Want to hear about the insanity of selling something on EBAY?

[freethought]

Of course you do! Grab a chair.

About 5-6 weeks ago, on pure impulse and zero careful thought, I slapped down the plastic on a little hand held JVC Mini DV camcorder plus a few other items for it. I fooled with it for about 3 hours and after that it just stayed in the box. The camcorder itself ran for about $140.00 add the other items and you may have about $175-$180.
I started kicking myself for buying it about three days later. Trying to be proactive, I thought it would be a good idea to put the item up on Ebay. See what happens.

Giving it the usual 7 day auction, I put it up. For about 5 days there were no bids and no watchers.
I eliminated the reserve and put the starting bid for under $100.00. I was willing to take the loss.
On the sixth day, I get two watchers and one bid for $83.00. I thought it was good that at least SOMEONE was interested in buying the thing.

In the last TWENTY minutes of the auction 18 bids came through. The winning bid? $232.00. Half a dozen bids came through in the last 5-6 minutes.

This IS NUTS! My conscience is actually bothering me a little. Anyone could have taken a little time and gone on the web and found out how much this thing sells for brand new in a retail setting. Now whoever won the auction is going to fork over nearly fifty bucks over and above what the whole set up is worth.

I have this picture of some agoraphobic man or woman who never leaves their home. The house is piled high with junk they bought on Ebay, sitting in front of a PC obsessively bidding on more stuff.

Yeeeks. Heavens, I hope that's not the case. But that's the story. I'll bet it's pretty tame to some other things I have up for auction on that site.

[Arugula Latte]

1. Jeez. Maybe you really can make money on EBay.

Hopefully the buyers aren't eating dogfood to get by ...

[freethought]

2. I'm hoping that too.

Yeah, yeah some free market worshiper can simply tell me that "That's what the market will bear for what you sold!" OK, I get it.

In introductory econ you are educated that the market is rational. Somehow I doubt that is the case here. I was told that the phenomenon of what I saw in the last few minutes of the auction is what is known as "sniping". Somehow I don't think it was a "rational".

"Sniping" eh! People shooting at each other. Actually an accurate description!

[elperromagico]

6. At a certain point, the urge to WIN WIN WIN overtakes them.

It's a bit like a gambling addiction, I suppose.

[mark414]

5. i met a guy who only makes his money on ebay

a friend of mine randomly lived with this 40-something year old guy for a few months who had picked up the habit of buying up old and antique board games from thrift stores - he started making so much money he quit his job and know that's all he does. his room had stacks and stacks of all these old board games. a couple days a week at MOST he drives around the general area and buys up whatever the thrift stores have. he makes more than when he worked 40 hours a week.

[Dulcinea]

22. I do eBay as a hobby.

Mostly I sell stuff my kids have outgrown or old junk I have in the basement. You'd be surprised at what people will buy! I know I am, every day.

Case in point: I sold 4 old watches to a guy in Spain for $40 once! I had no idea if any of them worked, & I even said so in the auction. One man's trash is truly another man's treasure. Maybe he was a jeweler or a watchmaker?

[Hissyspit]

3. eBay is irrational. Collect the money, send the camera, and issue

a partial refund through PayPal or sent them a check with the camera for whatever amount helps your conscience.

[sakabatou]

4. Ever hear of e-bay bots (programming application)?

They bid last minute, so whoever has the bot, usually gets the item.

[freethought]

20. Actually it was the next to last second

The auction was scheduled to end at 8:10pm and 57 seconds. On the bid history, the winning bid is listed as being recieved at 8:10 pm and 56 seconds. Talk about coming in under the wire!

[Robeson]

7. I sell stuff - primarily pottery - on e-bay all the time....

...the point of selling on e-bay is to make a profit, or at least break even. If people bid high on what you had, don't worry about it. Just think of it, in that you were full-filling a need they had. I know that makes you an enabler, but at least you're not enabling someone looking for smack...:P

[freethought]

12. Gee, thanks. It still baffles me though

Buy the camera brand new plus the accessories and the cost would be about $175.00. Go on Ebay and put in a bid on the same camera with a few hours use on it and they pay $232.00. There is something really perverse about that.

[gmoney]

17. Paying a premium for a package?

Some people don't like to spend the time shopping for an item then figuring out what accessories they'll need and making three trips to the store or two different stores to try to find them. You did the research, however minimal, and the person can just make one purchase and pay with Paypal rather than putting the item on their credit card.

Another possibility is that they might NOT want someone to know that they bought the item. A spouse might question a purchase from Best Buy, but the buyer may have it set up so eBay payments come and go from Paypal without scrutiny. Or maybe they don't want George Bush to know they bought it...

