The basic idea of eBay is simple – it’s about connecting buyers and sellers within the exciting framework of an auction environment.
Originally it was a forum for people to swap or buy and sell relatively modest-value items. Over time it grew and expanded into being a major online auction site for just about anything you can think of including antiques and sometimes high-value ones at that.
For many years, it served its antiques market purpose well.
Most buyers and professional sellers were happy because it was always possible for the former pick up a real bargain while from the seller’s point of view, statistically, the overall trends/returns were good.
Many auctions were based upon true open-bidding with low start values and many buyers got their bids in early to try and ‘reserve’ the price range up to the maximum they wished to pay.
So buyers got the occasional really good deal and sellers got reasonable sales overall albeit with the occasional and often inexplicable heavy loss on an individual item.
The early bidding gave people sellers some confidence/reassurance and the open-bidding did likewise for buyers. Broadly speaking, everybody was happy.
What’s happening today?
It’s possible to make a convincing case that the above situation was very much the ‘halcyon days’ of eBay as a forum for buying and selling quality antiques online.
If you shop for serious antiques on eBay today, the chances are you will find:
- The vast majority of items are advertised on a ‘Buy It Now’ or ‘Buy It Now with Best Offers’;
- Those quality items that are still being offered under open bidding are advertised with typically high ‘start bidding’ levels
- Many professional sellers have departed, saying it is now almost impossible to sell anything on eBay and they’re taking their items elsewhere.
How has this come about?
Changing markets
The changes are being driven by buyer and seller behaviours – though it’s something of a chicken and egg debate as to where it all started.
Certainly from the crises of 2007/2008 onwards, buyers became increasingly, if understandably, obsessed with “must get it cheap“.
There of course had always a tendency for buyers to try and leave their bids until the last few minutes. That was done on the sometimes mistaken belief that it’s the only way to obtain a bargain. That tendency though became the norm as time passed after 2008.
Another significant change in buyer practice over recent years has been the increasing use of ‘Bid Sniping’ software. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a system whereby buyers can leave a maximum bid level with an online company who then place an automated bid within the last two or three seconds before the auction ends.
The net effect of reduced buying and ever-later last second bidding, from the point of view of sellers, is that quite often their items will sit with few if any bids on them up until just a few seconds before the close. That kills dead seller confidence in a true auction approach with low start prices.
Now if you are selling a DVD or some secondhand tools and expect to get a final price in the ‘tens’ of your chosen currency, you might be fatalistic about seeing your item bid up to only 1.50 about 10 seconds before it sells. However, if you have, say, an antique watch valued at 500 and it is sitting there with no bids just a few seconds before it closes, then you’re going to be a lot more nervous.
In theory, this process should be self-regulating but as any experienced quality sellers on eBay will tell you, it isn’t and the losses suffered by dealers can be extremely significant and increasingly also very frequent.
It’s therefore little surprise then that more and more quality antique vendors have moved to ‘Buy It Now’ as a means of protecting their interests.
The net effect of this is that in terms of quality antiques, eBay is becoming much more akin to Amazon or a simple classified advertisements magazine than a true online bidding site.
Can the old exciting days of eBay bidding ever come back?
Sadly, the conclusion must be ‘probably not’.
In order for vendors of quality antiques to start entrusting their financial success again to eBay open-bidding sales, a number of things would need to change:
1. Buyers would need to be encouraged to bid earlier.
2. Bid Sniping software would need to be banned.
3. Average open-bidding realized prices would need to increase over and above what has been the case since roughly 2008.
For buyers and sellers alike, the demise of eBay as a truly dynamic and exciting open-bidding forum for quality antiques is regrettable even though it is being replaced by increasing number of antique sellers moving to forums such as Amazon or antiques shops on ETSY.
It’s a sad fact that if anything, eBay’s own policies and practices appear to be accelerating its transition away from an online auction forum and towards becoming something of a pale reflection of sites such as Amazon and various classified ad notice boards.
For serious antiques buyers and sellers, eBay as an exciting channel may be becoming now nothing more than the stuff of nostalgic memory.