I've been a fan and a shopper on e bay for a lot of years now, and I always found it a great place to bike shop, among other things.

But it seems to have changed these days. Almost everything bike related is now BIN or Best Offer. Where are the bids? Where are the fun ones that started at a dollar, or other very low starting point? There is little drama left on the site these days. Now, if you see something, just click and buy it now. Not much fun IMHO, and your not likely to find a bargain there anymore either.

Anybody else feel this way?

The whole auction bidding thing isn't my thing. It's not "fun" to me at all. If I want something, I want to buy it, not guess how much it is- and fight someone else for the privilege of "winning" it.


If I "win" something, I don't pay for it.


With BIN or Best Offer stuff- I can decide if I want it at that price, or put down how much it's worth to me. No competition to drive up prices.

I just wait till I see a BIN that I like.

For example, the Swift bag I was going to purchase last spring was now available for $40 less than the listed price.

Same bag, same new condition.

Not too shabby.

Part of it (for me) is the fees. I use to sell some stuff here and there on the bay. I could throw something up there with a cheap starting price and a basic ad and get a decent amount of bids and sell it for a acceptable price. Once and a while something I sold went for a little less than I thought it was worth, but I didn't really care because I had basically nothing invested in the ad and so taking a little less for it was not the end of the world. Gradually it seemed like ebay started charging more and more for the ad and pictures and promoting the ad and whatnot. Now if you want a decent ad it'll be a few bucks more. That doesn't sound like much, but if the thing you're selling is only worth ~$40 and you've already invested $5 on an ad, having it only get $35 at auction means you've lost 25% of the value of the item just trying to sell it. I guess people now aren't willing to take that risk and would just rather price it where they think it should be and if someone want it they'll pay for it.

For me, the point of a bid was to find something that started out at a low price, and then get it for that low price because the seller couldn't drum up interest. Bingo! Solid deal for me with the euphoric feeling of winning. The "art of the deal" so to speak. And I've been on the other end of the stick to, with wild bidding wars on something you really wanted. I love that to. It's part of what made e bay such a hit IMHO.

Those type of deals are being lost now, and the site isn't much fun now...

I hear a lot of complaints about the fees.

Maybe they should have lower fees for people putting their goods up for bid and higher fees for those who just stick them on BIN...

If they did that I might start selling on there again.

I feel you on one side, but I also understand the flip side of providing BINs for 30 days and finding your exact "match". Since I don't buy much on there these days, the BIN for 30 appeals to me. My last few auctions - the first in nearly a year - went low. Perhaps, had I listed BIN for 30, the right person would've seen it, thought "I've gotta have that right now" and voila, more money

I used to have fun with the thrill of "winning" right at the last minute with a manual snipe bid, but like lots of things it wore off. I won an item or two for the opening .99 bid, got some great deals because the description sucked...you know, the typical things that can happen with an auction format. But now I just see it as a clearinghouse for my excess spare parts. I must be getting less sentimental and more pragmatic as I slowly approach that six-foot-deep hole in the earth!

DD

On, some things, I like the bidding. But other times, I just want what I want now, not a few days after the auction ends next week.

In the beginning, 10 years ago, I started auctions at $1. A couple ended at $1. That got old fast. The time to list and ship is most definitely not worth a dollar to me.

If I sell on ebay, which is few and far between lately, I'd rather go to a swap, I start the auction at a bin price. If I get more, great. If I don't, I don't care.

Good topic and I'm calling it specific to those listing bikes on that auction site. My peave is those sellers who auction list a bike, no reserve and no b.i.n. and then pull the auction after a bid.

For buyers today, the game is using snipe resources or just wait for the ebay notification an auction is ending and then manually snipe. I get it, so big deal sellers, get used to it.

Though, getting back to the seller. I'll put my opening bid in early and then later, no one is bidding but maybe a few are watching. What seems to be the trend, that seller pulls the auction! The lame reason they give is always of incorrect description. Not calling anyone here specifically out of doing it but I know of one from another forum. Its a small world in the rare bikes so it's fairly easy to figure that out. This is not a one time occurrence. It's happened twice on me and I don't like the tactic. I've also followed, not bid on a few others. They pull the same stunt. What are they doing, show and tell, test market??

And another is trying to communicate through the ebay contact system. Like its a big secret or something. Its so stupid and that I quickly lose interest.

I much prefer dealing direct from some other ad or listing, pay it in green and be done with it.

Buying on Ebay, can be fun, if you are lucky. I like the Buy It Now or Best Offer opportunities. But, like the OP, I prefer the auctions. Will I get a good deal? Who knows and who cares. It is the anticipation, the wait, the hope, that is the fun aspect of it all. Does Buy It Now work, yup - $40.00 for a Legnano headset...



Or an Atala Record 101 Professional frame and fork set for 150.00 auction, with me the only bidder, which now looks like this...



Will I sell on Ebay again - not bloody likely!

