ebay really going this direction?

coachleonard

i read a pretty interesting and sobering thread on the ebay coin community boards: a fellow says he is now sure that Buy-It-Now is the
way to go as opposed to auctions, and says he is far more successful using BIN when selling coins. The reasons he states: everybody knows that nobody "fights" over lots anymore. More and more buyers simply don't want to play the auction game and prefer to just buy coins at a fair price. Furthermore, nowdays people bid at the very last second, therefore there is not enough times for prices to be driven up on your coins if you're a seller.

Does this assessment sound accurate to the ebay sellers out there? I never use BIN as a seller, but i am noticing the "People don't fight
over lots anymore" thing happening a lot more. Very scarce and desirable US coins being the exception

AuldFartte

Very interesting, Coach. I have spoken with some greed-bay buyers
who feel the same way. I would rather hit a reasonable BIN than
place an auction bid and wait for the electronic snipers to snag the
item at the last second.

The problem I have is this: Very few "reasonable" BIN's are out there,
so I haven't bought anything on the bay in quite a while. I am now
buying strictly from people here and another forum, usually from
thier websites. Well, there are a couple of dealers in town I buy from, too.

MSD61

<< <i>
The problem I have is this: Very few "reasonable" BIN's are out there,
so I haven't bought anything on the bay in quite a while. >>



You can say that again I am finding more and more looking outside of ebay for coins.

cosmicdebris

Also with BIN only you have to be very fast and much more attentive to watching for new items. Good BINs won't last long.

Steve27

I would rather hit a reasonable BIN, but I've never seen one.

Askari

I've rarely ever hit a BIN. It's usually the fastest way to spend too much money. As for sellers, if you put a "reasonable" BIN on a coin and it gets hit soon after posting, then you can be pretty sure you "left money on the table."

I think BINs are more appropriate for inexpensive coins with average demand. Competitions still do occur on "keys," highly appealing specimens, and certain scarce coins. However, a lot depends on whether the seller has a "following" for offering such coins. Power Sellers selling off garage sale and estate lots aren't going to do as well as dedicated and well-established and -regarded sellers. Furthermore, lousy pictures don't encourage much heated competition.

I've also noticed that there's not much competition on coins starting at full retail ... wonder why. If there's no "room to run," there probably won't be many "runners." Of course, starting lower means that you won't always get the "minimum" price that you wanted.

The eBay marketplace -- as opposed to eBay itself -- has been seriously maturing over the last few years. The buyers are more seasoned, which means they've gotten smarter about the risks. Both cherrypicking and overbidding opportunities have become fewer and bidding appears to have tightened in on the "true market" value of many items. Furthermore, really high-end items have become scarcer. Such sales often are worked offline between sellers and buyers who have established good business relationships and no longer need to share the profits with eBay.

cacheman

If the majority of the bidders are using a sniping program then the final price can jack up quite quickly in the last few seconds...it all depends on what people want to pay, not whether they have time to bid or not.

MacCrimmon

<< <i>Such sales often are worked offline between sellers and buyers who have established good business relationships and no longer need to share the profits with eBay. >>

This about sums it up. Higher end sellers usually find eBay best as a trolling tool for serious, established buyers.

satootoko

This week I was second bidder on a Japanese gold coin that attracted close to 20 bids. All three of the highest bids came from people who placed snipes in the last few seconds. The auction closed at oh-dark-thirty in my time zone, so my snipe was placed by a program - I don't know about the other two. Bidding started around $300, and when I set my snipe for nearly $700 about 30 hours before closing the high bid was less than $500, but two other serious bidders were lying in wait. One bid was just $10 less than mine, and the winner's was at least $10 more than mine. I'm not sure how typical this was, but it was the first time I've seen that exact pattern. I think it was 9 bidders who placed early bids, a few of them with multiples.

The good news is that the seller had another one and sent me a second chance offer, which I grabbed, since from the pictures he sent me, it looks even nicer than the one I missed out on.

wybrit

The BIN fixed price option now features "Best Offer." The only downside to the featue is that the offer gets quashed if someone else clicks the BIN before the seller can respond.

As for me, I've picked up some very good bargains using BIN. Cosmic is right - there are some good BINs out there but they get swallowed up within minutes or hours of listing, so few will see them.