[time-nuts] Austron 2202

[Rex]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2007 18:56:00 -0600, Didier Juges <didier at cox.net> wrote:

>Well John, I need to think about that one. If you click on the high 
>bidder, you do get quite a bit more information than with the old 
>system. Even though the information was available, it would have been 
>hard to put it together. With this new system, they give it in summary 
>form, so in that respect, it is an improvement and will help seller 
>evaluate bidders, and may also help the serious bidder to understand 
>better what he/she is up against, even though loosing the link to what 
>another bidder may have bought and what he paid for it is a problem.
>
>I guess maybe eBay felt that putting that much information in summary 
>form for all to see was a little bit too much (if it had not been 
>anonymous) and would have made many buyers uneasy.
>
>Do you know if the seller has more information about the bidders than 
>what is available to other users, under this new system?
>
>So, there is some good and some bad, I am not sure which outweighs the 
>other at the moment...
>
>Didier KO4BB

I think I liked the old system better. I often looked at who I was
bidding against. There was lots of info to be gleaned if you looked.
What items were the last few items they purchased or sold? Are they
paying reasonable amounts. Do they sell much? Is there a pattern or all
over the place? Have they been around long? Do they look like they
really want this one?

I often move to another item, based on who I seem to be bidding against.

Some of the information seems to still be there but I am finding it much
harder to parse, and I certainly can't recognise if a bidder is on some
kind of crusade or not.

I once sent an email to a winning bidder, just asking if they'd care to
share their satisfaction with the transaction, because something about
that auction seemed wierd to me and I backed off myself. Couldn't do
that now.

Even the names the other guy used could convey some information. Think
of a real auction where you can look across the room at who you are
bidding against. Now all of our bids are "phoned in". 

Yep. I liked the old way better.