A extended bidding if bids recieved last few minutes type bidding would greatly benifit seller&buyer

[stillmanwi]

I have noticed auctions that have moved to extended bidding formats have greatly increased prices on items.  I have paid a lot more as a wholesaler however in general all auction companies are gravitating towards that style of auction.  I really think if ebay made that option ... eventually no one would use hard close options anymore.  Bid sniping is not very effective with the hard close option. Some buyers may not like it because they need to pay more. However some buyers dont like how ebay auctions just end without an opportunity to keep bidding.  ALL sellers will like soft close. Seems like a fool proof way for ebay to increase margins A LOT without soaking sellers.  If sellers cannot make profits eventually ebay will lose sellers and sales to other platforms or just stopping business all togeather. Ebays keeps thinking of ways to make sellers pay more percentage of their sales in promotions and fees to ebay for selling which I know is costing them sales and driving some of their sellers out of business. I wish ebay would make it easier on sellers by adding features that make sellers able to list more inventory exponentially faster. More listing tools and more shipping tools. They make massive revamps to how things are listed without enough research. Ebay should truly try and list some of their own products .... or a very large assortment of products like the average joe at home ebay store does and they will quickly start realizing what they need to do. Its obvious they dont really do it like most ebay sellers.  Ebay still has a classic niche in dealing with sellers who want to sell single listing type items, some on large scale. there is not too much competition they should capitalize on that before someone else does.  There are many ways ebay can increase its bottem line with its resources without soaking their actual customer which is those that sell on ebay... not as much the people that are buying.  It is the sellers they need to cater to just as much as buyers or they will lose the ultimate source of their revenue.

[pete5454]

Plausible detailed reply - but if it moves like a duck & quacks like a duck - it's a duck. We have extended bidding - why would e-Bay miss out on the chance to get a better commission rate & higher profitability ? Does not make business sense & a better price for seller - though it would be best to be upfront about it  is my personal view - thank you, Peter ps. I buy & bid quite a bit on eBay - this does not always occur but when it does its very noticeable

[pete5454]

Hi Blame the computer clock my end - that makes no sense as I was monitoring the e-Bayay countdown clock. All other auctions I have been involved with this does not happen. It only happens when there are multiple interested parties. at the close. Just wish ebay would be up front with this - then we all know. I do not use Bid napper or the like as I feel an auction is an auction & you should be there to bid. From a selling angle you most probably want as many interested parties / or software at close of auction to max price & profit for e-Bay & seller. The e-Bay clock displayed to me was what I based my info on - till the close - it was artificially extended by e-Bay - Why would e-Bay not do this ? Peter

[pete5454]

Hi - Seller wants to max a profit or return Buyer wants a bargain - hence the soft close when bidders come late to the party helps e-Bay & seller - don't mind as long as we know, Peter

[eburtonlab]

Blame the computer clock my end - that makes no sense as I was monitoring the e-Bayay countdown clock.

The countdown you were looking at was based on your computer's time; if your computer's time is not synchronized, the countdown can be wrong.

Check your computer's time here to see:

https://time.is/

[a_c_green]

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@pete5454 wrote:

The e-Bay clock displayed to me was what I based my info on - till the close - it was artificially extended by e-Bay - Why would e-Bay not do this ? Peter

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Because the "eBay clock" you were looking at is generated by your computer, based on what your computer thinks the time is, relative to the exact time that eBay says the auction will end. eBay will send the exact end time to your computer, and your computer does its own calculation for generating that countdown-to-zero time.

For example, let's say that the auction is shown to be ending at exactly Noon: 12:00:00. If your computer's clock is running 15 seconds fast, it will show the auction hitting zero 15 seconds too soon. This will be followed by a 15-second delay (what you see as an "extended" bidding time) before eBay pushes the final result page to your computer, during which time others may get a later bid or two down.

Conversely, if your computer's clock is running 15 seconds slow, it will show the auction hitting zero 15 seconds too late. That is, if you're planning to place a snipe bid when 10 seconds are remaining, you will find yourself blocked out because the auction ended 5 seconds ago.

Others have shown you the link for synchronizing your computer's time in previous posts so I don't think we need to revisit that, but what you might try is to compare your computer's exact time setting with some other known-accurate source, such as a smartphone with a seconds display. I think you will find that there are enough seconds of discrepancy between your computer and the actual time to make last-second bidding difficult.