Date   : Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:09:47 +0100
From   : jumbos.bazzar@... (Mark Haysman)
Subject: [OT] eBay Pricing Psychology Discussion - was

> I've seen lots of sellers do this trick, it costs noting to list under a 
> ?1
> now, and many sellers use it as a classified advert, and then when they 
> have
> enough interested parties and bids, cancel the auction, and then start
> offering it direct and playing private auctions and offers!

> Cancelled due to no longer available or broken!

Yes, I've know exactly what you mean.

> and then there are the sellers, that try and make up for the poor sale 
> price
> of a ?1 by telling you it's going to cost ?25 to ship, and they need to
> charge you ?5 extra for bubble wrap and a box!

Oh yes, sellers from China having 0.99p buy-it-now and charging ?5.00 for 
postage, on an item the size of a packet of peanuts. Report it to eBay, and 
they do diddly squat. I put the words "as new" in an eBay listing, and POW - 
you're items are cancelled and a bad strike goes against you. It's all about 
who pays the biggest fees to them gets the bigest priveledges.

And one thing that grinds my gears on that subject....Amazon.co.uk ENCOURAGE 
sellers to do EXACTLY THAT!

I was trying to buy CF cards for ?4.99 from a UK based company through 
Amazon, and they had a ?4.99 postage charge. Now okay - small CF cards - 
?4.99 shipping is high for a RM cost of say no more than ?2.00, but as a 
company you've got overheads etc., not worth it for one, so I go to buy 20 
thinking "yeah, couple of quid extra  for postage, 20 of these things aren't 
that heavy". Nope, they wanted the best part of ?100.00 for shipping - which 
is clearly ludicrous - I could ship them to Outer Mongolia for less than 
that!

I made a direct compaint to Amazon, and the reply was along the lines of 
"This is a practice that our sellers employ to maximise their sales by 
offering lower prices on listings."

That, as far as I'm aware, is a direct violation of UK Trading Standards 
Law, which says that you can't advertise one price, and then charge a higher 
one at the checkout. I KNOW that applies to Retail stores because I enjoy 
catching them out on it when I see something I want that is mis-priced. 
AFAIK, it should apply to distance sales too.

/rant mode = off

Mark.