I've been selling on eBay for over 15 years. I got sick and tired of auction variance, one item I was selling would catch fire and go high, the next several would not and go low. I would much rather get a consistent price on my auctions, even if that means I forgo the opportunity for a bidfest.

Everything I sell now is Buy It Now, 30 day listing, immediate payment required.

As far as fees, compared to all the other alternatives out there, they are reasonable. Sure, I wish it was free, or cheaper.

I think a lot of buyers prefer BIN as well. They know exactly what the item will cost them, no one is going to snipe them out in the last three seconds, I am not going to cancel my listing, and they don't have to wait until the end of my listing for me to ship. Want something shipped in the next 24 hours? BIN from a top rated seller (eBay only allows them one business day to ship).

Another thing in the "old days" ebay used to have a sliding scale for their charge to list an item. So I would list items to start at 99 cents to minimize the listing fees. Now, I rarely if ever pay anything to list an item, and there is no sliding scale. One reason for the crazy high BIN pricing by BBC and PB*Bike and a few others is that listings are free. If they had to pay 50 cents every week per listing, I think the craziness would really drop off.

My goal now is to move items at a known price and get rid of stuff, rather than have an occasional home run on an item here or there. If I can't make any money on an item I am selling after fees, I will just donate it (or sell on consignment).

My pet peeve? Sellers who mention that item is also for sale locally, and subject to sale. Many of them IMHO are just using eBay to market their item, for no cost. Doesn't work out for buyers (except the ones that make arrangements to see it locally) and doesn't work out for ebay either.

I think ebay used to be mostly people who just wanted to sell "junk" - put it up for a few bucks, hope a bidding war starts, make some money. Whether you were selling or buying the chance for a really good deal existed. Sometimes things would sell for far more than they were worth and sometimes something rare would sell for far less than it was worth. Exciting stuff.

When the dealers and collectors got on the site it went right into the trash. Nearly as bad as the clueless people on craigslist (remember when craigslist was good too?) but less excuseable because they should know better.

Ebay itself has been trying to sideline the auction part of the site, they have delusions of becoming the next amazon.

I don't like that the variety seems to be gone. "Shopping" for novelties on Ebay used to be interesting. Now I get real tired of seeing 35 listings for the same new handlebar for the same price.

I like buying with "best offer" option. That way I set my limits with no other bidders getting in the way and possibly tempting me to raise my price. Once in a while sellers counter offer and occasionally I accept it as a "meeting in the middle" price, if I need the item enough....

dBay is where it wants to be. The auction was just a hook.
They simply want to sell, collect fees, and regulate.
It's still a zoo, populated by people, but it's a big zoo with lots of stuff.
It's main appeal is selection. C&V is better for it, IMO.

Auctions with no buy it now and no reserve are fun. Kind of. I find they always raise my heart rate and blood pressure in the last few seconds if I'm bidding. Not sure that's a good thing at my age.

Stuff changes. No big deal.

Life with Ebay, in its current form, is much better than life before ebay. I agree ebay was better, for me, ten years ago; but it is still good.

My main beef is the 'search' function. When I search for 'leather saddle' I don't want to see hundreds of 'faux leather' and 'synthetic leather' and 'leather look' saddles, and the only way to screen them out is to screen out every misleading term I can think of. When they're properly categorized, there's no problem; but the most interesting items are usually not categorized correctly. I guess that's also what makes ebay rewarding; the categories are confusing to the novice, so when a novice is selling something on ebay, they are likely to miscategorize it in some crucial way, so the person who finds it has a decent shot at picking it up cheap.

The fee's are not too bad, considering the scope of exposure worldwide! For the past few years listing fee's have been suspended, and up to 12 pictures are free. And, yes the market is soft and the buyers are away, so BIN and Make Offer with the Global economy and other issues, the buyers are on the sideline like you and I waiting for the lowest price or steal of a deal.

Good answers from all.

My concern is the fact that I can no longer search out and nab a good deal. Nobody, well almost nobody, is giving anything away for less than top dollar in a BIN. Many are sheer fantasy. And many items, I mean many, sit for weeks and months or never get sold. In a bid, I had a shot at scoring, and so did the seller. We both took the risk.

Why not put a bike out for bid with a reserve? Maybe it can drum up some interest and become a bidding war. That's a lot more fun for all IMHO. And if it doesn't, then go BIN...

I have several hundred bike-related purchases on Ebay, but my activity level has slowed to a trickle. I only buy through auctions, as the BIN prices are almost always more expensive that I can get the product for direct from Asia or Europe. The over-valuation of the US dollar probably has a lot to do with this. Bike stuff, including complete bikes should be dropping in price, as the dollar appreciates relative to other currencies. But don't see this at the street level.

Another significant downside to Ebay is the relatively new: 'Global Shipping Program' which pegs extortionist 'import charges' on cross-border transactions. These charges are multiples of the actual taxes and duties that are actually due to the Feds. I assume the couriers just pocket the difference. So I never bid on these.

As a seller, I want top dollar - not interested in risk.

It costs very little to list something at Top dollar and wait. I've found that most stuff moves in 3 weeks or less.