ebay's "Buy it Now"

KoolCoin

Last night I placed seven Morgans into ebay's auctions and for the first time I also incorporated their "Buy it Now" feature. I started all of my auctions at $1.00 with no reserve. Well guess what? Yep! Five of the auctions have already lost the "Buy it Now" feature. The only way to maintain the"Buy it Now" feature is if you have a reserve. Then upon reaching the reserve the"Buy it Now" feature is disabled. I would like the "Buy it Now" feature to remain intact until the very end without a reserve simply because I'm running an absolute auction in which the coin is going to sell and someone sometime during the auction might just decide that using the "Buy it Now" feature would be in their best interest or maybe this is the first time they came upon this auction and they want to take advantage of the "Buy it Now" feature. And besides, it also provides an avenue for me to maximize my return. I thought of placing the "But it Now" amount in my description and making a comment that I will honor it until 12 hours before the end of auction closing. Therefore I would end the auction early and I'm sure ebay would not like this since they would lose their percentage! It just seems to me they should offer this service without having to have a reserve. Or am I just not using their system to my best advantage?

TorinoCobra71

Thre only way I know of, is to offer it ONLY as a BIN auction, but them that defeats the purpose of having an AUCTION on the first place......

TorinoCobra71

ms70

<< <i>The only way to maintain the"Buy it Now" feature is if you have a reserve. >>



Yup. There's always the idiot who thinks he might win a $500 coin for 99¢. And those morons that have nothing better to do than cruise eBay and simply kill everyone's BIN.

There's also those who want to snipe but kill the BIN so it will stay up for the duration at the lower price. I've seen that happen where the coins sold for beyond the BIN price!

HonoluluDude

I guess the only way around it is to set your opening bid closer to the Buy It Now price. For example, if your BIN price is $75, make the opening bid $50 instead of a dollar.
Other than that, just go with a pure BIN price, with no bid offered.

markglicker

You cannot have your cakem, and eat it too. People put a lot of effort in their bids, and want the opportunity to win it as the high bidder, without seeing get snatched from them on a buy-it-now. An option would be to set the price near what you think the item is worth, with a buy it now, generally, those will not get a bid until late in the auction game, and your buy-it-now, will stay in place.

Cladiator

I love "cakem"

relayer

The BIN option goes away once the reserve is met - or if there is no reserve, then once a bid is placed.

So - you should only use it when you have a reserve or if you have a opening bid set to the minimum you'll take for the coin (ex $50 open and $60 BIN). If you want to only have a BIN option, then use the Fixed Price format.

airplanenut

<< <i>

<< <i>The only way to maintain the"Buy it Now" feature is if you have a reserve. >>



Yup. There's always the idiot who thinks he might win a $500 coin for 99¢. And those morons that have nothing better to do than cruise eBay and simply kill everyone's BIN.

There's also those who want to snipe but kill the BIN so it will stay up for the duration at the lower price. I've seen that happen where the coins sold for beyond the BIN price! >>

I've killed BIN's for the sole reason of making sure that the coin does go to a complete auction to snipe. If I really want something but don't want to pay the BIN price, I'll gladly bid the absolute minimum.

Jeremy

LALASD4

Or sell it at Yahoo.

FullStrike

I haven't sold anything on the bay for a couple years now but when I did sell I used to think of BIN as a lure to the first bidder. Put a BIN of $500 on a $530 list Coin and an opening bid of $1.00. If you get a bite on the BIN, cool, you just made a fast sale. If you get the $1.00 opening bid, cool, soon there will be lots of bids. It always seems the coins with a lot of bidders draws the most interest. Safety in numbers? Whatever.

As for myself, when I look at lots on eBay, I tend to overlook all lots that only have a BIN, they always seem to be overpriced. When a coin has a big crowd of bidders, I tend to at least check it out. I might not like what I see but at least I was drawn in to look. I think the single most important thing in a auction are good pictures. Also, a return policy really helps. Usually when someone states all sales are final, there is good reason for it. The Coin turns out to be a real dog. Like the ANACS AU58 1921 Peace I got - man what a POS!

jonathanb

It's useful if you're going to start something with a reasonable minimum, as a way to bring in the impulse bidders. I have something that I think is worth $125 that I'll probably get around to listing eventually, and I'll probably start it at $100 with a BIN of $150. My hope is that the minimum of $100 will keep away the people who don't know the value, while the BIN will tempt people who think that they do. That's my plan, anyway. Obviously, this approach only works if you're pretty sure about what the final price would be without the minimum or the BIN.

jonathan

BBN

The BIN price should remain at least until the it has bidded up to like 80% of the BIN price. Many BIN prices I've seen are set at such a ridiculous price that an unknowing person may shell out gobs of money worth half of what they'd just spent.