Second Chance Offer - inflated?

[tetibird]

Hi 

Why does the second chance offer reflect your last bid if the only other bidder renegs?

Surely it should go back to the original price?

In my case it looks suspicious when the other bidder is "private" & the offer comes in pretty much just after the end of the Auction.

[padi*0409]

I've only ever had a couple of them tetbird, and in both cases the sellers (ones I'd dealt with before) invoiced me for my lowest bid on the item.

I agree with your take on the "private listings" in that they can be a camoflage for shill bidding, that's why I rarely bid on them unless I know the seller.

[phorum_junkie*]

Sellers often use SCO when they have more than one of the same item. If there are multiple bidders then they can offer at the next lowest bidder as soon as the auction is over so there would be nothing suspicious about it. Obviously the seller would not be offering at any of your lower bid amounts.

Back in the days when bidding wars were the norm for clothes I sold a lot of items that way sometimes sending out half a dozen SCOs each with a lower bid than the one before.

[tetibird]

OK, thanks, that may be the case. I hadn't thought about that aspect. I suppose that makes sense.

However, looking at their sales there seem to be a lot of private listings who have bought - really unusual for plants?

[lyndal1838]

How do you know that the other bidder reneged on the purchase?

It is more than likely that the seller had a duplicate of the item.  If he was happy with the sale price it is in his interests to get rid of both items at the same time....no second listing, no waiting for another auction to finish and no listing fee if he was over his monthly limit.

[tetibird]

No I don't know if they reneged.
But if they did, I guess my original question was about the ethics of being offered a price based on a bidding war of 2 with someone who bid but withdrew or perhaps never intended to go through with the sale at the highest/last bid rather than the original price.

[lane-ends]

reneged or not it is the sellers option to offer it to you at your price, they are not obliged to offer it to a second bidder. So if it reverted to original price they would not make the offer and you would not get the chance to purchase at a price you were happy to bid. A lose/lose situation.

Shill bidding is a dodgy way of runing up a reserve. If regular sellers do it then it becomes obvious with repeat bidders on the one sellers items. It is less obvious with casual sellers who i am afraid often believe it is a 'done thing" and who are also more both sensitive on taking a loss on an individual listing, and also vulnerable to Ebays marketing to list low to attract more bids.

[performance_parts_clearance_centre]

Where I have 2, 3, or 5 of the same item and there's been a bidding war on one, I "Second Chance" as many of the unsuccessful bidders as I have available items. And you can set your account to auto-send "Second Chance" offers immediately the auction ends.

That's good business sense - firstly, instead of selling one item at $70, you get to sell one at $70, one at $65, and one at $60. If someone's just bid hard for an item and lost it, they're more likely to jump at the offer if it's sent while their heart rate's still up. If I wait a few days and list the identical item at the original $10 starting price, that might be all I get for it...