1-Day Auction Listings coming soon from eBay!

Ina · Joined: 02 Aug 2001 Posts: 452 Location: Massachusetts, USA

From Today's Announcement board on eBay:

We are pleased to announce that we will soon be introducing 1-Day Listings. In addition to the currently available 3, 5, 7, and 10 day durations, sellers will be able to list their items in auction format for a 1-day duration. To list a 1-Day Listing, sellers are required to have either a minimum feedback rating of 10 or be ID Verified.
etc.

Any thoughts on what this means (to buyers, to sellers, to eBay)? I'll be writing it up today for Newsflash newsletter,
Ina
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JC · Joined: 15 Feb 2002 Posts: 217

This might be a very simple "end run," around the patent dispute with Tom Woolstor. EBay's auction business wasn't infinging on Woolstor's patent, but the "buy it now," was infringing on a patent. They could simply have 1 day auctions and basically achieve the same thing as the ,"buy it now,". They could even let seller have an option of 7 day block listings, list the item for 1 day and if it doesn't sell repeat the 1 day listing for 7 days.

1 day auctions aren't going to be known for their bidding wars, so using them as an alternative to, "buy it now," is the best theory I can come up with.

This is my theory and I have applied for a patent, any infringment on this patent and we'll be meeting in federal court.

dsteiner · Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2003 5:42 pm Post subject:

Interesting thought, JC. I guess the smart move would be to put the price you're really interested in getting for an item, if you're going to use a 1-day listing. No sense putting up a penny auction for such a short amount of time.

7 day block listings, huh? That eBay listing fee cash register will be ringing constantly.

I think this feature might be used more around the holidays, when people are interested in turning over their auctions faster.

Fast-Pack.com · Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2003 7:54 pm Post subject:

Hello All!,

Thanks Ina for bringing us this info. I was thinking the other day why didnt they offer one day auctions. I can see this one getting mixed reviews.

Like someone mentioned, it will be great around the holidays, and great for always being near the top of the search results. But a drawback that I possibly see, is reverse sniping, if that makes any sense. Let me explain my thoughts. I see the one day auction as a way for competitors to pop their auction before yours, to get maximum exposure, more hits, and views.

Now this might not be a problem for sellers selling specialty items, but lets take laptop computers, there are 1196 laptops on ebay as of right now. That is approx. 160 pages or so. The first couple pages are laptops closing in the next several hours. See where I am going with this? Where before the one day auction you would have had a little longer time on the first or second results page, now you may get a couple of hours if you are lucky.

So I possibly see one day auctions actually cutting the exposure time your item gets, making it easier for the competition to "push your items back". But this is just a theory.

Any other thoughts?
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sun818 · Joined: 24 Aug 2003 Posts: 597

I like the idea since bidding habits are indicating to me most action happens when you first post and when the time is about to end. If my sell-through percentage increases (at worst stays the same), I will adopt the 1-day.

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dsh872 · Joined: 03 Sep 2002 Posts: 27

Has eBay beta-tested the 1 day auction functionality prior to release? Sometimes it takes eBay's search results hours to "catch up" when they get busy, so a 1 day auction will sometimes not actually get 24 hours of exposure. I know when I search for "New Items Listed", they are often a couple hours old. Anyway, if I ran the casino and I had confidence in my search index, I'd release the 12 hour auction as well. Why not? Ever been to Atlantic City or Vegas? There are plenty of gamblers out there who like to pull those slot handles........ Frenzy here we come!

mbright1 · Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2003 1:24 pm Post subject:

One day listings will be detrimental to the other auctions. Think hard and run some tests before you give your support for this feature.

There's more, but I'm not on eBay's payroll...
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kjp55 · Joined: 18 Aug 2001 Posts: 1972 Location: East of Rockies

Others, like Tele-Trade Auctions, have been running 1-day auctions for several years with great success. The main problem I can see with running a 1-day auction on eBay is, as stated earlier, the poor eBay search feature.

Many times, a new auction will not even show up in the search listings for several hours. I've seen it delayed up to 6 hours on occassion. That would considerably limit your exposure and could be a dismal failure for 1-day auctions.

Before eBay rolls out the 1-day auction format, they'd better hire someone who can write a search script that crawls and updates the entire listing database every 5-30 minutes or so. If they don't, 1-day listings are useless.

