How about an Auction Section to supplement the Classifieds

How about an Tool Auction Section to supplement the Classifieds?

You could run it like a silent auction like you see at charity evens. OP puts a minimum bid. Members could "bid" on the item by adding a post with a higher price. It would be nice if the moderator could set all posts within this section to lock at a certain time automatically; such as 7 days from original listing. Everyone could see all the previous bids, and of course high bidder after 7 days gets the item.

One rule that would be needed would be with respect to postage; I would suggest that all postage be added to the winning bid and paid by the buyer, and that only ACTUAL postage could be charged (no handling fees or other such nonsense).

Something like this would be really great for me. I get a lot of rare tools, but while it's easy to set a price on a newer item, it's much harder to do so on an older item. So I really can't post it here...it goes to eBay, as I have at least some protection against pricing a valuable item stupidly low.

I would imagine this would involve to much setup and monitor time to be beneficial to the site owners. Most people have a price in mind when they sell tools here. Like you said ebay is the place for auctions.

i don't think it's a good idea.......if you want an auction put it on ebay.

most boards i visit have clear rules on this. an asking price should be set and listed in the original post.

you should already have an idea of what things are worth, if not do some reasearch. i have noticed that there are a lot of newer posters that have come here to sell their stuff and usually it is priced WAY too high and it usually goes unsold. if your worried about not getting top dollar price it high and come down if it doeasn't sell.it seems like around the internet folks are advising people to come here JUST to sell their stuff. maybe it's time for a minimum post counts?

krusty the clown said:

i don't think it's a good idea.......if you want an auction put it on ebay.

most boards i visit have clear rules on this. an asking price should be set and listed in the original post.

you should already have an idea of what things are worth, if not do some reasearch. i have noticed that there are a lot of newer posters that have come here to sell their stuff and usually it is priced WAY too high and it usually goes unsold. if your worried about not getting top dollar price it high and come down if it doeasn't sell.it seems like around the internet folks are advising people to come here JUST to sell their stuff. maybe it's time for a minimum post counts?

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My problem is that when stuff falls into the collectable category, especially long lost brands, unless you are a collector yourself (which I am not), it is VERY hard to figure value. Sure I can put the stuff on eBay, (in fact there is less effort involved in doing that!), but I was trying to come up with a way to give the members here exclusive access to rare and special items without wasting everyone's bandwidth. And still getting a seller a fair price, (if I wanted top dollar, I would go to eBay).

I know most boards that I have seen that have classified sections do not allow "best offer" type posts, as these tend to just waste bandwidth. But I have never seen a board try to do a "silent auction" format like I am suggesting.

And I really don't see how this would create extra effort for the mods. The only effort to a moderator would be initial set up.

I think that all items being offered for sale should have the shipping costs clearly stated along with the price if offered for sale on this site. For the most part, most are shipped by Priority Mail, and there is very little difference in shipping cost if it is going from NJ to IL or CA... Sure makes it a lot easier to decide if you want to purchase the tool..

Junkman said:

I think that all items being offered for sale should have the shipping costs clearly stated along with the price if offered for sale on this site. For the most part, most are shipped by Priority Mail, and there is very little difference in shipping cost if it is going from NJ to IL or CA... Sure makes it a lot easier to decide if you want to purchase the tool..

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I agree that shipping costs should be clearly labeled, but your statement that Priority Mail shipping costs are consistent is simply not true any more; and that makes quoting a shipping cost very difficult unless you want to overcharge. For example, if you ship a 2lb box NY to NY it is $4.95. NY to CA for the same 2lbs is $8.70.

That said, the new Small Flat Rate Box is $4.95 and will be great for shipping small tools (over 13 oz).

So they are suppose to set this up, assign a moderator to it because it would be really great for YOU?

