Shopsmith Forums

I'm sure the seller was happy. When I posted the link there was a buy it now price of $850 and no bids.

[quote="dgale"]My guess in looking at the bid history is that 5**d is "fine", who bid $800 ~14 minutes before the auction ended and then got nervous at made an $850 bid with ~7 minutes to spare. b**c then came along with ~45 sec to spare and bid something >the selling price ($960), at which point 5**d got an e-mail that he/she had been outbid and 5**d then got caught up in bidding fever in an attempt to win it back and made two more attempts with 25sec and 7 sec left by pacing bids of $900 and $950 respectively.

Lots of "rookie moves" in this auction history. Had it been a true snipe using a sniping service, the bid(s) would have been place with ~5 sec remaining. Instead, this was these two bidders watching the clock. One mistake is bidding svn numbers (i.e. $800, $900, $950) - if you're willing to pay $800, it is wise to loo at the bid increment (in this case it looks like it was $10) and make a bid that is one increment and change higher than what you want to pay (i.e. $812.50) - this way you win over the person who does what 5**d did, as well as someone who bumps it up one more bid increment. Also, if you want to wait and bid at the 11th hour, it's smarter to wait until the final seconds and not place your bid with 14min, 7min, or even 45 sec to spare&#8230]

I did not analyse the bidding, just notice there were some bidding in the last few minutes. Yes, I snipe bid in the last 3 seconds many times if the bidding price is way too low for the actual value for a part that I can use later. Of course, you must watch for inflated shipping costs. I use a search routine to check all the Ebay Shopsmith lists every day or two for these low prices. I win about 5% of these bids and they are really good bargains. I set a max limit I would spend for the 520 so just bid that limit very quickly to knock out the "Buy It Now" price.

OK, I do not understand why anyone starts their Ebay selling price at .99 or some very low price if you are looking a fair price. These are the ones I go after by putting them on my watch list. Also, setting a reserve price to me is a waste of time for everyone. I have tracked quite a few of these and none sold for the reserve price or higher. When selling on Ebay or any where else, I start with what I consider is a fair price and only get more than one bidder less than 5% of time when I do get a much better price for my part.

I have been buying and selling on Ebay since 1999. I find about 50% of the Shopsmith parts are way over priced and many times asking for more than you can buy the new part from Shopsmith. Another 25% of the parts listed are just junk. I track some of these listings for fun and have never seen any of these selling. I cannot understand why any one would show pictures of rusted and corroded parts and think they will sell. I would not want to put the hours needed to clean and paint them. In fact, I have a shed full of these types of parts.

In summary, I find less than 10% of the Ebay Shopsmith sellers really understand what is involved or should expect to sell their parts. I find there are a few Shopsmith Ebay sellers who still have really nice parts and set their prices at a fair market value. It is shame that all of my favorite Ebay sellers that I used for many years have abandoned the Ebay market. I could spend many hours and paragraphs why this occured but it does not serve any helpful purpose. Thats my soap box time for today.

I was able to establish communications with the seller while the 520 was listed. He called me this morning and said the buyer would not respond to his invoice for the 520. I guess people do get carried away when bidding on Ebay. He offered it to me for my max bid of $780. However I recommended he work with Ebay and try to get the sale completed. He should not have to pay any fees if he has no buyer. He sounds honest but I had a few Ebay sellers actually bid up items themselves (different ID) or using friends to get higher prices. I recommended he place the 520 back on Ebay again. He will deal with Ebay and let me know. He is quite fed up with the Ebay system so who knows. The 520 came to him from his family but he did not use it. I may still end up with this 520 but believe the $780 will not give me much left over pocket money for the time spent if I have to part it out.

Bill, if you do end up with the machine and are selling the parts to turn a 510 into a 520, I'd be interested.

I'd definitely be interested if I didn't live thousands of miles away.

billmayo wrote:I was able to establish communications with the seller while the 520 was listed. He called me this morning and said the buyer would not respond to his invoice for the 520. I guess people do get carried away when bidding on Ebay. He offered it to me for my max bid of $780. However I recommended he work with Ebay and try to get the sale completed. He should not have to pay any fees if he has no buyer. He sounds honest but I had a few Ebay sellers actually bid up items themselves (different ID) or using friends to get higher prices. I recommended he place the 520 back on Ebay again. He will deal with Ebay and let me know. He is quite fed up with the Ebay system so who knows. The 520 came to him from his family but he did not use it. I may still end up with this 520 but believe the $780 will not give me much left over pocket money for the time spent if I have to part it out.

