Why hog the whole place?

[Rusty500 10]

Hi all.

 

I have been one of the many "short lived" sellers on BoB, but have now sold my entire collection "lock, stock and barrel". I have seriously enjoyed the period that I had selling my duplicates, and all of the buyers that I dealt with where absolutely fantastic.

 

My one big concern is the one seller that takes up most of the space in the stamps catergory on BoB. Here are a few statistics concerning this particular seller.

 

1) Stamps advertised by the seller - 3144

2) All stamps advertised - 12281

3) All stamps recently sold by the seller - 9

4) Percentage of adverts by the seller - 25.60%

5) Percentage of Sales by seller - 0.07%

 

I am fairly certain that all the auctions that are currently placed by the seller have be "re-listed" on numerous occassions, as I cannot see anybody advertising that quantity of new material every few weeks or so. I have spoken to many of the buyers on BoB who state that when they see these adverts, they just scroll down to the next seller. Although a lot of the stamps are excellent, they are obviously been priced slightly high for the current market conditions.

 

What concerns me is that due to the "hogging" of the whole auction site, other sellers are being robbed of exposure, and therefore being robbed of their sales. I may be wrong, but I have yet to see the seller place an ad for Crazy Wednesday or Snap Friday auctions, probably because there are costs involved. Yes the seller has every right to place as many auctions as they would like to place, but, I certainly don't think they are being considerate towards the other sellers on BoB.

 

Any comments?

 

Rusty500

[alloway65 10]

Hi Rusty500,

I agree, very annoying, there should be a limit to the number of listings by any one seller at any given time.

I have just about given up looking at the stamp listings for this reason.

Someone must have a lot of time on their hands to make so many listing with so little success!

David

:shock:

[admin 0]

Hi Rusty500,

I agree, very annoying, there should be a limit to the number of listings by any one seller at any given tiime.

Hi David,

 

There is, in the Listing Policy, read about it here : http://www.bidorbuy.co.za/static/help/ListingPolicy.html

 

1.15. Listing abuse, manipulation and excessive listing on bidorbuy.

 

In order to create a fair and level playing field, and provide an enjoyable and safe experience for buyers, sellers may not manipulate or abuse the listing service to get items featured more regularly, prominently or spam the bidorbuy website with multiple product listings. This is entirely at the discretion of bidorbuy and will be monitored on a case by case basis.

 

This also includes but is not limited to: repeated multiple relistings with short durations, keyword spamming, spamming categories with multiple items (with the same or similar items), and listing in the wrong categories. Users found abusing the system will be given a warning first, thereafter, if this activity continues, the seller will be charged an excess listing fee of R0.10 per listing on their listings over and above their free listing allowance. The free listing allowance will be calculated as the greater of:

 

 

 

100 listings per week (calculated from Sunday to Saturday).

The maximum number of sales by the seller in any one week period over the past 6 weeks multiplied by 5.

 

Regards

[alloway65 10]

Thanks Admin,

Had not looked at this.

David. :oops:

[dstorm 10]

Hello all

 

100 listings per week (calculated from Sunday to Saturday).

The maximum number of sales by the seller in any one week period over the past 6 weeks multiplied by 5.

 

I was fortunate to receive higher education in algebra, calculus and other mathematical subjects like trigonometry for instance. Perhaps I wasted a couple of years of my life.

 

These mathematical issues just do not make sense to me.

 

Or perhaps I am just missing the bigger picture.

 

Seahorsefanatic is on his (first ever) honeymoon at the moment. He is a numerical wizard. I miss him right now.

 

Regards

 

Jacques

[alloway65 10]

I did not check the actual listing numbers against the allowed listings, just accepted the statements made.......my engineering brain is in retirement.

 

We should get the Department of Statistics to check the numbers then we will be sure the figures are wrong!!!

 

Re SHF's honeymoon...he must have had more than one:

* A honeymoon from paying traffic fines.

*A honeymoon from having our roads repaired.

*A honeymoon from having the grass cut along side our roads.

*and many more.

Have a good day.

David

[Kit W 10]

Hi Rusty 500 & company

 

I fully agree with all the comments passed concerning a 36.45% hugging of "stamps" listings. My fingers are well trained by now to do a total bypass of these items listed by the person in question. My wife pointed out an article in the local Women's mag concerning the period of listing an item on BidorBuy - it would seem that the shorter the time-frame an item is listed the more interest it generates - I lean towards these comments & generally list between 2-7 days.

 

Admin has cleared the matter, so life will carry on.

