I think that the price that those are fetching right now maybe encourage seller to let go of their machine for paying the christmas bill. I was just thinking that maybe there are always a few member of this forum who are bidding on the same machine making the price go up . I think it would be nice if we could find a way to bypass the ebay frenzy and simply find the highest interested bidder here and let him have his shot at it! It would certainly help get the price on some machine down and who know maybe it could be done for a few machine. Of course this would be only base on good faith and ethic and it may not work at all but we could always dream of a better ebay, we could even have an ebay & craiglist section where people post link to interesting item to help other.

Just a thought!
Robert

Yeah, who doesn't like a bargain? But I'm not sure how many sellers would be interested in making less than they could just for the sake of "good faith and ethic".

No one is twisting the arm of eBay buyers to bid more than what they might have to pay if they knew enough to find a better deal elsewhere. Presumably, the buyer feels like they are paying a fair price for what they are buying. Why should the seller feel bad about getting that price? Or feel compelled to take less than that price?

If we lived in a perfect Communist society, everyone would get their Cremina at a price based on their need, not what the market would bear. But in a free-market, buyers are free to spend "too much", and sellers are free to take their money, even if that means someone else doesn't get a "deal".

I think it's best/fair not to mention "active" ebay auction items. If you were to find something on ebay that you wanted would you want it brought to others attention possibly raising the price?

BrewHaHa wrote:Yeah, who doesn't like a bargain? But I'm not sure how many sellers would be interested in making less than they could just for the sake of "good faith and ethic".

I'm not really talking about seller here, just maybe a way that we don't make the price go up for nothing between us member of the group. Here's the explanation. If we were to make a post here when one machine come up on ebay, member of this forum could say how much they would bid ultimately. The member with the highest interest would be the only one of the forum to bid on the item. To see the difference it could make let's make an example. Let's say that there is an auction for a cremina and the actual highest bidder (not from this forum) has put a maximum bid of 500$. If two of us are interested in the item and one is willing to bid a max 800$ and the other a max 850$. If the two bid on the item. The auction will automatically go up at 805$. But if beforehand we were to decide who is bidding on this auction and only the one willing to pay 850$ would bid, in the same case the auction would only go at 505$ instead of 805$. Of course this does not take into account bidder from other source...but I'm sure you can understand the advantage!!!!!

Robert

BrewHaHa wrote:But in a free-market, buyers are free to spend "too much", and sellers are free to take their money, even if that means someone else doesn't get a "deal".

The only problem is that ebay is not really representative of the free market. I've been doing business on ebay since the beginning and the problem with the blind auction is that there is a lot of scam going on! At the beginning of ebay you were able to see who was bidding against you and it was easier to see if there was any shill bidding, and there was. Now you cannot see who's bidding and I suspect that shill bidding is as strong as it was in the days since it's even easier to do so. The main process is quite easy, near the end of the auction, someone known to the seller or the seller himself will increase his bid in small amount to reach the highest bidder limit by just exceeding it. He then can have his last bid cancelled or win it, not complete the transaction, and then offer a "second chance offer" to the second highest bidder which might be you! What difference does it make? Well if you were the high bidder at 500$ and your maximum bid was 800$ it's a difference of 300$ against a false bidder, this is of course illegal but since ebay has made all bidder anonymous it's almost impossible to discover and ebay of course is living on a % of the sale. This is not really what I call Free-market .

Robert

Robert,

Thanks for your explanation of the ebay system. I had wondered to what degree shill bidding is possible there. $800-900 for a well made machine that costs close to $3000 for the current model is not a terrible price if they are as well made as it sounds like they are.

I think the OP mentioned that some Cremina owners may be selling to raise Christmas funds. Or do the sellers predict a good market this time of year?

I would like to check out the steaming and temp stability of one, but $800 is a bit steep for a trial of a machine. Just my two cents.

robert mayrand wrote:The only problem is that ebay is not really representative of the free market. I've been doing business on ebay since the beginning and the problem with the blind auction is that there is a lot of scam going on! At the beginning of ebay you were able to see who was bidding against you and it was easier to see if there was any shill bidding, and there was. Now you cannot see who's bidding and I suspect that shill bidding is as strong as it was in the days since it's even easier to do so. The main process is quite easy, near the end of the auction, someone known to the seller or the seller himself will increase his bid in small amount to reach the highest bidder limit by just exceeding it. He then can have his last bid cancelled or win it, not complete the transaction, and then offer a "second chance offer" to the second highest bidder which might be you! What difference does it make? Well if you were the high bidder at 500$ and your maximum bid was 800$ it's a difference of 300$ against a false bidder, this is of course illegal but since ebay has made all bidder anonymous it's almost impossible to discover and ebay of course is living on a % of the sale. This is not really what I call Free-market .