Wonder if he contacted and offered it to the bidder whose bid was $950 before he contacted you?

SDSSmith wrote:Wonder if he contacted and offered it to the bidder whose bid was $950 before he contacted you?

Something seems a little fishy about this auction - you can't simply bid up an item and be the high bidder and then just not respond and pay...at least not if you value your E-Bay account. I'm not sure what recourse E-Bay has in these situations but I'd suspect they would be fairly agressive in trying to control that sort of thing...I created my E-Bay account way back in the early days of E-Bay when things were really loose but I"m guessing it's a much tighter ship now and I'd think they'd have some level of control over multiple accounts, dead beat bidders etc. - do they require a credit card or PayPal account or something like that now to create an account?

If I were you Bill, I'd make an offer to the seller of what you are willing to pay and not necessarily what your highest bid was - having been outbid, what you previously bid is no longer pertinent. I'd offer $700 (or whatever amount you want to pay) and tell them you'll be over promptly to get it off their hands - if they really just want to be done with the sale and with E-Bay in general, you'd think they would jump on it rather than roll the dice on relisting to see what happens.

dgale wrote:Something seems a little fishy about this auction - you can't simply bid up an item and be the high bidder and then just not respond and pay...at least not if you value your E-Bay account. I'm not sure what recourse E-Bay has in these situations but I'd suspect they would be fairly agressive in trying to control that sort of thing...I created my E-Bay account way back in the early days of E-Bay when things were really loose but I"m guessing it's a much tighter ship now and I'd think they'd have some level of control over multiple accounts, dead beat bidders etc. - do they require a credit card or PayPal account or something like that now to create an account?

If I were you Bill, I'd make an offer to the seller of what you are willing to pay and not necessarily what your highest bid was - having been outbid, what you previously bid is no longer pertinent. I'd offer $700 (or whatever amount you want to pay) and tell them you'll be over promptly to get it off their hands - if they really just want to be done with the sale and with E-Bay in general, you'd think they would jump on it rather than roll the dice on relisting to see what happens.

Thanks. That is what I planned to do but not getting my hopes up and will just see what falls out over time. Yes, if I get it, I will glad to put together a 520 upgrade package if anyone is interested. I would want to wait several weeks to see what is offered before comfirming any offers. Best for me. There is too much missing to sell as a complete 520 package. What is shown is what he has.

dgale wrote:Something seems a little fishy about this auction - you can't simply bid up an item and be the high bidder and then just not respond and pay...at least not if you value your E-Bay account. I'm not sure what recourse E-Bay has in these situations but I'd suspect they would be fairly agressive in trying to control that sort of thing...I created my E-Bay account way back in the early days of E-Bay when things were really loose but I"m guessing it's a much tighter ship now and I'd think they'd have some level of control over multiple accounts, dead beat bidders etc. - do they require a credit card or PayPal account or something like that now to create an account?

If I were you Bill, I'd make an offer to the seller of what you are willing to pay and not necessarily what your highest bid was - having been outbid, what you previously bid is no longer pertinent. I'd offer $700 (or whatever amount you want to pay) and tell them you'll be over promptly to get it off their hands - if they really just want to be done with the sale and with E-Bay in general, you'd think they would jump on it rather than roll the dice on relisting to see what happens.

With at feedback number of 9, the seller may not have much experience on Ebay. Within the Ebay framework, the seller could go through the resolution center and file for an upaid item to recover their selling costs or get the original deal done. After that is resolved and if still unsold, they could try the second chance offer process with the next highest bidder. Outside the Ebay framework, anything goes.

SDSSmith wrote:With at feedback number of 9, the seller may not have much experience on Ebay. Within the Ebay framework, the seller could go through the resolution center and file for an upaid item to recover their selling costs or get the original deal done. After that is resolved and if still unsold, they could try the second chance offer process with the next highest bidder. Outside the Ebay framework, anything goes.

Interesting - I haven't paid much attention to how the E-Bay process has evolved over time. I remember back in the "early days" you used to be able to readily contact the seller within our outside of E-Bay and as a bidder also could see who each of the other bidders were and contact them during or after an auction. Now of course they obscure the user name of other bidders and provide no mechanism for you to contact other bidders. I remember getting stiffed on a few items that a seller never sent me and at the time my only recourse was to post negative feedback but at the time multiple accounts was not challenging to do, so presumably someone could screw people until their feedback reflected that they were a deadbeat and then just open a new account.