Sellers ending auctions that are low

[andemoo21]

I was one of the first generations of ebay users but haven't used ebay in years. Recently I participated in a number of auctions as a buyer. I was disappointed to see that sellers routinely create non-minimum auctions which they then abruptly end when the auction doesn’t result in a high enough price…

And worse, ebay seems fine with this.

That not only makes a “minimum bid” auction meaningless, it also removes any incentive I have to go to ebay in the hope of finding anything better than a roughly 30% discount.

Overall ebay appears to have turned into a seller’s service, and I don’t see a point of going here except perhaps to find a specific discontinued product or collectable with the expectation that I will pay close to a market price.

This is not a place for the general public to find good deals anymore. Ebay appears to have become a market for sellers to sell to sellers. On the whole no auction is going to get you an amazing deal: it will have at best a marginal discount… or the auction will suddenly be cancelled with a note the item is “no longer available.”  

[soh.maryl]

What is a "non-minimum auction"?

To the best of my knowledge, every single listing on eBay has to have a starting price.

Or the seller can list his widget as Buy It Now.  

[tobaccocardyahoo · Accepted solution]

In many ways the Ebay auction is obsolete.

Many items sell on one bid.

Sellers rarely pay the fee to have a reserve price, choosing, as you see, to end "auctions" which are not yielding sufficient competition.

I only run auctions where the starting bid is a wholesale price that another reseller might buy at. Most sell, but not all. Many sell on one bid.

My guess is that Ebay would probably want to eliminate auctions because they rarely yield the fees Buy It Now does, but that would eliminate its history and how it differs from other sites. It might also drive away some sellers who come for to steal items.

[buyselljack2016]

You are correct. I do not list my items for buyers to get "a bargain".

I list my items to make money.

To note: I do not cancel sales when I don't get enough for the item.

Sellers that do not get what they want, and then cancel should be penalized.

[woodland_gnome]

It is specifically against the rules for a seller to cancel all bids and end the auction early without a winner IF it is because s/he deliberately set the Starting Price lower than s/he was willing to sell for, and it hasn't reached that high.  This is considered fee avoidance because eBay charges a substantial fee for sellers to have a Reserve Price so they aren't promising to sell as low as their Starting Price.

But there are legitimate reasons why a seller would have to do so, and a few years ago eBay got tired of having to divine the subjective intent of a seller who took that action, so it adopted some procedures that make it less attractive to do so with that intention:  it can only be done before the countdown reaches 12 hours  AND it charges a fee (the FVF% for that seller in that category times the highest cancelled bid) when s/he does so (with the first such fee per calendar year waived to allow for the very occasional legitimate reason for doing so).

[andemoo21]

One with a reserve price.

[andemoo21]

Of course sellers want to make money. And buyers want bargains. Auctions exist to try to raise the best price an item can obtain, but to do so there needs to be enough buyers.

Chasing away buyers by allowing sellers to game the system results in auctions that are tepid at best, because buyers will just go elsewhere, or not buy at all.

Sellers may not lose as much on some auctions, but overall they end up in a system where they make only small profit and must therefore move a lot of product. Ie: they are just running the equivalent of online thrift stores.

Why should I bother visiting ebay when everything there is either overpriced, obsolete junk or is effectively a similar price to what can be purchased via Amazon for less risk and faster delivery? There are some interesting collectibles and antiques, but even those are prone to seller greed, deception or overinflated prices.

Whatever, I suspect this community is mostly an echo chamber of sellers talking amongst themselves, if you folks get value from ebay thats good but it’s certainly no longer a venue I would suggest to the general public. 

[soh.maryl]

But an auction with a reserve price IS exactly a minimum auction.

As in "this is the minimum amount I will take and, no matter how high you bid, if your bid does not meet the reserve price, then I am not obligated to sell it to you. "

As you are aware, the same goal can be accomplished by simply setting the opening bid at a level that will be satisfactory to the seller.  

[mudshark61369]

@andemoo21,

"Recently I participated in a number of auctions as a buyer. I was disappointed to see that sellers routinely create non-minimum auctions which they then abruptly end when the auction doesn’t result in a high enough price…"

If you can still find those auctions, and open them, then check the seller's feedback profiles. I would be willing to bet that they were either new or inexperienced at listing auctions on ebay.  They may have had a fair number of feedback and possibly a 100% rating, but all or mostly for buying not selling.

  Many new/inexperienced sellers take eBay's poor advice to start auctions at a low price to encourage bidding. Then they panic if after a few days the items do not get many bids, and they cancel the auction. Most experienced sellers know that experienced bidders will not bid, until the very end of an auction.  They do that in part to hopefully keep the price low, by not starting bidding wars in the days before an auction ends.

"Overall ebay appears to have turned into a seller’s service, and I don’t see a point of going here except perhaps to find a specific discontinued product or collectable with the expectation that I will pay close to a market price".

eBay did start as a seller service.  They gave sellers an outlet to reach out to prospective buyers far from their location. In the beginning there was never any suggestions on ebay's part, that participating in auctions would result in being able to buy items at bargain prices. That is a relatively new piece of marketing, designed to draw buyers in.  Anyone experienced at buying in the various collectible categories knows the whole idea of auctions is that the seller hopes to get a fair market price for their items, or they would not list the items as auctions. They would use the Buy It Now option, and maybe add Best Offer to them. 

"This is not a place for the general public to find good deals anymore. Ebay appears to have become a market for sellers to sell to sellers. On the whole no auction is going to get you an amazing deal".

Any seller hoping to buy items at auction on ebay at bargain prices so they can turn them over for a profit, will probably waste a lot of time, trying to do that without much success. After all it is buyers who set the market value of most items, not sellers. 

  The only way I usually find items that will sell on ebay at a below market value price, is to look for Item titles that are incomplete, listed in the wrong category, or with misspelled words.  Even then, we know other collectors or those buying for resale, do the same thing and the final price can still end up selling at close to market value.

[monroe67]

OP refers to:  "[An auction] with a reserve price."

and

"Chasing away buyers by allowing sellers to game the system results in auctions that are tepid at best, because buyers will just go elsewhere, or not buy at all."

The OP, as a buyer, may not be aware that sellers are charged a fee by eBay for adding a reserve price to their auctions, which is charged even if the item does not sell.  

An eBay seller who lists an auction with a reserve price and then cancels the auction because the reserve price is not met is not  "gaming the system" even if they think they are or if any potential buyer sees it that way.   

eBay's reserve fee can be very substantial, at 7.5% of the reserve price, with a minimum fee of $5.00 and maximum of $250.00.  Charged -- again -- even if nobody buys the item.  

Unfortunately, a lot of new(er) sellers don't know about this fee either, and then are shocked, I tell you, shocked  that eBay charges them.  They are not "gaming [eBay's] system."  In fact, most of them would probably say they have been played.  

Bottom line, IMO, is that a seller who adds a reserve price to an eBay auction is wasting his/her time and money.  As others have said, wise sellers set their auctions' starting prices at the minimum they would accept for selling the items, and they do not use reserve prices.  

[downunder-61]

Why should I bother visiting ebay when everything there is either overpriced, obsolete junk or is effectively a similar price to what can be purchased via Amazon for less risk and faster delivery? There are some interesting collectibles and antiques, but even those are prone to seller greed, deception or overinflated prices.

 You shouldn't. You as the buyer are in total control over this..........