[sdiy] ebay internal shill bidding?

[Tom Wiltshire]

On 5 Jan 2011, at 03:30, Mike Pepper wrote:

> I think a very real problem with ebay is that it is not a real auction. It
> is more akin to a game of 'chicken', with everyone holding off until the
> last minute to bid or 'swerve'. This has the effect of keeping prices down,
> and inciting shill attempts to get them up, usually from sellers.

I agree that eBay often looks like a game of chicken. It also rewards people with faster internet connections. Imagine trying to win an auction on a dial-up modem! No chance!
WRT shilling, yes, it definitely goes on, but as Mike said, mostly from sellers. I know people who admit to getting their friends to bid on their stuff to push the price up. That plus "sniping bots" is probably enough to explain the phenomena we've seen. I think company/world-wide conspiracy (whilst possible) is a fairly unlikely explanation.

Finally, "real" auctions are no better. When my parents were still farming, my dad used to swear that he'd been bidding against the auctioneer in the ring. A discreet nod of the head is all that was required to bid, so it was often difficult to spot other bidders. Auctioneers (who are on a %age) used this to their advantage and sometimes moved up a couple of prices without actually receiving bids. Given the speed of auctions at livestock markets, this is easily done. Dutch auctions (where the prices start high and come down until someone bids) avoid several of these difficulties.

T.