quote:
"now who in the hell would pay extra for that?".
That's what I thought. They are paying 10 cents an auction to schedule when they end. They do it because they can then create auctions at 7 or 8am for example and have them launch and end at 7:30pm for example.
They dont do it to interfere with us, but because the most buyers are on eBay from about 5:30pm until 8:30pm. So they are working and creating their auction listings in the morning and then pay eBay the 10 cent fee so they dont have to come back later to launch the listings or create them then. They want to create them earlier in the day, but have them start and end during eBays peak buyer hours.
Basically eBay is a monopoly. If most of those sellers knew they could use any of many 3rd parties to do the same thing for free, or a much smaller free, and spread out their listings nicely they probably would. But that info is almost impossible to find unless you happen upon the small text link at the bottom of an auction created with such a program. Even then most people uses eBays because they are the easist to know about and find.
We recommend this program:
http://www.auctiva.com/products/MisterPoster.aspx
It's free and you can create auctions offline, then come back and launch them later. Or for a fee 1/4 to 1/10th or less of what eBay charges you can schedule them. If you schedule a lot of listings it ends up being less than a penny per listing vs eBays 10 cents.