More VISIBILITY for BIDDING activity

[DaisyChain]

Ive voted no......

Each time I go to list, it does not look good to me when i view the amount of items which do have bids on them, which is just under 3500 items out of nearly 800000 items, which isnt even 5% of all listings. I wonder how many other people this would put off as well? Id rather see more visibility on recent items sold across the site.

[jewelsparlour]

I wonder why is that? Maybe because of the ridiculous starting prices or rubbish items sold in bulk like some voodoo stuff etc. If you treat this site as a shop and put high street prices on items no one wants you won't get any bids, simple.

Thinking your way let's hide visit counters too, and prices, and postal chargers and show it all at the checkout by surprise. That should help

[johnwash1]

Totally agree. As for me eBid can even replace "View" column in results with "Number of bids" column if there is no space.

Personally I'd like to see both. But I'm not arguing. We're both underlining the point that different folks have different preferences and catering to those prefs by making things config'able is a great way to make users feel their wishes are respected and the site cares about individuals.

[johnwash1]

I wonder why is that? Maybe because of the ridiculous starting prices or rubbish items sold in bulk like some voodoo stuff etc. If you treat this site as a shop and put high street prices on items no one wants you won't get any bids, simple.

Thinking your way let's hide visit counters too, and prices, and postal chargers and show it all at the checkout by surprise. That should help

It's a common initial reaction, but the beauty of the site's policy becomes clear when visitors realise that here they can find unusual items that can sit here for ages waiting for the right buyer to come along. I even sold a 1962 London Transport map here, I think it was for 50p. Took months. I would have been foolish to put in on ebay, paying listing fees every 10 days.

Otherwise I'd have put it in the wastebin, but the buyer was happy to find it. That's good all round.

So just because there's a lot of 0 bids doesn't make the site a waste of time at all.

[rainbowseeker]

I think when you are looking at the 3500 bids you have to remember there is a large part of this sites inventory that is listed in stores or with BIN...those are NOT true auction listings and when sold will never show up as a bid. So in reality the actual amount of items selling on this site is perhaps much larger than 5% that manstomar stated. We don't have the information to determine what percentage of AUCTION items are being bid on....but hiding the bids is not helping that portion of this site be more popular or productive. IMHO of course.

[jewelsparlour]

Personally I'd like to see both. But I'm not arguing.

I'd like to see them both too, but if I had to make a choice then I'd go for number of bids instead of number of views.

johnwash1, this is a very good point about 0-bids-auctions. Some people want to inflate this service at any price (by hiding some things for example :P) because they want to gain money NOW. This is understandable but patience is a virtue. I personally sacrifice most of my auctions (not for long I hope) by moving them from the bigger brother over here and if everyone will do the same this site will thrive without a doubtful help. I like watching the number of items growing here steadily. Hopefully eBid is worth it and will not behave like its big useless competitor living at its popularity, after having a few million items listed here.

So c'mon manstomar, there is nothing bad in changing your opinion, say big YES for the number of bids showing in results

[rainbowseeker]

As long as the search functions to find items listed by BIN and by auction or by 1st Bid, etc......a search that sorts through all the items on the site for what the buyer is looking for I cannot see why showing bids would be a bad thing. In fact I could see it as a positive for those who only list with BIN. As bids rise on an item if your BIN is lower than the bids being made on the item being AUCTIONED then your BIN may just get the boost it needs to get an immediate sale too and won't sit forever languishing in your store. So it's a WIN WIN for everyone. Again IMHO

[DaisyChain]

Rainbowseeker is right about there probably being a higher than average 5% sell through rate on items, due to BIN items not being included, but i still think seeing page after page of items with no bids on will not build confidence for people thinking of listing items.... however i would be happy "views" dissapearing in favour of "bids", its kinda pointless having "views" come up in search listings

[madelaine]

its kinda pointless having "views" come up in search listings

particularly with run til sold and long listings with 10 autoreposts - quite ordinary items can build up very impressive view scores

[rainbowseeker]

Kind of perpetuates the "shop worn" look IMHO....I'd much sooner see bids.....or have the count start over once a month.