Topic: Numerous auctions on biddingpond (Read 5269 times)

Yes,
Most minor usability bugs have been fixed on the new site. Including this one.  You can leave feedback using the following URL on the current site: http://www.biddingpond.com/buysellnofeedback.php .  Please leave negative feedback for the seller if you are unable to resolve this. Can you please PM me the auction in question and I will try to contact the seller on your behalf(if you would like that).

Before bidding on an auction, I check the seller's feedback.  If there is positive feedback and no negative feedback, I feel comfortable placing a bid.   Unfortunately, that simple act of due diligence appears to not have been enough.

I won and have paid for two of the auctions from a seller who previously had a perfect positive feedback history, but I haven't received either item.  The seller acknowledged payment received but my subsequent inquiry has received no response.  I've found that another bidder has since filed negative feedback for the seller as well.

Unfortunately, at the moment the auction site is currently having trouble where I cannot even post feedback on the transaction.  

BiddingPond v2 is weeks away, apparently, so I'm assuming this is a temporary inconvenience?
  http://biddingpond.com/viewnew.php?id=5

The lesson I learned, however, is that even with a seller who has a favorable feedback, paying using an anonymous digital currency requires a different mindset entirely.  

There would have been no cost, and just a very minor inconvenience to me if I were to have used ClearCoin escrow for my purchase.

Next time, I'm using ClearCoin.  http://www.ClearCoin.com

We aren't bidding in dollars, if you want to bid in dollars go to e-bay.  Auction close should not be hooked to the rate on any exchange site.

What you can buy with bitcoins is largely defined by prices on biddingpond.  this is a more important chart, for me, than MTGox.  All I can buy with bitcoins on MTGox are MTGox dollars  (which seem to go at less than PayPal dollars, currently.)

I understand your hesitation about bidding when the value of bitcoins may increase. But most of my auctions are going for only a few bitcoins. Even if the value of the bitcoins tripled you would still get a good deal.

With regard to the issue of bitcoins appreciating over the course of the auction, what about allowing sellers to allow bidders to bid with respect to, say, the Mt. Gox exchange rate?

Or, sellers could simply promise a discount according to how long the winning bidder will have participated in the auction.

I lowered the prices for the Ascension Stamp Collection. Hoping that someone likes my lonely, but beautiful fish on the stamps. I brought them personally from Ascension Island.

http://www.biddingpond.com/item.php?id=85&mode=1

It sounds like you should make your own auction

I like the idea of an auction.
I don't have enough bitcoins, yet, for your GBP though.
Can you sell BTC instead, I will send you Euros or Swiss Francs

Yeah, I hadn't even thought of that, but there is no reason that it needs to be all or nothing for the site. Maybe the site operator could front the money for the first few months as a promotional expense so that everyone knows what it's about and then sellers could opt in or not and the size of the kickback pool would be based on that.

and not to forget, I put the rare ascension island stamp set  on biddingpond.com

i like this idea.

the funds can come from the auctioneer's fees, or from opt-in by the sellers (sellers have incentive to opt in, if it means their items sell for more in the end).

I don't know if this is worth it's own thread so I'll put it here to get reactions, it's just an idea I had that might work well with bitcoin. I'm not suggesting you do this biddingpoind, I think the "normal" auction site is an excellent service, and this idea is a bit of a game.

So I noticed that I kind of like bidding on thing, even things I don't really need. But, even though I like to click the bid button, I usually wait until near the end since there is little reason to go early and I think some good reasons to wait. One was mentioned, bitcoin value can rise a lot in a few days even and I'd hate to pay 70BTC for a $25 Jack in the Box card and have the BTC go to parity before it even ships to me. Another reason is my fellow bidders psychology. They may decide some piece of art is worth 120BTC to them and bid it thinking that it's as high as they want to go. If I wait and outbid them at the last second then they won't have time to change their mind, if I go early they have plenty of time to reason, "Well, someone else thinks it's worth more, maybe it is after all, hmm, okay I'll go a little higher and see if I can get it", but they are less likely to outbid themselves without the stimulus of my beating them. So this leads to sniping, which isn't bad, except maybe for the seller if they get a lower price because some people who might have gone higher didn't have time.