Robert

Very true with one exception - sellers cannot bid on their own listing. They can, however, have a second ID to do just that. This has happened to me before on more than one occasion, and a second chance offer comes after the auction ends. I always turn them down and tell the seller to re-list it and to not bid up his/her own listing next time.

If you are bidding on an item, look at the bid history. If you see a potential buyer bumping up the bid in small increments until they become the highest bidder, beware. Chances are you were outbid by the seller or one of his/her friends.

robert mayrand wrote:I'm not really talking about seller here

Exactly. You're looking at it only from the buyer's point of view. As a potential buyer, it's a natural first reaction to want to pay less than what an item is worth. But if you were the seller you'd probably have a much different viewpoint. (As the seller, would you PREFER to sell for less than what someone is willing to pay???)

I think your premise that typical eBay sellers are scamming buyers, and are typically creating alternate IDs for just this purpose is extremely cynical. Do I think this sort of thing happens? Sure. But do I think that sellers - especially sellers who have hundreds or thousands of positive feedbacks - do this on a regular basis? No, I don't.

And do I think that the people who are are selling their Cremina "for paying the christmas bill" on eBay are scammers, but wouldn't be if they had the opportunity to sell their machine for a lower price here on HB? (Do I need to answer that question?)

But let's say that IS the case. Let's say every eBay seller artificially bids up their items. Is the end result any different than the seller just setting a reserve at the same high price? Ultimately, eBay auctions are a way for a buyer and seller to negotiate a mutually acceptable price for an item. If the price goes too high - either from other Home Barista members bidding, or from the seller setting a high reserve, or even scamming fake bids - there's nothing forcing a bidder to bid higher than they think the item is worth.

The goal should be that the buyer and seller each think they have gotten a good deal - not that a buyer thinks that they've taken advantage of a seller who doesn't know what their item is worth, or that a seller has to take whatever they can get "for paying the christmas bill", regardless of what their Cremina is actually worth.

BrewHaHa wrote:Exactly. You're looking at it only from the buyer's point of view. As the seller, would you PREFER to sell for less than what someone is willing to pay???)

By the way I've been more a seller than a buyer in the first year of ebay and I know very well that this market doesn't reflect the real price of item and that's why so many people sell their stuff there. Like I said the problem with ebay is that there is a big difference between what an item is worth and the maximum bid you would put on a blind auction. You will never put the exact amount that you think the item is worth when you do a blind auction, you will always put a bit more expecting to get it at the price you think it's worth. So the price always go just over the real value and increasing bid are going up in big increment, from one bidder max bid to the other and so on. Each time the item is bought at a slightly higher value, it also become a reference for future auction of the same item, a lot of people will put a max bid just a little bit over the same item that sold a while ago, thinking that this price is the market price. The item again will usually sell just above that and so on. You see my point.

I think your premise that typical eBay sellers are scamming buyers

No they are not, but like another poster said, be aware if you see other bid on the same item as you in small increment.

people who are are selling their Cremina "for paying the christmas bill" on eBay are scammers, but wouldn't be if they had the opportunity to sell their machine for a lower price here on HB?

I never said anything about selling the machine for a lower price on HB, I'm talking about people in a specific market working together to help not raise auction price.

there's nothing forcing a bidder to bid higher than they think the item is worth.

Actually yes, read the first paragraph!

The goal should be that the buyer and seller each think they have gotten a good deal - not that a seller has to take whatever they can get "for paying the christmas bill", regardless of what their Cremina is actually worth.

Actually although I agree with you a 100% it is unfortunately often the case of the advantage to the seller. If seller would really want to sell at the price it's really worth, sell it at a real auction, if not you could sell it at a fix price and then the free market would take effect, if you ask too much your item won't sell, but who would do that if you could get a little more on ebay!! unfortunately it's a big illusion to thing that ebay reflect the free market. But I wouldn't expect a seller to say this openly! Hey, I even did it, so you can ask me, I knew and that's why I was selling there.

I think we talked enough about ebay and maybe we should close this post, I don't think it will go nowhere, I was thinking of a way to help people here, but forgot that I would have opposition from seller and I don't want to get into this.

Thanks anyway

Robert