Gun Auctions - What do you like or dislike about them?

[mlongley]

How To Prevent Fraud

What do you think would be some ideas to prevent fraud. So far I plan to encourage buyers and sellers to use gunpal and escrow, but I know that not everyone will do that. I also plan to have a auction resolution center similar to ebay in order to help work out issues with buyers or sellers. Any other ideas to help prevent fraud?

Also, do you find that sellers are usually accurate with item descriptions and condition ratings. Or do you often find guns with blemishes and flaws not noted in listings?

 

[dogtown tom]

USMC - Retired Make reserve auctions show what the reserve is or better yet eliminate reserve auctions all together and make the seller start the minimum bid at the 'reserve' price they want for the item.

krochus (as a buyer and seller these are my biggest)
I never bid on or even click reserve items. DON'T ALLOW THEM!
Charge for relists or require a lower starting bid. I get tired of seeing the same overpriced $400 turk relisted for years by "myoldrifles"
allow a person to look at only USED items within a category if they wish
don't allow multiple listings of the same item (new) within a category per seller. Do you know how many pages of Blazer rifles are on gunbroker?...

orionengnr Charge a fee for the auction, whether or not the item sells (like eBay does). This discourages people from listing something at an outrageous price, and simply re-listing over and over and over again.
Maybe offset that by charging less on the actual sale.

Lee Roder No "15 minute rule" - all auctions end at a previously stated time.

jnyork No "reserve" listings, I wont even look at one.
No "15 minute rule" , when the gavel falls, the gavel falls. Period.

Wow.
Plenty of feedback from those who don't sell. I buy far more than I sell on GunBroker and I have to admit I like almost everything about both the buying and selling experience.

It continues to amaze me that some folks get all wound up about "reserve" auctions. Apparently they've never been to a real, live auction to see how they are run. "Reserves" are the buyers insurance that they won't lose a valuable item for 99 cents. If the bidder doesn't like the fact that there is a reserve then just don't bid! There is nothing unethical, immoral or nefarious about reserves. Imagine that you (all those up above) must suddenly sell off all your firearms. Do you want the same restrictions on YOUR auctions you seek to impose on others? Would you begin all your auctions at 99 cents? After all, the buyer determines the value, right?

The "fifteen minute rule" on GunBroker is why it has more listings than Auction Arms. Period. The idea that an auction can be "sniped" is false. The high bid ALWAYS wins. Try and prove that wrong. It doesn't matter if it was placed today, a week ago or two seconds before the auction ends- the high bid always wins. The fifteen minute rule on GB ensures (just like a live auction) that everyone has enough time to reconsider and raise thier offer. And the gavel falls when there are no more bids.

The purpose of an auction is to SELL items. If the auction does not realize the best possible price for the seller..........guess what.........they'll go elsewhere. Meaning your auction site goes belly up.

Gunbrokers listing fees are extremely fair. For one price I can have my auction repeat until it sells. If I were running GB I would limit the automatic relist to go no more than ninety days. As others have noted, some guns have been up there for YEARS. That does no one a favor.

It is aggravating to do a search for "Colt" in "semi automatic pistols" and have five hundred cheap holster auctions appear. Category spamming makes finding what I'm looking for a chore.

 

[Oyeboten]

As a buyer, I feel the '15 Minute rule' on Gunbroker is fine...I have seen Auctions continue on another hour or more with fresh Bids coming in, re-starting the "15"...and like a 'real' Auction, it goes till it is done.

This seems fair to me, for all-round Good Sportsmanship for all.


Reserve Prices do not bother me either...even when unstated, and depending on the Listing, the 'Reserve' may only be a few dollars or a few tens of dollars above the starting price, with a 'reasonable' starting price, so, nothing not to like there.

Maybe the seller merely wanted an enticing starting price, while being such a good sport as to have a 'reserve' which is totally reasonable and still a heck of a good deal.


When an unstated 'reserve' turns out to be absurdly high, or not reached for being too high, oh well...one remembers, and moves on.


Probably, a fee structure which discourages abuse, or rewards sensible use of a 'Reserve', and, discourages abuse of endless re-listing of an over-priced item, would be welcome by all honest Sellers, and, all sensible Buyers.

However, seeing the same over-priced item relisted for literally, six, eight months or even years on end, is ridiculous, and to me, represents an abuse by Sellers of the Auction Host's Hospitality.

Better search functions definitely, which allow a search to be for the Arm, and not being buried in accessories/holsters/ammo/teeshirts/etc.

But then, the terms the seller uses in listing, can sometimes present potential problems no software could solve!


Listing Categories seem often confused in practice on GB, especially for Cap and Ball or older Guns or repro BP, with sellers not knowing how to describe, nor where categorically, to list.


No easy fix for that...

 

[mlongley]

dogtown tom and Oyeboten, thanks for sharing your ideas and experiences with gun auctions. I can't thank you enough for sharing your valuable input.

One thing that I kind of wonder about is why Gunbroker and Guns America have F ratings with the BBB? I know many people would say that it is because of the high volume of members that they deal with on a daily basis but certainly they wouldn't have a higher amount of members than ebay, and ebay maintains an A rating. So I know there must be some problems happening somewhere that are not being resolved. Any ideas why they have gotten such poor ratings with the BBB?

 

[R.W.Dale]

Conspiracy theroist hat on


I think it's political, there's no way in heck flea-bay deserves aN A rating and GB gets a fail. And I buy and sell on both

 

[Oyeboten]

No idea on the "BBB" thing.


Maybe...ask the "BBB"?


I don't even know why the "BBB" would even still exist...it was worthless decades ago, and getting worse any time I bothered looking.

