if im selling something and i get a "would you take this for it" first thing that goes through my minds if this person is willing to make an offer to buy it before it ends..how much is it really worth.

 

ebay is also like the Wild West anything goes sometimes. even if there are bids IIRC the seller can just cancel the auction until the last 12 or 24 hrs at which time i think its locked in. its a crap shoot.

 

Exactly!

 

While it may not be the smartest move for a seller to accept the early offer, it certainly isn't against the rules..

Plus, there are plenty of sellers who aren't looking to wring the last penny out of the sale price.. some just want to see the item sold...

 

That is definitely true for some sellers. Many auctions are for-profit businesses rather than hobbies or merely getting rid of old junk.

An acquaintance of mine used to sell on eBay, and all he really cared about was the total profit in the long run, not the profit per item. Although he did like getting the maximum price for an item, moving inventory was often more important to the bottom line.

 

I'm not certain that that is true. If it is, it makes a mockery of the idea of an organized auction.

 

Well... a quick review of the rules and restrictions to ending an auction early yields, in part, this...

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"Your ability to end a listing early depends on the amount of time remaining in the listing and whether the listing has received any bids.

If there are 12 hours or more before the end of the listing, you can end the listing early without restrictions. If there are any bids on your item when you end the listing, you’ll be asked whether you want to cancel the bids or sell the item to the high bidder.


If there are 12 hours or less before the end of the listing, your ability to end the listing early depends on whether there are any bids on the item and whether the item has a reserve price.


Number of bids on the item
Can the listing be ended early?
No bids, including no canceled bids. Yes, as long as there aren't any cancelled bids.
1 or more bids. Yes, but you must sell the item to the high bidder.
1 or more bids, but the item's reserve price wasn't met. No.
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In it's early days ebay was certainly organized for the purpose of auctions.. now I see it more organized for the purpose of revenue for ebay and the rules for auctions are more focused at generating this revenue than moving merchandise. But that's just my humble opinion

 

MikekiM -Thanks for clarifying the situation.

Their free & easy attitude in this department is surprising considering their ever tightening restrictions on every other aspect of buyer/seller transactions.

Ebay has become a real pain in the a$$ to deal with compared to what it used to be.
Your final comment is interesting. Recently someone was telling me that ebay is now focusing on sellers like Walmart & other big box stores, rather than small sellers. As you say, maximizing revenue is the aim - understandable, I suppose.