Thread: EBay Greed

Saw a razor listed on Ebay. Starting bid $9.99 or Best Offer. I made an offer of $20. Seller comes back with a counter offer which I expected. Did not expect his counter offer amount ($100+). Then why have a start bid of $9.99? Greedy.

Sounds like the same strategy realtors use to try to start a bidding war on a house, except that with razors anyone who likely to bid will have some notion of the value before they start. Bumping the initial asking price by that much might mean this vendor will have a very long listing period before a sale happens.

That is a sad story. You’ll likely get it for much less at the auction. As soon as someone bids the best offer typically goes away. Some sellers sell anything and know little to nothing about what they are selling.

When you start a bid low you get many bids and that builds interest in the sale which attracts attention and more bidders. If you start at $100 few will bid and the sale page will be barren of buyers.

It seems he values his razor at $100+.

Recently an Escher Barbers delight was started at $19.99. Ended at $1025.
If one made an offer of $250 and the seller declined or countered with $800 would that be greed?

Originally Posted by alex1921

It seems he values his razor at $100+.

Recently an Escher Barbers delight was started at $19.99. Ended at $1025.
If one made an offer of $250 and the seller declined or countered with $800 would that be greed?

You never know but most of the time, they know what they have and look under sold listings to see what they have gone for. Going price is around 1k with the box but i did see one go for $3k once. I had it saved in my watched items and was going to get a pic of the listing but it was too late. i waited too long.

Is it greed because you feel it was not worth more than your offer? Or greed because he wouldnt take your offer? As mentioned above, man of us, myself included, start our auctions at very low starting points. I have put FBU blades up for sale at a start of .99 And yes, people sent me offers of $70 Should I have taken such an offer? Damned right I'm greedy, I want every penny its worth!

Greed is when someone on wheel of fortune has 5 grand and they know the puzzle but they spin again and hit bankrupt.

The whole idea of an auction is to get as much as you can. You ain't forcing anyone to bid. When Sotheby's is auctioning an old Rolex watch they don't stop the auction and say "no more bids, we don't want to be greedy".

Gentlemen

I think some are missing the point. An auction works two ways. A seller wants as much as he can get and a buyer wants it as cheap as possible.

When you list on Ebay you have options:

You can just list a starting bid.
You can add "accept offers" and designate the minimum offer you will accept. If a low offer is made below your amount it is declined immediately. If you don't put a minimum offer you can just decline if too low or you can make a reasonable counter offer.
You can put a reserve on your item and bids be low that are not accepted.
Or you can just list with buy it now.

If you start low and allow offers with no minimum offer then you just decline low ball offers.

I start my items low. If I accept offers I enter the minimum I will accept. What ever it sells for I accept. That's the gamble I take starting at a low price.

When I auctioned antiques I started asking for a high bid and dropped until in got a bid. Then it was my job to get it back up to as high as possible. That s the way an auction works.

I've recently fallen back into the money pit that is film photography, and as this has involved getting into a 50+ year old medium format system, ebay and I have been re-acquainted in a serious way of late.

I wonder if you guys have come across this as a 'thing' more often lately than was the case before. Let's say there's a lens I want to buy. It has no bidders, starting bid of say $50. I throw on a bit of $60 to get the ball rolling. No one else bids, so it sits there at $50 until right before the auction ends at which point it is pulled. About an hour later, I get an offer from the seller to buy it at $75.

This has happened often enough that I am really only looking at buy it now items. But I really don't recall this being a tactic back when I was buying far too many razors.

Is this happening across ebay or is it just a weird old camera guy thing??

And yes, I know it is a money pit because of my own decisions. And that "far too many razors" is a controversial statement.