posted on June 26, 2003 03:32:17 PM new
You do not hear much any more about shill bidding on ebay. But it is alive and well. Ebay always profits from shill bidders and they have actually made it easy for shill bidding to continue, although they catch someone every once in a while and kick them off to look good. People can not catch shill bidding like they once did because ebay has made it harder for other ebay buyers to catch them. People that shill bid have become very smart and know how to do it without getting caught because of past experiences. Many sellers have reported to ebay shill bidding but ebay takes no action because not enought proof have been reported. Some sellers have as many as 100 ID and will use them carefully not to get caught. A shill bidder will use an ID once or twice on his auction and Let this ID be dormant for a few months until auctions on his history can not be traced. It takes a lot of time to catch shill bidding and people have grown tired of trying. Shill bidding is common on ebay and everybody except for the high productive seller are aware of it.
But the point of this article is that in the last several months shill bidding is down. When a person shill bids on his or her auctions, they still have to pay the fees, but if they drive the price up on their auctions the fees do not matter. They stand to make a greater profit. Now this was the case between 1998 and 2002 when shill bidding was at its prime. Now shill bidding becomes unprofitable when the shiller continues to win his own auctions at an alarming rate because sales are down and people refuse to pay prices they once did. These sellers at some point see that their fees are ever increasing and concludes that online auctions have become unprofitable and that shill bidding does not work like it once did. If they discontinue shill bidding then they know their items will not sell for what they think it is worth, to make a profit. If they place a reserve on their items it stands a greater chance of not selling because people have shunned away from reserve auctions. Some refuse to bid on an auction with a reserve just because of principle. If the seller places his items up for auction with a low starting rate he will usually lose because his price is not reached. Consequently many sellers have gone by the way side concluding that not enough profit is made in online auctions. But the consequence to this concept is that shill bidding is down because the shiller have left to some degree.
posted on June 26, 2003 04:00:46 PM new
well said and greedy ebay just cares about the bottom line of stock holders, ebay has been on a downward slide for sellers for the last three years, and i dont see how they can ever get back to the good old days what made ebay work, pleant of iinventory for ne to sell off before the ship sinks
posted on June 26, 2003 09:43:30 PM new
No, he said that it just doesen't work anymore and it is easy to get away with. This is why he post so much about the ebay fees lately, he is buying back everything he lists.
posted on June 26, 2003 10:32:01 PM new
It probably is tougher to shill on ebay these days will the reduced bidding activity.
It's a lot tougher to get an ebay account these days then it was in the past.
I've always wondered if when many sellers start a great item at a penny with no reserve
and the auction gets down to the very end with no or almost no bids are they tempted to shill the item rather than lose it for a few cents? A few lost items is one thing but a bunch of them at once must be another matter.
posted on June 27, 2003 10:18:07 PM newIt's a lot tougher to get an ebay account these days then it was in the past.
As usual Auction blah blah blah. I had a friend who recently wanted me to set up an id for her on ebay. Took all of about 5 minutes. Wow, that was tough.