Other than that, I'm all for 1-day listings. A little clarification on how they would hurt other standard auctions would be greatly appreciated.

ageto.com · Joined: 22 Sep 2003 Posts: 1 Location: Jena, Germany

Hi,

I guess you have touched most of the points. Let me add another idea:
Wit 1day auctions, eBay steps into the common retail arena. Now, you as a buyer can buy things from one day to the other, just like in an online-shop. Buyers do not have to wait for their auctions coming to an end after 7 days...they simply bid and buy...
Just another attempt of eBay becoming a "traditional" online shop...

mbright1 · Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 8:17 am Post subject:

One scenario might be...

I'm selling a widget in a standard 7 day auction, and the bidding stands at $20 with one day and 10 minutes to go, other seller who we'll refer to as "cannon-fodder" see's my auction and has a comparable item to sell so they pop in a one day listing to close 5 minutes prior mine, and they have an opening bid of say $10 with no reserve.

The typical result would be that:

a.) Their auction would receive minimal bidding interest and/or exposure considering the length of the auction, and could very well syphon off (suck) bidders away from my listing, and drawing down the bidding activity for my auction as well.

"Hmmm, that (one day) listing just sold for $10.00... and this other listing is already at $20.00, heck if I'm going to bid (anything more) on it."

So now the "perceived" market value of this item has been lowered CONSIDERABLY, all because of this POOR marketing tactic!!

Simply call it another ploy on the part of eBay to increase their revenues as it will increase the overall turnover of listings, never mind that it'll have a detrimental effect on all the other listings.

When they implemented the BIN feature we saw a decline in some areas and this "feature" will only add salt to the wound.

When selling with BIN prices, rarely (like NEVER) if ever, will you garner a final bid for more than your BIN. In reality, since so many sellers use the BIN so ubiquitously, BIN prices are many times considered to be "retail" value and the bidding will only reach a mere fraction of the initial BIN price... even when the item is sold with no reserve.

If we were smart enough to do so... we'd quit using BIN as well, and run all our listings for at least 7 days. We'd receive greater exposure given the longer time frame, and exposure to more potential bidders. Even 10 days isn't long enough for some items, and I'd like to see an option for listings of even greater length.

If its to be an improvement in the service, it'll be longer listings, not shorter ones.

Once agian, I'm purposely leaving out a few pieces of the puzzle, as I'm not on eBay's payroll, and they'll just have to remain in the dark for now. The pieces that is, not eBay

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kjp55 · Joined: 18 Aug 2001 Posts: 1972 Location: East of Rockies

I see your point, now

Good points.

The comparison to Tele-Trade is probably a bad comparison, since they make up auction catalogs and set the entire catalog to open and close at a certain time. They also only list their items, unlike an open to the public auction like eBay. They're more on the line of a real-world auction, only with remote and electronic bidding.

Sooooo, the only way to make the eBay 1-day auctions fair to everyone would be to only allow 1-day auctions?

I've often wondered why eBay, or the Shop At Home Channel, or someone similar has not taken advantage of that market online. You'd think there would be a huge market for the continuous countdown auctions, like the sales they have on TV.

Fast-Pack.com · Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2003 2:25 pm Post subject:

Hello All!,

The one day auction has arrived. Who is going to give them a try? Let us know how they work out for you.
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Fastpack Packaging SHIPPING SUPPLIES

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kjp55 · Joined: 18 Aug 2001 Posts: 1972 Location: East of Rockies

In case anyone is curious, here is the eBay 1-day auction details page.

sun818 · Joined: 24 Aug 2003 Posts: 597

Working great on one hot-selling item. Sell-through rate is lower, but overall profit is much better.

deco-days · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Posts: 213 Location: Toronto, Canada

I agree, the down side is there very slow search feature which everyone has been complaining about for years and has apparently fallen on deaf ears.

This 1-day auction is useless without it being revamped and the categories being indexed every 1/2 hour.

Also, it's certainly not fair for the guy who has a 7 day auction or the one that paid extra to be for a 10 day run. Even if they get bids the guys with the 1 day auction are in a position to steal his bidders. The winner could actually have their item in hand before the other even closes and which if not cancelled would have them as the higher bidder.

I'm seeing this bringing on a rash of bid-retractions for the sellers from people who found and won a 1-day auction before theirs ends.

Also, with the buy now feature, what's the point?!?!?

This is just another ebay money making ploy --- anyone doing the 1-day auction is going to have to spend a great deal of money to stand out and get the attention of enough people to drive the price in that short a time.

I just see the cash register clinging for more featured, bold, highlighted etc etc option for ebay's stock holders and another billion for Meg!!

Let's not forget, it's all about them -- let's not kid ourselves.
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