What would make you happy?

[The Alaskan]

That's stupid.

I used to work at Sports Authority at the gun counter, and we never charged a fee to transfer a gun store to store. Many times a customer would ask me about gun "x" that he wanted that wasn't in our arms room. If a store in CA had the gun, I'd call that store and ask them to send it, and it would be in my store in a few days. Although we did have to note that transfer in both stores' bound books, we didn't jack the customer up for it. Then again, that was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

 

[yugorpk]

My pet peeve is the reserve auctions. I won’t even look at them anymore. If the seller has a minimum that he/she will accept then use that as the starting bid.

.

The whole point of having an auction instead of a sale is to generate a bidding frenzy to drive the price higher. The best way to do that is to start with a low started price and get as many bidders involved and emotionally invested in the process as possible. You might like it as a buyer but you arent the one selling the gun. Reserves just keep the gun sale from flopping and the seller from losing out. Again it's to protect the seller when market conditions arent what he thought they were.

 

[The Alaskan]

The whole point of having an auction instead of a sale is to generate a bidding frenzy to drive the price higher. The best way to do that is to start with a low started price and get as many bidders involved and emotionally invested in the process as possible. You might like it as a buyer but you arent the one selling the gun. Reserves just keep the gun sale from flopping and the seller from losing out. Again it's to protect the seller when market conditions arent what he thought they were.

While this is true. I say "boo hoo" to that. Cry me a river. Seller wants to eliminate risk while taking every advantage. Fair is fair.

Go back to the days of actual auctions and auctioneers and look at how that was done.

"We'll start the bidding at X dollars" and you went from there. If no one bid, because the market conditions weren't "as expected," then they just pulled the item and brought out the next piece.

That is as how it should be online. Seller won't take less than "X dollars" for an item, then X is where you start the bidding. Nobody bid? Guess your gun wasn't so hot after all, was it?

(Part of the problem is everyone thinks their stuff is worth 95% of new price. Guns, especially, are massively overpriced-pretty much universally.)

 

[The Alaskan]

Here is how it's done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8V9Rl9IneA

 

[DHJenkins]

Personally, I preferred when online auction sites were mainly used by and for individuals, not companies. As far as pricing goes, the structure isn't important to me - only the final price. Having extra fees for a buyer doesn't bother me too much, but I'd rather see a single, simple price that includes everything, including shipping.

Buyers who don't pay should be banned. Sellers who don't deliver should be banned and prosecuted (then tarred and feathered).

An escrow service would probably be the easiest way to insure that a new, untested seller does what they're supposed to; and since the firearm is shipped to an FFL, not the buyer directly, it would be pretty hard for a buyer to falsely claim they didn't recieve what they paid for.