'SBA' also...


Puhhhhh-Tooooey...


Lol...


E-bay should not rate highly in my opinion as for any reasonable "BBB" scoring system.


While, far as I can imagine, Gunbroker should rate well, rate highly.


On e-bay, a Seller can no longer give a bad Feed-Back to a buyer for any reason, while buyers are still allowed to give bad FB to sellers for any or no reason, as they please.

Sad...

 

[mlongley]

I kinda wondered how ebay would maintain a rating that high too, but I did notice that gunbroker has a lot of no responses on BBB. That is a guaranteed way to get a bad rating.

 

[justashooter in pa]

i have bought and sold on gunbroker for years, and have watched the site load up with relisted retail crap to the point that it is quite an annoyance. it's time to offer people something other than "johnny's load of relisted retail crap".

keep the 15 minute rule. it makes for higher selling prices and thereby higher comission for the site (your interest), as well as allowing for a real auction, rather than sniped bids. buyers like it, adn sellers do, too. only snipers disagree.

have categories like gunbroker, in general.
set your search functions up like gunbroker, in general.
allow a search function for new/used.
allow a search function differentiating dealers from private sellers.
allow a search function exclusion (blaser rifles, for example).
allow a search of recent auctions that closed with actual bids.
charge a listing fee of minimum $3 in all gun categories to be credited against the 3% comission at sale.
charge a listing fee of minimum $1 in all non-gun categories to be credited against the 3% comission at sale.
limit automatic relists to 5 cycles per listing fee paid (if it ain't sold in a month or so, the starting bid is too high, or nobody wants it).
limit auctions to gun and gun related items (no belt buckles or hats).
eliminate hidden reserve options for sellers. a high opening bid is an effective public reserve.
allow users to report auctions not in appropriate category for review, and site block sellers repeatedly placing items in wrong category.

if your site is a real auction house, rather than a way for retail stores to expose their dead slow moving inventory, you will see a lot of action.

 

[R.W.Dale]

dogtown tom


It continues to amaze me that some folks get all wound up about "reserve" auctions. Apparently they've never been to a real, live auction to see how they are run. "Reserves" are the buyers insurance that they won't lose a valuable item for 99 cents. If the bidder doesn't like the fact that there is a reserve then just don't bid! There is nothing unethical, immoral or nefarious about reserves. Imagine that you (all those up above) must suddenly sell off all your firearms. Do you want the same restrictions on YOUR auctions you seek to impose on others? Would you begin all your auctions at 99 cents? After all, the buyer determines the value, right?

That's fine and dandy but you seem to be missing the fact that the seller still gets to determine where the bidding STARTS. Just cause there's not a reserve doesn't mean the Item has to start at .99

Maybe the seller merely wanted an enticing starting price, while being such a good sport as to have a 'reserve' which is totally reasonable and still a heck of a good deal.

You're new to internet auctions aren't you?


This being said limiting and or charging for relists would likely dry up 99% of the "reserve" flotsam choking up the listings in short order.

if your site is a real auction house, rather than a way for retail stores to expose their dead slow moving inventory, you will see a lot of action.

I agree, Sellers may be slow to see the light but buyers will flock to such a site and thus the sellers WILL follow

 

[mlongley]

justashooter in pa and krochus, what you are saying makes sense. It seems more and more of the feedback that I am getting points to a cleaner auction site with more real content and less clutter. Reserves vs no reserves still seems open for some debate. One way that I could do that is to offer it as an option for sellers and then offer a filter to not show reserve auctions. Also, I could charge a small fee for reserves similar to how ebay does it, in order to prevent everyone from using reserves.

What do you think would be good ways to verify sellers when the auction site first starts. I know that will be the hardest time because no one wants to buy from a seller with 0 feedback, but at the start everyone will have 0 feedback.

I would like to have a verification program set up, but maybe there is something more that could be done in order to give the sellers more credibility. Any ideas on that?

 

[wishin]

Although it has its flaws, I think the percentage method is about the only way that I can think of to fairly and reasonably grade/rate participants. Where it fails is early in the life of the system. One bad transaction early on takes 10-20 more perfect ones to recover your rating sufficiently for some folks. In a way, that's good because it puts sellers in particular on extra good behavior.

 

[Oyeboten]

A reserve makes sense for obscure items of value which have a small following/demand, where, in any given week, possibly few potential buyers will even see it.


Reserves for more common, in-demand items, in average condition, do not make much sense, unless a seller wishes to have an arbitrary low starting bid, to allow some 'action'...but, to me it would be better if a Seller merely elected a starting Bid which represent the least he could live with for return, or, a little more, instead. Many common items have so many examples listed, the buyers for that week can be spread thin.


I have seen Sellers on GB have a very reasonable starting Bid, and, a 'reserve' which is only 1 Dollar to $35.00 higher than the starting bid.

My last purchase there was such a listing...and several prior purchases were also.


No, I am not 'new' to internet Auctions.



Gunsamerica? Is it? or Auctionarms? I forget now, but...one of them has a 'Penny Auction' category which does not have a reserve option, and I see many very nice Arms in that Catagory, selling well.

 

[Dookie]

How about you make a better FAQ. It is obvious by some of the comments that people do not read or even try to use all the options on GB.

You want to search for a 30-06? Hit the smart search under your search bar on top, it gives TONS of options of how and what you want to search for. Down to your state if you so desire. If you want to search for a 30-06 on google what happens when you punch in those numbers, you get 5 million pages of answers, if you type 30-06 Remington, narrows it down a bit.

 

[Oyeboten]

...too, sellers do not always list items using terms which best describe the item, for potential buyers to find it.