> 1) I am not required to take actions to improve eBay (or
> seller's) revenues.
> That is, they can't make me bid.
Agreed.
> 2) I am not allowed to take actions which could deprive eBay
> (or sellers) of
> revenues from others.
Definitely disagree with this one. There have been occasions
when someone has posted to this list pointing out some auction
or other and indicating something incorrect (honest mistake or
otherwise) and that caution is advised. Similarly there have
been plenty of "look what some doofus has bid this up to"
comments. Both of these seem to fall foul of (2) but I
see nothing wrong with them.
Similarly I don't see a problem with people agreeing
(at any time during the auction process) that they'll
split a lot up a particular way and thereby effectively
reduce the number of bidders on an auction. The seller
has a simple defence against this: simply start the
auction at a more realistic price or apply a reserve.
In practice, both of these tend to (in my limited
experience as a seller and a buyer/watcher) reduce
the number of bids placed. So I guess sellers are
usually willing to take the risk that the market may
not be there after all.
I see nothing wrong with using any legal information
source when bidding. When I want to buy something
from ebay (or anywhere else) I usually am willing to put
some effort into finding the lowest price that seems
to offer the item that I want (check completed auctions,
look at competitor websites etc.). If I see that X
is bidding on a pile of widgets and I believe he
only needs some of them I don't see why I should
hold off contacting him and seeing whether we can
come to some arrangement between ourselves. I don't
think it makes any difference whether we do this
before either of us has bid or whether we do this
after either or both of us has already placed a
bid. (In the latter case, we have possibly already
failed to achieve our goal of the lowest possible
price; in the former case, we still have a chance).
As a seller, I'd have no problem with others doing
precisely this. Much of the stuff I've sold has
been duplicate documentation that I do not need.
My only aim is to get it into the hands of someone
who might look after it for a while: maximising
the price there is irrelevant. Admittedly when
I'm selling commodity stuff (SDRAM) I'd hope
for a decent price, but if it sells cheap, then
it sells cheap. And, as often seems to happen,
if people bid the auction up beyond the price
that I consider to be reasonable (for example,
the price of the identical item I might currently
have available in BIN format :-)) then that's
generally their lookout. It all balances out
in the end.
Antonio
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Antonio Carlini arcarlini_at_iee.org
Received on Sat Feb 12 2005 - 11:40:20 GMT