Why not remove Run Until Sold ?

[marshland]

Like everyone else I think that absentee sellers are bad for eBid.
I don't agree that banning run until sold items is the answer.

When I started up I has about 50/50 between RUS and auction and found that the normal auction sold slightly better than RUS so I have slowly been changing my listings to auction with 10 repeats of 14 days.

I do believe that every seller has to work out their own strategy for sales and for some sellers RUS is the most suitable.

eBid should be looking at ways of specifically dealing with absentee sellers such as an automated system for checking on logging in dates and then specifically chasing offenders rather than sweeping changes that will affect some of the good sellers who we want to keep on eBid and help us all grow.

[pwittsstuff]

Same here. Every morning I repost a page full of listings. We also have thousands of very low-priced items that we have listed under Run Until Sold. There is no way I'm going to spend my entire morning going through page after page of these to repost them. Like you, I'll take them somewhere else.

The simple solution is to require sellers to log on at least once a month. If they don't, remove their auctions.

I agree with all the sellers that run items on Run until Sold I run some like that and I find it hard to relist all the time I have been here a year now and only sold one thing but I won't give up I think sales are going to start popping up a lot things are getting better and I do check in everyday so it is not like I am not maintaining my site. My wish for all of you is lots of sales!!
pwittsstuff
http://dwittknives-new-store1.ebid.net

[TiasTreasures]

Personally I think run till sold makes the site look like a 'last resort' for items that are hardly worth listing.Thats only my opinion and ebid obviously think differently or they'd have done something by now.
If something doesn't sell after 10 reposts at 90 days a time then maybe it's never going to.

If the tag "Run Until Sold" is what bothers you, perhaps we could ask support to change it to something like "No Closing Date". "Hardly worth listing" is a judgment call. A collector who has finally found a stamp or coin to fill out a series is not going to agree with you.

I recently sold several old (ie collectible) postage stamps, all very low-value, to one buyer. Run Until Sold works when a buyer uses a search engine to look for a specific item, entering either country/catalog number (for a stamp) or country/year/mint (for a coin). I was told on a forum that even a supposedly common stamp is sometimes hard to find. That's why we decided to list them here instead of throwing them away.

It may take quite a long time for these to sell, but consider that we have over 4,000 stamps listed and I don't think I'm even half done with these boxes. The total number of listings seems to be important to many people, and these are valid listings that add to eBid's total count.

It doesn't take long to list them and they are easy to mail when they sell. Once they're listed, it is NOT worth spending any more time on them.

And, by the way, we recently sold a vintage camera that had been listed over two years on the other side, and almost two years here. A collectible may sit for a long, long time before the right buyer finds it.

[darklisruthven]

The simple solution is to require sellers to log on at least once a month. If they don't, remove their auctions.

Agreed that way its fair to all.

[deakontk]

Fountain, I have a simple question. If i was list my stuff for 90 days and 10 reposts, would I not have to wait until the end of the 90 days for the auction to end? Say for example, I receive a bid on day 5 of 90 days, would the auction run for another 85 days before the bidder wins the auction? I am fairly new and would love to learn more. Thanks, Therman.

[TiasTreasures]

Not if you include a "Buy It Now" price. If the buyer selects that the auction will end.

[FBNeNotes]

Fountain, I have a simple question. If i was list my stuff for 90 days and 10 reposts, would I not have to wait until the end of the 90 days for the auction to end? Say for example, I receive a bid on day 5 of 90 days, would the auction run for another 85 days before the bidder wins the auction? I am fairly new and would love to learn more. Thanks, Therman.

Yes buyer would have to wait another 85 Days.. you would have your auctions entered so Hardly anyone would bid.
Best to list them for 7 Days with 10 relists.

[deltadelta48]

Like everyone else I think that absentee sellers are bad for eBid.
I don't agree that banning run until sold items is the answer.

When I started up I has about 50/50 between RUS and auction and found that the normal auction sold slightly better than RUS so I have slowly been changing my listings to auction with 10 repeats of 14 days.

I do believe that every seller has to work out their own strategy for sales and for some sellers RUS is the most suitable.

eBid should be looking at ways of specifically dealing with absentee sellers such as an automated system for checking on logging in dates and then specifically chasing offenders rather than sweeping changes that will affect some of the good sellers who we want to keep on eBid and help us all grow.

I agree. One of the "causes" of absentee sellers is the free listing/free relisting. That creates a situation where people can list, set the relist, or run until sold and not have to worry about running up costs. Yet that is hardly something any of us wants to see changed!

We have already determined that those with large quantities of items use run until sold to save time and trouble with these inexpensive auctions. So getting rid of the feature does not help those larger sellers.

I suspect that if we require people check in they will do just that, come in for 2 seconds, and just leave again. I am not sure that it will accomplish much. But I still think that if someone discovers someone who appears to be absent, ebid should change status of their listings, perhaps to vacation, so that no one can bid but that they can certainly see the business they missed. That serves a better purpose than erasing everything.

[deltadelta48]

Fountain, I have a simple question. If i was list my stuff for 90 days and 10 reposts, would I not have to wait until the end of the 90 days for the auction to end? Say for example, I receive a bid on day 5 of 90 days, would the auction run for another 85 days before the bidder wins the auction? I am fairly new and would love to learn more. Thanks, Therman.

Afraid so, and buyers would not like that much. They prefer the 7-10 day auctions. I use auction, buy it now and put items in my store. Seems to give everyone what they want. The difference in cost between auction starting price and BIN is only $1 but everyone is watching pennies now, so about 50/50 for auction and buy it nows.

[TiasTreasures]

Am I missing something? If a buyer clicks on the "Buy It Now" button, doesn't that end the auction immediately? It sounds as though everyone is saying the buyer still has to wait for the auction to run the entire time. I confess everything I've bought here has been fixed price, so I can't speak from experience. Doesn't sound right, though.