Locked
Discussion interactions are currently paused.
eBay Testing Extended "Soft-Close" Auctions For Trading Cards
FYI - it looks like eBay is testing extended soft-close auctions on select items in Trading Cards.
https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/bidding/bidding?id=4003
"We're currently testing extending auction durations by 2 minutes when a bid is placed in the last 2 minutes of an auction. This test will apply to select items in the Trading Cards category. Please make sure you're on the latest version of the app to see this feature."
It's not clear exactly when the test started, but a version of that page from the Internet Archive dated June 21st does not show the banner, so it would appear to be a very recent change.
28 comments
kh-tuna
·9 months agoHi everyone,
Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.
Thank you for understanding.
animal-house-8
·9 months agoInteresting but kinda makes no sense, if you are willing to only pay say $20 for a card you put in $20 if you get it great if you don't great you did not over pay your allowance. Just needlessly drags the auction out for no reason cause the card is going to sell for the same price. Everyone has a price point and that's what they are going to bid whether there is a 2 min rule or not.
cardfolk
·9 months agoBOO!! this is not Barrett Jackson and this is not the way they have handled auctions historically.
Psychologically it just makes buyers trigger happy and spend more than they should. Our fight, flight, freeze response used to be for predators, rival clans and environment , now it's for FOMO and poor investment decisions based on hype and excitement. At least with the traditional auctions you have days to decide if this is something you truly need or want.
2010byandsel100
·1 year agoas a nuclear sniper, I HATE this idea.
gonna' cost me more money as the 'extra minute' buyers try to reach my $$
if I start losing out on things I really want, I may stop bothering with auctions altogether
wwolst12
·1 year agoAs a life-long antique dealer, and seller on eBay for 27years of antiques, art, and collectibles, I just want to say that we would absolutely LOVE eBay to switch to soft-endings! If anyone from eBay is reading this, PLEASE REACH OUT TO US!! (eBay Seller ID: WWOLST12)
If this beta program extends to other categories, we would LOVE to be part of it. We have a steady flow of auctions listed at all times and a massive following of repeat bidders (many of whom have expressed wanting soft-endings), so I think we could be a really good fit to test this out. I would BEG to be part of a beta program when or if it happens!
To be honest, Trading Cards are literally one of the WORST categories to choose for this program. Collectibles like this, where hundreds of each card are available at any time, and upgradable ect..already have an approximate "fixed-value" so bidders are not going to drive up the sale price to something crazy because they can always just go find another one if they miss out on the auction. HOWEVER, items like what we sell...unique, one-of-a-kind, rare, original works of art ect... these items are worth what people are willing to pay. Collectors with deep pockets will pay significantly more than something is "worth" simply because they absolutely NEED to have it, and their chances of finding another one are slim. So please pass this valuable information on to the right people as well. Dealers of eclectic and unique collectibles, art, and antiques are the ones who should be testing this program (And also who are familiar with Soft-Endings already, because SO MANY auction houses already use them.)
Lisa Barry
eBay Seller ID: WWOLST12
onefootflipper
·1 year agoOk, lets be real about a few things.
Ebay hasn't been about auctions in many years. Nothing they do do AUCTIONS is going to "kill ebay".
This probably has way more to do with trying to boost up the modern high end sports card category which is both in decline and is one at which prices seem to be almost random, every card of value is of such limited production that it is essentially a 1 off sale of a product that will never come to market again.
The high end modern sports card market is cyclic by nature as longerm it burns all the customers as everything looses value over time and it takes a new set of customers with fresh money and fresh dreams of riches to reignite the category again to spend thousands of dollars on those 1/1 rookie cards that will lose almost all their value over the next decade.
roccotacodad54
·1 year agoWell I hope this doesn't spread to other categories. Probably half of the items I buy are on auctions.
Vintage things. I didn't like to see eBay Live come along but so far it doesn't seem to for the things I'm interested in.
If they start doing soft close auctions on the things I want that will be a real game changer for me. I don't like bidding wars and get no satisfaction from them. Soft endings will just make it worse.
Gues I'll just keep my fingers crossed and see what happens.
On another site with soft endings I sometimes put in a bid but if someone extends the auction I almost always just move on and not buy unless the price is still low enough to warrant the aggravation..........
short_circuit.lineman61
·1 year agothe soft close is how all the online auctions other than ebay operate but they have some major differences,
If you are the winning bidder you are expected to pay! If you cancel the payment method, file a charge back, dont pick your items up, complain about something lost or damaged in shipping or annoy the seller in any way you will be summarily black balled from future auctions on that platform.
They also let the seller see the buyers max bid which I think is crazy.
chapeau-noir
·1 year agoJamie...Jamie...Jamie... Stop throwing stuff at the wall.
tobaccocardyahoo
·1 year agoThe Ebay auction is an endangered species.
An Ebay without auctions would have no identity.
Ebay will probably try every change that has ever existed in any auction to keep the Ebay auction alive.
Whatever they try will disturb some number of Ebayers, and the numbers will probably make the decision for Ebay management.
As Clark Gable said "Frankly, my dear ..."
valueaddedresource
OP1 year agoThanks for that explanation @a_c_green , that makes a lot of sense. And thanks for that old thread, I suspect we'll see much the same reaction to this latest test too.