Again, don't question it... my favorite eBay story was I had purchased a hand-labelled demo tape (TAPE) from Smashing Pumpkins dating back to their early days... I bought it from a shoebox at my local nightclub for 25 cents (the owner was getting rid of all the old demos bands had given him) and a few weeks later I put it on eBay and got over $350.00 for it, with people telling me I could have held out for more.

Of course, right now, with their decline in popularity I think it's selling for 25 cents again. It's all about timing.

And yes, all the acivity of an auction happens in either the first few minutes it's listed (buy it now) or right at the last minute, because that's the way auctions work in real life. It's all a matter of who gets the last high bid in. You might have had a case where two or three people overbid amounts they wanted to pay just to ensure they got the item. "Nobody else would bid more than $200, but just in case, I'll bid $230" and another guy says "nobody else will pay more than $200, but I'll bid $250 just to make sure I get it." The proxy bidding system takes the second high bid, adds the bid increment, and that's the amount of the high bid, automatically.

[mad-mommy]

8. why....

why feel bad, someone wanted it then and there, without researching. That's the way society is, I want it now. I once watched a star wars item for my son, around christmas, I asked the seller a question about shipping, as it said to contact the seller for details. he banned me from bidding...he said it was because I asked him a question, and that he may take a chance that I would give him a negative feedback, since I am the type of person who asks questions. Anyhoo, a $30 star wars toy went for over $100.00.

[freethought]

15. Maybe it's just not what I expected from people

I have bid on Ebay items myself, but if I am bidding on some piece of merchandise that has some miles on it and I see the bid price heading above what it would cost me to buy new, I'm going to say "Ah, screw it! I'll try another time." I would expect most would do the same unless they were deranged, desperate, or greedy.
As far as being banned from that auction, the guy almost sounded paranoid. I had about 4 or 5 questions come through on the camera and I answered them all. Seemed like the honest and honorable thing to do.

[jmowreader]

9. The winning bid probably came through in the last 10 seconds

The classic eBay horror story is the guy who put a $25 Wal-Mart gift card on auction and received a winning bid of $30. This actually happened.

I recommend doing one of three things: chuckle about the monumental stupidity of man, remind yourself that maybe in the place where the winning bid came from these cameras are more expensive than that, or donate the profits to DU. (I would choose number one.)

[freethought]

21. The winning bid came in at the next to last second

Read my post replying to Sakabatou's post above. Gives you an idea on how the bidding went.

[Tsiyu]

10. Maybe the person lives far from a retail setting

and would spend more than $50 in gas or shipping to have it delivered? :shrug:

[freethought]

11. That's possible, however

You could go on Yahoo/Shopping and buy the same product online for less.

[NewWaveChick1981]

13. My husband sells a lot of things on ebay, and your experience

is not atypical. :P Case in point: hubby puts up a collectible figure one day. No bids until the last day, and it doesn't make reserve. He relists the figure immediately at the exact same price, and he gets three bids almost instantly. The figure makes reserve, and two newbies fight it out over the five-day bidding period. Figure sells for three times what hubby wanted out of it. :D I had a sweater that I had bought new for $9.99 on sale and normally retailed for $49.99. Two women duked it out over the sweater (nice but not THAT nice) and it finished at $82.49. They could have walked into a dept. store and paid less than $50 for it. :eyes: I didn't complain, though.

These are the people that pay thousands of dollars for the Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich and other such bullshit. :eyes: Nothing that happens on ebay surprises me.

You did nothing wrong. Buyers bid what they're going to bid. You should have a clear conscience. Pack it up and send it and say "thank you for your money." :D

[freethought]

16. As soon as payment is confirmed I will do just that, but

The whole experience just seems to be a little strange. Winning bidder was from Houston, btw.

[NewWaveChick1981]

18. Well, that explains a lot.

:P Remember the saying, "A fool and his money are soon parted"? You did not do anything against ebay rules and you did nothing wrong. Bidders are bound by their bids, whether they are reasonable or stupid. Don't feel guilty because someone didn't do their research beforehand. :P

[derby378]

14. I've had someone bid my John Kerry bumper sticker on eBay up to $21

That's right, twenty-one dollars for a single bumper sticker! And they made good on payment, too!

I sent them a couple of extra stickers. I'm a capitalist, sure, but sometimes too much is simply too much.

[Jimbo S]

19. Nothing to apologize for

You put the item up for auction, you were taking a chance in losing money on the deal. Just so happened this time you came out ahead. May not be the case next time.

Talk to an auctioneer (the old fashion one) sometime. I'm sure that person will say some items they don't get what they expect, and others get more than they expect. As long as you feel you came out OK.

[Schema Thing]

23. Don't feel too bad

that's why there are auctions: to create auction fever.

[ComerPerro]

24. ask yourself: Why does an agoraphobic need a video camera?

then, ease your mind, and enjoy the fifty bucks.