The basic idea of ​​eBay is simple: it’s about connecting buyers and sellers within the exciting framework of an auction environment.

Originally, it was a forum for people to trade or buy and sell items of relatively modest value. Over time, it grew and expanded to become a major online auction site for just about anything you can think of, including antiques and sometimes high value ones.

For many years, it served its purpose as an antiques market well.

Most professional buyers and sellers were happy because it was always possible for the former to get a real bargain while from the seller’s point of view, statistically, the overall trends/returns were good.

Many auctions were based on a true open bid with low starting values ​​and many buyers bid early to try to “reserve” the price range up to the maximum they were willing to pay.

So buyers got really good occasional deals and sellers got reasonable sales overall, albeit with occasional and often unexplained losses on an individual item.

Early bidding gave sellers some confidence/assurance and open bidding did the same for buyers. Generally speaking, everyone was happy.

What is happening today?

It is possible to make a convincing case that the former situation was very much the “happy days” of eBay as a forum for buying and selling quality antiques online.

If you buy serious antiques on eBay today, you will most likely find:

  • The vast majority of items are listed as ‘Buy It Now’ or ‘Buy It Now with the best deals’;

  • Quality items still offered for open bidding are advertised with typically high “open bid” levels.

  • Many professional sellers have left, saying that it is now nearly impossible to sell anything on eBay and that they are taking their items elsewhere.

How has this happened?

changing markets

The changes are being driven by the behaviors of buyers and sellers, although it’s something of a chicken-and-egg debate as to where it all began.

Certainly, since the crises of 2007/2008, buyers have become increasingly obsessed, although understandably, with “must get it cheap“.

Of course, there has always been a tendency for buyers to try to leave their deals to the last minute. That was done in the sometimes mistaken belief that it’s the only way to get a bargain. However, that trend became the norm as time went on after 2008.

Another significant change in buyer practice in recent years has been the increased use of ‘Bid Sniping’ software. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a system whereby buyers can leave a maximum bid level with an online company that then places an automatic bid within the last two or three seconds before the auction ends.

The net effect of reduced buying and increasingly late offers at the last second, from the seller’s point of view, is that quite often their items will have little or no offers until a few seconds before the sale. of closure. That kills the seller’s dead trust in a true auction approach with low starting prices.

Now, if you’re selling a DVD or some second-hand tools and expect to get a final price in the ‘tens’ of your chosen currency, you can be doomed to see your item bid as low as 1.50 about 10 seconds before it’s due. be sold. However, if you have, say, a vintage watch valued at 500 and it’s there without any offers just seconds before closing, then you’ll be much more nervous.

In theory, this process should be self-regulating, but as any experienced eBay quality seller will tell you, it is not, and the losses suffered by dealers can be extremely significant and increasingly frequent.

So it’s no surprise that more and more quality antique dealers have turned to ‘Buy It Now’ as a means of protecting their interests.

The net effect of this is that, in terms of quality antiques, eBay is much more like Amazon or a simple classifieds magazine than a true online bargain site.

Can the old exciting days of eBay deals return?

Unfortunately, the conclusion must be ‘probably not’.

For quality antique sellers to start trusting eBay’s open auction sales for their financial success again, several things must change:

1. Buyers should be encouraged to bid earlier.

2. Bid Sniping software should be banned.

3. Average realized open bidding prices would need to increase beyond what has been the case since about 2008.

For buyers and sellers alike, the demise of eBay as a truly dynamic and exciting open bidding forum for quality antiques is unfortunate, though it is being replaced by an increasing number of antique sellers moving to forums like Amazon or antique stores on ETSY.

It’s a sad fact that, if anything, eBay’s own policies and practices seem to be accelerating its transition from an online auction forum to becoming a pale reflection of sites like Amazon and various classifieds boards.

For serious antique buyers and sellers, eBay as an exciting channel may now become nothing more than a nostalgic memory.