Bidding system for Classifieds

D

dash2009

Disciple
Hey Everyone

My apologies if it has been discussed and answered before. I was wondering why don't we have a bidding system like ebay in our Classifieds section? The "over-pricing" and "low-balling" has gone out of hands recently and bidding system seems to be the perfect solution for it. The seller can get the max price for his item that the buyers in market are willing to pay and buyers can get the item at what they are willing to pay max.

Some examples of my complaints-
I was recently selling a 3080 Ti for 82.5k which I purchased for 1.6L just a year ago which I believe was a fair price but still some low-ballers were offering me 55-60k for it or 3070 + 15k cash and someone even offered 3080 + 5k cash which is ridiculous and quite frustrating. Not going to name anyone obviously. And then I saw this thread where the buyer offered INR 550 for fully working (I assume) 16gb smart phone. You cant even get a dumb keypad phone for INR 550 these days!!! and I am sure there are many more cases like these.

What are your thoughts? @puns
 
dash2009 said:
Hey Everyone

My apologies if it has been discussed and answered before. I was wondering why don't we have a bidding system like ebay in our Classifieds section? The "over-pricing" and "low-balling" has gone out of hands recently and bidding system seems to be the perfect solution for it. The seller can get the max price for his item that the buyers in market are willing to pay and buyers can get the item at what they are willing to pay max.

Some examples of my complaints-
I was recently selling a 3080 Ti for 82.5k which I purchased for 1.6L just a year ago which I believe was a fair price but still some low-ballers were offering me 55-60k for it or 3070 + 15k cash and someone even offered 3080 + 5k cash which is ridiculous and quite frustrating. Not going to name anyone obviously. And then I saw this thread where the buyer offered INR 550 for fully working (I assume) 16gb smart phone. You cant even get a dumb keypad phone for INR 550 these days!!! and I am sure there are many more cases like these.

What are your thoughts? @puns
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It again comes down to whether TE is going to be an informal marketplace or an eBay clone, as all suggestions till date have been along those lines.
 
Buy Sell Trade might be the primary reason for some people to use TechEnclave but it's not the primary reason why TechEnclave exists, there have been forums similar to tech enclave that devolved into buy sell trade websites with next to no active discussion threads and phased out, In my personal opinion, this forum primarily acts as a platform to get to know fellow tech enthusiast and discuss all things tech related and participate in vibrant discussions, I personally have learned about a lot of new things just from reading old threads, something which I never knew I needed to know about and something which I specifically wanted to know about its all here and that's what I appreciate it the most.
 
@t3chg33k The marketplace is not so informal anymore recently, at least not by my experience. People are just rude and aggressive, I have many examples but do not wish to point fingers at anyone. Also copying someone or something successful is not a bad thing, amazon/flipkart, Zomato/Swiggy, uber/ola etc are essentially copies/clone of each other.

@Shadowfell I am sorry but I totally failed to relate your reply with my query. I never said classifieds is the primary reason why TechEnclave exists. Also I can't see how changing the model of classifieds from current offer based to bid based or even just adding a bidding option will effect the fundamentals of techenclave? How it won't be helpful to fellow tech enthusiast anymore and how they won't be able to discuss tech related things anymore? The forum will still work the same, People who do not visit classifieds section or rarely visit like yourself will not see any change at all.

Anyways, everyone has the right to have their own opinion, My suggestion is just my feedback for admins which I believe will improve the experience for techenclave users. But by the end of the day its Admins decision if they believe it will improve the experience or take it south.

Just my 2 cents.
 
dash2009 said:
@t3chg33k The marketplace is not so informal anymore recently, at least not by my experience. People are just rude and aggressive, I have many examples but do not wish to point fingers at anyone. Also copying someone or something successful is not a bad thing, amazon/flipkart, Zomato/Swiggy, uber/ola etc are essentially copies/clone of each other.

@Shadowfell I am sorry but I totally failed to relate your reply with my query. I never said classifieds is the primary reason why TechEnclave exists. Also I can't see how changing the model of classifieds from current offer based to bid based or even just adding a bidding option will effect the fundamentals of techenclave? How it won't be helpful to fellow tech enthusiast anymore and how they won't be able to discuss tech related things anymore? The forum will still work the same, People who do not visit classifieds section or rarely visit like yourself will not see any change at all.

Anyways, everyone has the right to have their own opinion, My suggestion is just my feedback for admins which I believe will improve the experience for techenclave users. But by the end of the day its Admins decision if they believe it will improve the experience or take it south.

Just my 2 cents.
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It is true that some buyers can be really aggressive. May be if you report them within the system, then the forum will be better off.

The point is that whether the overheads involved in implementing and maintaining such a system would be worth it. I assume then that TE might have to take a cut on the deals to cover the costs, which again will make it essential to track the actual payment being made for the deal.

Overall, it may not be worth it for what the forum stands for. But indeed, it is worth making suggestions and highlighting such issues.
 
dash2009 said:
@t3chg33k The marketplace is not so informal anymore recently, at least not by my experience. People are just rude and aggressive, I have many examples but do not wish to point fingers at anyone. Also copying someone or something successful is not a bad thing, amazon/flipkart, Zomato/Swiggy, uber/ola etc are essentially copies/clone of each other.

