eBay vrs42?

[Doc Shipley]

Jim Battle wrote:

> In the original case that spawned this thread, it was by a party who was 
> interested enough that he feared a bidding war.  Bidding wars are the 
> sellers wet dream.  Claiming that avoiding this won't affect the end 
> price is silly; the market in question isn't the perfect information 
> flow, continuous elasticity model that people use in the abstract when 
> talking economics.  There often isn't someone else to fill the role of 
> the interested buyer who drops out because of collusion.

   OK, here's my take.

   The fact that DW was asking "in-house", so to speak, about the other 
bidder seems perfectly acceptable to me.  Maybe I'm rationalizing, but 
in my estimation there's a huge difference between these two actions:

A) looking up an unknown opposing bidder and emailing a complete 
stranger with an offer to negotiate out of a bidding war.

B) Realizing that an opposing bidder is or may be someone with whom I 
already have correspondence or contact, and using *that previous avenue* 
of contact to negotiate a reduction of collateral damage.

   The first is distasteful, if not unethical, and certainly would be 
interpreted by eBay as a AUP violation.

   The second is simply common sense.  If I'm the seller, even, and 
someone contacts me and says "I just realized I'm bidding against an 
associate, and I'd like to retract all my bids", I'd be seriously 
unhappy about that, because a bidding war *is* a wet dream.  However, as 
an ethical seller, I would feel obliged to allow the retraction without 
penalty.

   I subscribe to a private mailing list of Unix administrators, and we 
commonly collaborate on lot auctions, so that one of us bids on and 
receives the lot, and we all pay the receiver a share and shipping.  We 
also commonly use the mailing list to negotiate disputed eBay items - 
single items two or several members want - so that we don't bid against 
each other.

   The first practice obviously benefits both the seller and us.  Some 
of the lots we've bought would otherwise not sell at all, due to niche 
interest and a high initial investment.  The second practice is bona 
fide collusion, but it is simply the other side of the same coin.  As I 
said before, the collusion is explicitly and directly a result of an 
ongoing association, and is not only natural but ethical and desirable.

   It's irrelevant, I suppose, but it's also my observation that while a 
single seller of a single item may lose a higher price because of our 
association, none of us spend less overall because of it.  We all have 
monthly "toy budgets", and none of us have much trouble keeping it 
zeroed.  ;)


	Doc