Journal Chacham's Journal: Ebay: mostly useless forums, change in EBR rules. 4
After posting this JE, i posted to the ebay forums, both in Seller Central and in Bidding.
I must say, the boards there reminded me of Slashdot. While the median age there is probably slightly higher, the range of ages is greater here. Also, there most people are Ss, while here most are Ns (or ISTPs). All in all, however, going there was a waste of time.
Things i know already and were proven there was, when you ask someone how to do something, and they ask you why you want to do it, they are simply uninterested, and they are asking either to make fun of it (a defense mechanism against realizing things can change) or to scare the asker away. While sometimes knowing why someone wants to do something is important (because they may use the information malicously) this is overwhelmingly not the case. But, instead of going with what i knew, i answered the questions, and got what i deserved for doing so. Never again. Never again.
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Something positive that did comes out of going there was that i now know that advertising rewards in the title is against ebay rules. A second thing, is that rules are too complicated for most people. I came with the opinion that ebay should be fun, they responded that it was serious business and thus they should not bother with rules. I walked away with the realization that it was they who wanted fun, and it was i who wanted to be serious.
Taking that into the account, i guess my idea for the EBR of thirty dollars won't work. At least not just now. But, here's the point. People will read only simple rules when it comes to discounts. But when something is absolutely free, i think they are willing to do crazy things.
As such, in my proposal i wanted to encourage both early first bids, and not late last bids. I think the former can be done with free shipping, that is, saving fifty cents a day for each day early a bid was placed (see here for the breakdown). As for non-sniped final bids, i guess i will end auctions early. I figured ebay wouldn't like that, but the forums seem to be okay on that. They said to end it a half-hour early, randomly. I figure i'll end it two-hours early, and pretty unrandomly. Then just allow it to keep going a few minutes past any last bid. Unless this happens for two hours, there cannot be a snipe.
My drawback on this is that it isn't automatic, is unfeasible for multiple auctions, and is really going against the grain of ebays rules. Though, it shouldn't hurt to try it, as it breaks no acutal rules.
Encouraging early bids (Score:2)
It gives people a thrill to be able to "stomp" on your high BIN price (the BIN option disappears after the first bid has been placed). This also puts a little pressure on th
Re:Encouraging early bids (Score:2)
Off-topic: Question (Score:2)
Re:Off-topic: Question (Score:2)
Even if i was a fan, i wouldn't have checked anyway, giving the non-informative title.