Ebay gone to the Wolves

[norseman]

The only Wolves on eBay are the people running it. It takes 2 people to bid up a record or 1 to buy it in the case of the set sale style listings. I think the reggae is seeing a rejuvenation of fans with all the great compilations coming out, and with that comes the "I want the original NOW!" philosophy. Thus the prices that those who have been following the scene for while would not pay.

I agree,it only takes two to bid up.But sometimes one of those two is probably in with the seller to sky rocket the price.The main Wolves are the people who are running it as nothing is ever done about this and they hide behind rules and regulations set by them selves.I am seriously thinking about withdrawing my ebay store,and with the help of people like r.publik (who has the right idea),I might just do it.Just the idea of having to re-list 1,200 tracks seems daunting..................

[jordandance]

It is a concern, but I don't think false bidding is as rampant as people think it is (except for when Marcofunk bids!). Besides, isn't it just the seller setting a reserve price if he's getting someone to bid on it? There's really not much difference than getting your friend to bid 29.99 for Horace Andy's "Problems" or listing it for 29.99 to begin with (other than to create the fallacy that it's "wanted").

Most of these complaints about wolves are from people not wanting to pay world market price for the item. If that's the case, they should either move/travel to a country where they can find their wanted record(s) rather than having someone find for them.

[jordandance]

Think how daunting the listing, completion and paypal fees are for those 1200 items? Open your own website, advertise on reggae boards and hustle at record fairs and to friends. Reggae is not a hard sell.

[r_publik]

yeah don't worry jah glue the digis aren't going anywhere else...

[Litelet]

Well jordan... true, its a better idea to open a website and all... but this is much work, if youre selling few tunes... Then, not every people feel like they can set the price themselves, so that its easier to let bidders choose... Many sellers on ebay arent really specialists compared to the quality stuff they have, I wonder how they got it!

Finally, putting a reserve price is definitely not the same as having a babylonian friend putting bids to increase prices...
Because, the people bid in function of the price they saw a chune was sold for. So that, by incresing prices to extremes, those fakers increase the price people agree to put on a chune. But there is in fact no reason to pay more, cause those fake bidders never pay their stuff. Finally, in the last second, some people bid like beasts, so if they see they are overbid by anyone, they increase without any thought their bid, and suddenly got a record, a few second later, they would never have paid so much. Playing with this is pure wickedness, it means you openly assume to fool and abuse people.

guidance

[Jah Glu]

yeah don't worry jah glue the digis aren't going anywhere else...

Thank god!

[jordandance]

Well jordan... true, its a better idea to open a website and all... but this is much work, if youre selling few tunes... Then, not every people feel like they can set the price themselves, so that its easier to let bidders choose... Many sellers on ebay arent really specialists compared to the quality stuff they have, I wonder how they got it!

Finally, putting a reserve price is definitely not the same as having a babylonian friend putting bids to increase prices...
Because, the people bid in function of the price they saw a chune was sold for. So that, by incresing prices to extremes, those fakers increase the price people agree to put on a chune. But there is in fact no reason to pay more, cause those fake bidders never pay their stuff. Finally, in the last second, some people bid lie beasts, so if they see they are overbid by anyone, they increase without any thought their bid, and suddenly got a record, a few second later, they would never have paid so much. Playing with this is pure wickedness, it means you openly assume to fool and abuse people.

guidance

Yeah, it's true that you must have a lot of stuff to open a site and you can't complain at the realm of eBay's exposure.

As far as the fake bidding goes, I guess don't get caught up in a the wirlwind of ending auctions and leave the babylon seller to pay the fees for the non-paying auction. Like I said before, I don't think it happens as much as people think, but when it does it's fairly easy to spot by looking at the suspicious bidders' history.

[r_publik]

problem is the price of records is always evolving...

with auctions you can see that: one example:
little kirk - bad boy fe dem

tune that was around 80$ all the time

now when it womes up you can probably get it around 20$/30$

on auction...because all addikts who wanted it have already got it

generally when a seller who has a website, i'm thinking of a dragon and a lion, have never adjusted. they will probably just use the last highest price they saw it go for...

also with auction, price can suddenly fly for no specific reason you could think of, but only because of two bidders that want it badly at that specific time...but in that case i think it's totally different.

Sometimes as a seller (speaking for my case) you have records in the box you're not just willing to let go for cheap because of various reasons, good or not, and this will never change even if using auction or website.

anyway this could be a never ending discussion, and it's getting away from original subject...

you can never know for sure if there is a fake bidder, bidding on something, you just assume there is because price is getting really high, but on records from 20$ to 40$ there could also be some fake bidders.

My point is fake bidders or not, it's not really a problem:
as a buyer you have a limit when you reach that limit use common sense and stop bidding...the rest you don't care.
that's what i do as a buyer anyway

the main problem i think is that ebay fees are just totally unacceptable, and these fees keep growing and growing and they don't care because it doesn't stop anyone, if you offer a service it's ok to charge for it but damn sometimes for a 5usd record your're charged 0.50 listing fee? not mentioning the numbers of times you'll have to pay that amount to sell it, at the times i used to sell there i saw sellers spending the entire price of their record in listing fees:)
imagine they list it 10 times then 7% end of auction fee then eventually paypal fee = little game how much is left for you?

why would you stop charging a lot of high fees if you had more and more people coming to sell? well when you're in such logic as they are = absolutly nothing!


the other side is there is plenty of buyers, so as a seller some prefer to be fooled and beaten by fees and poor services because at the end they are 80% sure they will sell more of their stuff and at a better price that anywhere else.

[Litelet]

Yeah... those fees are pure badness...
*Give them an inch, they'll take a yard, give them a yard they'll take a mile*

Ive heard google has done a mean to pay like paypal but cheaper... Its another enormous multinational though... but that charge at least less.

[r_publik]

i've checked that google checkout

it doesn't seems like it works like paypal, and i felt the whole thing unclear, especially the fee part...