Okay, the idea. Pay people to bid and/or pay people for being the leading bidder for a length of time. The beauty of doing this with bitcoin is that you can require bidders to have the money on account with the auction site so that people cannot freeroll by collecting payments for bidding and defaulting if they win. However much the bid is, that much will be locked up until it is paid to the seller or someone else outbids.

Now instead of paying directly you could have a point scheme and pay people according to their ranking and this way you could know the total compensation you would owe per month or whatever. So pick some amount to spend on this promotion say 1000BTC and then if someone has 4% of the total points at the end of the month they get 40BTC credited to their account.

I think this will get people to do a number of things that will be great for the site. Bidders will watch the site all the time, knowing that even if something pops up that they don't really want, they can earn points for putting in a bid. Only the worst imaginable items will go bidless, sellers will appreciate this. Also people will not wait until the last minutes which I believe will lead to higher final prices. The whole thing will feel more like a game too and the uniqueness of it should lead to some extra word of mouth. People who do find things that they like may be more inclined to go higher since they are also getting a kickback for it, and may have previous bonuses to spend. People can convince themselves that the points are worth more than they really are when they are looking for a reason to bid. Then can even tell the wife, "whoops, I didn't mean to win, only trying to snag a few points, sorry"

Anyway, feedback please. Or even better, implement it so I can see if it's as good as it looks to me.

Maybe I need to start a bounty offer for a biddingpond snipe site?  :-)

Then don't bid until the last few hours/minutes/seconds.  That's what happens on ebay anyway

Wow it makes sense now. xD

Sorry for the confusion, it is weird for me to see this happening.
EDIT: Now I know how to use a proxy. Yeah!

One thing that holds me back from bidding a higher amount when I see a listing for something that I want is that when the auction ends days or weeks from now, there is a significant risk from an appreciating bitcoin.

In other words, I simply don't know what my bitcoins will be worth come the day when the auction completes.

This past week, with the BTC/USD seeing an increase of more than 10%, is a perfect example.

Since I cannot retract my bid if the rate fluctuates, had I placed a bid that bid amount effectively increased 10% over what I originally had intended it to be.

I don't know which is greater ... the problem (for buyers) or the opportunity (for sellers, when BTC/USD appreciates).

Perhaps there is an alternate auction format to allow this?  For example, if I as a seller had the ability to choose the currency for a listing, yet still able to specify that the winning bidder pays with bitcoin, this might no longer be as much of a problem.

Whatever tool you are using is using the term 'bot' in an odd manner. What tool is it?

Thanks, ColdOne, for putting stuff up there.  I know it can be frustrating for sellers when there aren't a lot of buyers.  I bid on a couple of your items but was outbid.  If you do decide to stop listing, check back in a few months as Bitcoin popularity seems to be growing exponentially. 

Thank you everyone who has been bidding. As long as people continue to show interest I will keep auctioning items on Biddingpond.

I recently made some bids and even won an item. I think there is some serious miscommunication here. Maybe I can help.

Say someone has a high bid of 8BTC and you decide the thing is worth 20BTC to you so you type in 20. Instead of actually bidding 20 for you immediately it bids 8 plus whatever increment, say 9. If this ends up being the last bid you get the thing for 9, saving you 11. If someone comes in with a bid of 15, your bid instantly shows up over theirs as 16. They are annoyed because it tells them that wasn't enough. They bid 25 since this is above your 20 they are now in the lead, showing 21 for now. Get it?

Nothing nefarious is going on here. I believe it is a little different than ebay though I haven't been there in a while. I think Ebay allows you to place an immediate bid and a max bid, which is silly imo, but apparently makes it more clear.