@Shadowfell I am sorry but I totally failed to relate your reply with my query. I never said classifieds is the primary reason why TechEnclave exists. Also I can't see how changing the model of classifieds from current offer based to bid based or even just adding a bidding option will effect the fundamentals of techenclave? How it won't be helpful to fellow tech enthusiast anymore and how they won't be able to discuss tech related things anymore? The forum will still work the same, People who do not visit classifieds section or rarely visit like yourself will not see any change at all.

Anyways, everyone has the right to have their own opinion, My suggestion is just my feedback for admins which I believe will improve the experience for techenclave users. But by the end of the day its Admins decision if they believe it will improve the experience or take it south.

Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...
My apologies, I'll try to be more to the point this time, bidding option might sound enticing from a buyer/seller perspective for a few but seems like a nightmare for the mod team, eBay has a full-fledged team to handle payment disputes and provides moneyback guarantee, no doubt that in the current system we have seen a handful of disputes and scammers, but a deal is done when both parties have agreed on a certain price and ironed out the details, In the case of an auction system, it's bound to happen that sometimes an item does not fetch the price that the seller was expecting to, what is stopping the seller from refusing to accept payment or withholding the items? Bad feedback? It is very easy to make multiple accounts on TechEnclave in fact here is the list of banned accounts and as you can see many of these scammers had multiple accounts. What is stopping a member to sell only from their disposable accounts? In the case of eBay, most of the sellers are there for business and have built their reputation on the site over several years so there is something at stake for them if they are not up to their word. You also mentioned that
dash2009 said:
copying someone or something successful is not a bad thing,
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Here is an article on eBay India shutting down its operations. We can also point out that Olx although filled with scammers has been somewhat successful and I've personally found some bargains there and I am pretty sure that I am not alone, It works on the same principle, Olx does not holds any accountability but gives a disclaimer before conducting any transaction, both buyer and seller agree on a price, method of payment and how the item is to be procured by the buyer and once done everyone goes on about their business. My last concern is that some members were complaining about a bug where you are unable to get notifications from bigger threads (not able to find that particular thread right now), they also mentioned that this issue has not been resolved for several months now, given the logistics involved in running an auction, I doubt it will be a very pleasing experience for anyone involved.
 
t3chg33k said:
It is true that some buyers can be really aggressive. May be if you report them within the system, then the forum will be better off.

The point is that whether the overheads involved in implementing and maintaining such a system would be worth it. I assume then that TE might have to take a cut on the deals to cover the costs, which again will make it essential to track the actual payment being made for the deal.

Overall, it may not be worth it for what the forum stands for. But indeed, it is worth making suggestions and highlighting such issues.
Click to expand...
Actually it can be as easy as uploading and enabling an add-on in admin panel of the forum. Now that add-on can be freeware, paid or even custom made that will decide its cost. If its worth it or not that's for admins to decide.

And no the forum doesn't have to work like an escrow. The payment can still be between buyer and seller as it is currently. Only change I am suggesting is that item price can be finalized by max bid, No other change in trade format. I am not suggesting TE to become copy of ebay.

And thanks for the healthy discussion.
 
dash2009 said:
Actually it can be as easy as uploading and enabling an add-on in admin panel of the forum. Now that add-on can be freeware, paid or even custom made that will decide its cost. If its worth it or not that's for admins to decide.

And no the forum doesn't have to work like an escrow. The payment can still be between buyer and seller as it is currently. Only change I am suggesting is that item price can be finalized by max bid, No other change in trade format. I am not suggesting TE to become copy of ebay.

And thanks for the healthy discussion.
Click to expand...
I think the implementation may sound easy enough but it would still require effort to administer and maintain. Plus how will disputes be managed. If your frustration is due to lowballers, I find the best policy is to simply ignore them. If they are rude, just report them to the mods. There was a thread which allowed asking others about potential selling prices but it got abused; I would rather have that thread reopened but in a way which prevents abuse. Overpricing is usually controlled when the seller realises that no one is interested after bumping the thread enough times or folks point out with examples. Even if you put the bidding system in place, nothing is stopping the lowballers from contacting you directly and wasting your time. Hence just ignore them and chill :).
 
Well this discussion has taken entirely different route than what I intended. @ibose I am not frustrated at all buddy, it takes a lot more than some random words on my laptop screen to frustrate me.

My intentions was to leave a suggestion for admins which may improve experience for users of forum and I have successfully done that, now its their decision what they want to do with it. I am totally fine if they consider it absolutely useless and ignores it. Its their forum and their responsibility. I have expressed my mindset enough. Hence I am going to leave this discussion now.

Thanks everyone for healthy discussion and feedback.

Peace Out. ;)
 
Just add one more line in your thread " Do not pm me, post your offer here only". It'll be somewhat shameful for the lowballers to post ridiculous prices. In that way you can also compare prices offered by different people.
 
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