 

Good luck to the honeymoon couple

 

Regards to all

 

Kit W

[gabriel 1 11]

Hi all

 

I have said this before, introduce Bid or Buy stores and let sellers list as many items as they like in their stores. This way you seperate the auction items from this and do not aggravate auction sellers and buyers.

 

I also think auctions should end every 5 minutes, create a bit of excitement.

 

Regards

Gabriel1

[Rare NotesCoins 11]

Gees I really like those ideas. Bring it on BOB

[qball 11]

Hi All

 

You can, in essence, only view items from a particular seller, much like a store - simply go to Advanced Search, and select the link that says Search for Sellers, this will list all their items, so you don't have to sift through the main listings.

 

There are other ways to navigate and negotiate the listings on bidorbuy, wither through the Advanced search or using the filters in the categories or search results pages.

 

Kind regards

Cuan

[gabriel 1 11]

Hi qball

 

I understand the different searches etc but do you not see any merit in having stores, I believe you will atract alot more sellers which will lead to more buyers and of course more revenue for Bid or Buy.

 

Regards

Gabriel1

[dstorm 10]

Hello Cuan and Gabriel

 

It took me a long time to understand the concept / advantages of “Storesâ€, but now it makes perfect sense to me.

 

Should this ever be implemented, I would easily list 500 or 1 000 items, even if it should attract a listing fee. BidorBuy can hold me to this statement (the forum is the legal witness!)

 

Anyway, I have had discussions with a couple of BidorBuy (stamp) buyers and sellers yesterday and EVERYBODY agreed that the quality of philatelic material offered on BidorBuy is constantly improving. Obviously ignoring the few chancers who will always be present in every category of every internet site.

 

Thanks and regards

 

Jacques

[qball 11]

Hi All

 

We have it on good authority that stores (certain large auction sites in particular), has not worked for them and they regret offering this, as it has undermined their revenue earning potential.

 

Searching for a seller is just as good and no development is necessary. If you go to another leading auction site in the US, you will see that even if a seller has a store, the listings are still found under the general categories, so implementing a store strategy will not resolve this.

 

Our business model is not based on charging a listing fee, and we feel this would restrict and hamper the growth of the site.

 

Kind regards

Cuan

[librashares 10]

Why hog the whole place

 

Here's my suggestion: Allow buyers/searchers to EXCLUDE all items from named or selected sellers whose offerings are of no interest to the buyer searching.

That way we will be able to filter out those who repeatedly list junk/very common items or consistently describe items as RARE/Unique/Investment Item/etc, and waste our time and bandwidth. If we can exclude these sellers, they will very quickly get the message that no-one is looking at their offerings.

Comments Anyone?

Charles

[qball 11]

Thank you for your suggestion, however, you can just as easily do this by viewing a particular seller, why develop further tools, when you can already exclude other sellers and items simply by viewing one sellers items?

 

Unfortunately this is not something we will be developing in the near future.

 

Kind regards

Cuan

[librashares 10]

Hogging the whole page.

 

Thank you for the reply Cuan. The complaint which was voiced that started the thread was that certain sellers consistently put on the site numerous examples of very COMMON items, which can usually be bought in packets or bundles of hundreds. In order for buying collectors to identify the sellers of better material, they have to wade through hundreds of the same cheap stamps, and very soon they will not be bothered to look again. I am sure others will agree that to be able to filter out the sellers who only sell really unwanted material is a reasonable request, and will be beneficial to BidorBuy.

I equate finding the good material to trying to spot a Coelecanth while snorkelling through a shoal of sardines!

[robmac1 10]

Re: Hogging the whole page.

 

I equate finding the good material to trying to spot a Coelecanth while snorkelling through a shoal of sardines!

 

This is brilliant! Thank you for this post. I too wish there was a way to exclude certain sellers when doing an advanced search. Sad to see that it is not and will not be possible.

 

It's even harder to find good postal history material!

 

Oh, by the way, I think I may have figured out a way to exclude a particular seller from searches. Find something that they say in their listings and take a few words directly from it. This only works if they have a standard sentence that they use in all or most of their listings, such as thier disclaimer. Put those words into "Words to Exclude" under advanced search. I haven't tried it yet so I'm not sure if it will work.

 

UPDATE: I just tried it and it works (for the most part). Just be sure to tick the box which says: "Search in Description Also" It doesn't exclude all the unwanted listings, but in my experiment it did reduce the number of items in one search by over two thirds! Unfortunately this system doesn't work for general browsing but it does work if you're doing a specific search.