ebay should change feedback page

That's a good idea. On the down side, a couple of sellers have cancelled auctions for me. But, I still think it's a good idea.

(with the benefit of coffee)

1) Why doesn't ebay already do something like that? Don't cancelled auctions lower ebay's revenue?
2) If the # of cancelled auctions were listed, what would a buyer do differently? (I guess it might apply to concurrent auctions for the same item.)

I'm not sure just how much value such information would have. Let's say that eBay starts showing how many times a given seller has cancelled an auction. What effect would that have on your participation in the auction? Assuming the auction is for something you want to buy, would the knowledge that the seller has cancelled, say, 20 auctions stop you from bidding? If so, why? Would you look at the information in the light of the seller's overall feedback rating and the ratio of cancellations to auctions completed?

Perhaps sniping influences the amount of cancelled auctions? Sellers aren't happy with the bid amount, so they cancel?

How can they cancel a completed auction? Is that possible?

Cancel "before" completion, as in the last 30 minutes or so. The seller isn't aware of what snipers will do, so, perhaps the seller doesn't like the bid amount and cancels. Just a "perhaps". Don't know.

Since this forum deals mostly with snipers, I was wondering if cancelled auctions are a problem that is frequently experienced by proxy bidders. It seems to happen to snipers a lot, or perhaps Sara is unlucky?

I personally have never had an auction in which I was interested be cancelled, that I recall. But perhaps I'm just lucky.

I don't think that buyers and sellers should automatically be treated the same way. I view a seller cancelling an auction much differently than I view a buyer retracting a bid.

In my opinion, there are only two reasons to retract a bid:

1) you accidentally entered the wrong amount (but you should have, ideally, caught that before hitting submit), and it should be followed up immediately with your corrected bid and
2) because you were bidding impulsively and had 'bidders regret' (I'd rather have somebody retract than not follow through)

I would think that come 'clever' or 'savvy' bidders might put in a false bid to retract to flush out any 'proxy' bid maximums...maybe? Kinda risky though...and I wouldn't do that.

However, a seller cancelling an auction is probably much less suspect. There could be a multitude of 'innocent' reasons to cancel an auction. Either they just aren't getting the activity they anticipated and will put it up again at another time...or perhaps they've gotten an offer to buy the item on the side. For example, if I were auctioning something and found out my next-door neighbor has always wanted it, I might cancel it and sell it to them...who knows?

I doubt that knowing a seller had cancelled auctions would really change my strategy that much. If I wanted the item, I'd go for it; if I didn't, I wouldn't. And if they cancelled, I'd probably try to contact them to find out why and/or if they'd be putting it up again.

What I *would* like to see on the feedback page is a way to be able to just read through the negative responses...scrolling through 5,000 feedback comments to find the 7 negative ones is not my idea of a good time; however, I do like to read them since the reason for the negative might affect whether I bid or not.

Just my little ol' two cents...

WarriorNun

"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning"

WarriorNun,

To see only the negs and neutrals, use the following:

http://www.haus.org/cgi-bin/negs

quote:

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Rick posted: To see only the negs and neutrals, use the following:

http://www.haus.org/cgi-bin/negs

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Gosh, I love you guys!

WarriorNun

"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning"

Well, Rickdogg (no relation) gets the credit for that little nicety.

Yeah, I just used it and the results made me cancel a snipe I had set up. The seller had 118 feedbacks and a 96.4% positive rating. When I checked out the negs I found that most of his feedback, and all of his positives, were for him as a buyer, not a seller. He'd sold maybe 20-25 items total and gotten all 6 of his negatives as a seller since he signed onto eBay in March '03, entirely for nondelivery or very slow delivery of merchandise he'd sold. He had the usual excuses: order mixup, computer problems, eBay problems, etc.

That is one handy little URL. Thanks again, Rickdogg (no relation )!