Funny in your response back then you mentioned that it likely wouldn't take much time for enterprising individuals to create programs to automatically keep the bidding going.
I've seen more than a few suggestions across social media already today that popular sniping programs will likely just build in a feature to make a bid at the last second, then another bid 1 min 59 sec after that etc. so yeah...you were right on the money. 😂
a_c_green
·1 year agoYes, I spent a few decades in the tech industry, and I can assure you that whenever someone comes up with a new idea, someone else will have already coded a solution to either take advantage of it or totally subvert it, one way or another. 😆
doc-holmes
·1 year agoOh, what an absolute pain.
short_circuit.lineman61
·1 year agoonline auctions like hibid also allow the seller to see what the bidders max bid is, I wonder if they will adopt that feature also.
cardsforauction
·1 year agoThat would be game over for some buyers. What's the point of bidding if the seller ( or associates of the seller) know your max bid? This opens up to shill bidding, fake bids to raise prices on buyers. I would be cautious to bid on items, if the prices always went to my max bid or more.
selsa84
·1 year agoDefinitely would hurt eBay in the long run. Resellers may get priced out by collectors who won't resell the item on eBay. Shill bidding will become the norm. I'm just hoping they don't do this with books.
short_circuit.lineman61
·1 year agobecause it would increase ebay revenue
chapeau-noir
·1 year ago*If* these 'buyers' even pay.
selsa84
·1 year agoOnly in the short run. I think it would hurt them in the long run.
bennotbill
·1 year agoExtending auction times..
This will END badly.😀
I don't think the ebay "auction style" is suitable for this. It isn't at all like a live auction. If this were to spread across the ebay auction format I think it would be the auctions death knell. That would inevitably follow after endless complaints. Top would be the end of sniping, and sellers twiddling their thumbs - when is my auction going to end.
selsa84
·1 year agoNo no no. This is a horrible idea. The end is nigh.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·1 year ago@valueaddedresource Good catch. It will be interesting to see if this goes from test to feature. And then it will be interesting to see if it is limited to trading cards, or to "focus categories", or will it be universal on the site.
Time will tell.
Who knows? Maybe this will give them something to announce at Vegas.
valueaddedresource
OP1 year agoAlso worth noting that eBay already does something similar for auctions run through eBay Live , where sellers have the option to enable extended bidding which adds an extra 5 seconds if a bid is placed in the last 5 seconds of the auction.
Not sure if the test on regular auctions is at the sellers' discretion, but if they do decide to extend this test or roll it out sitewide, hopefully they will allow it to be an option for sellers like it is on eBay Live, not mandatory.
cardsforauction
·1 year agoI think they did this test in the past, because I've bid at the last few seconds and then time was supposed to run out and then suddenly a few more seconds was added on and I lost the item in some cases. I don't see how this is good for bidders. This is a benefit for sellers only and that's the point. As a buyer, I can care less if the auction is labeled "hot auction" and then many bidders show up and raise the price. I guess every seller is going to set up this auction style just like the Auto-pay.
valueaddedresource
OP1 year ago@cardsforauction yeah it's tough to say for sure.
We've seen occasional posts here in the community from buyers who are frustrated that someone else was able place a bid a few seconds after the auction was supposed to have ended and they have usually been chalked up to either a glitch or just lag time in eBay loading/refreshing the page - just one recent example:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-a-Mentor/ebay-buyer-for-30-years-and-I-m-livid/m-p/35150372
Generally speaking, I think that explanation probably holds true for the vast majority of instances where buyers have encountered that issue.
It's of course always possible they have run previously undisclosed testing on this as well, but in that case I would think it would likely extend the auction more than a few seconds, given that this test uses 2 minute increments.
I know the eBay Live version is much shorter at only 5 seconds, but that's a livestream auction where buyers are "in attendance" and actively participating in real time which is a very different thing from a standard auction on eBay and I don't think such a short period of time would really work for standard auctions.
a_c_green
·1 year agoThe problem is actually more clear than that. The Time Remaining countdown is based on the difference between the stated End Time of the auction and your own computer's clock time setting. That's intended to eliminate the risk of lag time messing up the final countdown as seen on your own machine. The ticking seconds of countdown are generated locally on your machine, not sent down the line to you in real time.
If your computer clock is running a little faster than the actual time, then the Time Remaining will show a little less than it should. Worse, if your computer clock is running behind the actual time, then the auction may have already ended when you try to get a last-second snipe bid into play. Thus it's important to verify that your computer clock time is accurate by synchronizing it with one of the available time sources on-line.
Yes, the open-outcry style of live auctions is certainly done as a soft-close operation (and that 5 seconds of time extension corresponds to roughly how long it takes for an auctioneer to say "Going... going... *whack* Gone!"). But trying to apply that same soft close to a time-limited on-line auction strikes me as a recipe for disaster.
Here's the thread from 2017 where this idea was discussed to death. My response is #7 in the conversation below:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Extend-the-auction-by-three-minutes-when-a-bid-is-placed-with-in/m-p/27697162#M1079366
dhbookds
·1 year agolol..........so some people have asked for this forever........will be interesting to see what happens.
short_circuit.lineman61
·1 year agothe sport bidders are going to love this, they will be able to just keep on bidding.