I think it's a very bad idea, it does not benefit the members of this site (besides you and MAYBE a very few collectors), it does not benefit the admins of this site, it will pretty much kill the classified section of this site, (why would anyone list something for a straight out sale when they can auction it off?), it will cause a bunch of problems for the mods, what happens when the seller refuses to hold up his end because he felt he didnt get enough money for the item, what about shill bidders, what about buyers who don't hold up their end of the deal? The list goes on and on, maybe YOU should start a tool auction website.

LoneGunman said:

So they are suppose to set this up, assign a moderator to it because it would be really great for YOU?

I think it's a very bad idea, it does not benefit the members of this site (besides you and MAYBE a very few collectors), it does not benefit the admins of this site, it will pretty much kill the classified section of this site, (why would anyone list something for a straight out sale when they can auction it off?), it will cause a bunch of problems for the mods, what happens when the seller refuses to hold up his end because he felt he didnt get enough money for the item, what about shill bidders, what about buyers who don't hold up their end of the deal? The list goes on and on, maybe YOU should start a tool auction website.

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First of all, you response is a bit over the top. But let me address some of your statements.

I suggested this as a way of creating "exclusive" auctions for our members, (as opposed to putting an item on eBay). This means fewer potential bidders, and potentially lower prices. Yes, the seller would benefit, and yes I have TONS of tools to sell, but my main purpose is to benefit members, not myself.... I have no problem using eBay, and sold more than 800 tools there last year.

As far as benefiting the admins of this site, exactly what benefits are you talking about? This is a free site, and aside from possible fees from sponsors/advertisers, they run this site as a volunteer service to this community. So their benefit is exclusively from seeing other learn and share information.

So what would be so bad about taking traffic away from the classified section if it meant that buyers had an opportunity for potentially better deals? I think the combination of fixed price listings and auction listings would generate a net increase of "deals" for our members to consider.

As far as the lack of the types of e-commerce protection that eBay includes, that is certainly a valid point. But many of the same issues exist with respect to classified listings. The most important difference between a member sale here vs. a site like eBay though is that people on this site get a chance to know each other through their posts...and I would assume some face-to-face friendships are made as well. It is a an electronic community as compared to the general public.

Anyway, it was just an idea.....since apparantly no one likes it, I guess that's the end of it.

Well, nothing new under the sun - this post is ten months old. I found it after a search as the same idea occurred to me today. I was trying to come up with a price for some Plomb items I've gathered in the course of my travels. I have no idea what they are really worth and the couple of collectors I've contacted via PM want to buy one or two pieces. (As an aside, I pick them up as a favor to the group, not solely as a profit-center. But for the few dollars stuff like this brings, I'd rather not box up four shipments when one might bring the same return.)

Bottom line, I've read through the objections above and understand the problems. However, as Skyline originally said, those who lose are the Plomb collectors who now have more competition on eBay than they would on a GJ-hosted auction.

thnx, jack vines

Why not do a 2 week trial? Maybe members could add the post to the classifieds with "Auction: ***". Post a min bid and a shipping price and have the auction close after three days and the highest bidder before the cut-off time wins. For starters you could limt the auction items to two per member.

Rickster said:

Why not do a 2 week trial? Maybe members could add the post to the classifieds with "Auction: ***". Post a min bid and a shipping price and have the auction close after three days and the highest bidder before the cut-off time wins. For starters you could limt the auction items to two per member.

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Not a bad idea.. the seller can basically take "bids" on what they are selling via PM. Say bidding closes at "X time on X day" and then the seller can continue to edit/post the updated bidding price on the item in the thread. Its kinda like a self run blind auction. I wouldn't be hard.. and frankly I try to sell stuff here first.. then to ebay. However sometimes I find no one here even looks sideways at your stuff or maybe they think you are too high, etc but won't make an offer. Then you dump it on ebay and everyone complains "you didn't list it here first!!!" Kind of a catch 22. I buy something and spend 2-3 weeks trying to get someone to bite at a price here.. only to dump it on ebay and sell it within 7 days. My biggest gripe w/ Ebay is the fees.. the listing fees are fair.. but the final value fees are too high in my opinion. If I had the resources I'd setup a small auction site just for tools and automobilia, etc.