Members ashasha Posted February 5, 2011 Members Share Posted February 5, 2011 It's not a big difference. It's the exact same business model with a different product. Lots of other people want this stuff, so reliablefenders business model is to let the bidders go to war, and whoever bids the highest wins. If that guy from Germany was the only guy buying that stuff, I would be in complete agreement with you, but reliable fender has a feedback score of 150,000, which tells me there is a huge demand for his product. How do you know Matt, the owner of ReliableFender has never considered "your idea" I don't know that he hasn't considered it. AFAIK he may be doing it with Biff from Australia already. He may just have an affinity for shipping labels. Like I said, I'm not accusing anyone of anything, I came in here and stated what I would be wondering about if I suspected something was awry. I'm not the smartest guy in the world, perhaps not even in this room I'm in and I'm the only one in here; but if I could see a better way of doing business that has less risk, less work and based on historic trends, more money I'm going to do it. That's just me. And his name is Ralph (reliablefender). :poke: And actually, if he has a steady customer, who's to say that he can't list the same number of stuff on e-Bay and just buy more guitars to part out for Gunter? Heck, he could target specific ones and sell the extra parts that he didn't sell to him on e-Bay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gsh68 Posted February 5, 2011 Members Share Posted February 5, 2011 First of all there is no proof of any shill bidding. Every neck they sell has a serial #. If there was shill bidding you'd see the same bodies and neck being relisted over and over again which nobody on here that's accusing them of shill bidding has been able to show. You seem to misunderstand the shill-bidding business model. Shill bidding is done to drive up the price.When a dishonest seller shills, they (or an accomplice) usually set their highest bid at the optimum price they want to get for the item. If a legit bidder has placed a higher bid, all is well and the item goes to the highest bidder. If the shill bid ends up being the highest bid, the seller looks at the second highest bid and decides if it is close enough to their minimum desired price to proceed. If they decide it is, they send the second highest bidder, the highest legitimate bidder, a second chance offer. If they accept, all is good for the seller. The item sells, and does not need to be relisted.Sometimes it isn't close enough for them, so they have the shill account withdraw from the sale, getting their fvf refunded. Sometimes the price is so low they don't bother with that and the fvf is simply the cost of doing business and not selling an item worth x$$ for a fraction of the price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bal704 Posted February 5, 2011 Members Share Posted February 5, 2011 Do you know them personally? And if not, how do you know they are rich? Since you apparently know more than they do, why are they rich and your not? You claim on one hand the fees associated with selling to the same buyer 1000 times are trivial, but on the other say the same fees are the impediment from making the buyer a shill. Why is a 0.5% shill 'oopsie' rate insurmountable for a titanium seller? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 9-Pin-Phoenix Posted February 5, 2011 Members Share Posted February 5, 2011 There is an interesting conversation here between ashasha and guitarmandp. I don't really care what business model that reliablefender is using or what connections to the seller that guitarmandp has, but I will say this: I'd be running a more profitable and efficient business if I followed ashasha's advice. And I didn't study business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarmandp Posted February 6, 2011 Members Share Posted February 6, 2011 There is an interesting conversation here between ashasha and guitarmandp. I don't really care what business model that reliablefender is using or what connections to the seller that guitarmandp has, but I will say this:I'd be running a more profitable and efficient business if I followed ashasha's advice.And I didn't study business. Then why don't you go it if it's so easy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarmandp Posted February 6, 2011 Members Share Posted February 6, 2011 You seem to misunderstand the shill-bidding business model. Shill bidding is done to drive up the price.When a dishonest seller shills, they (or an accomplice) usually set their highest bid at the optimum price they want to get for the item. If a legit bidder has placed a higher bid, all is well and the item goes to the highest bidder. If the shill bid ends up being the highest bid, the seller looks at the second highest bid and decides if it is close enough to their minimum desired price to proceed. If they decide it is, they send the second highest bidder, the highest legitimate bidder, a second chance offer. If they accept, all is good for the seller. The item sells, and does not need to be relisted.Sometimes it isn't close enough for them, so they have the shill account withdraw from the sale, getting their fvf refunded. Sometimes the price is so low they don't bother with that and the fvf is simply the cost of doing business and not selling an item worth x$$ for a fraction of the price. 1) ReliableFender does not send second chance offers, and even if they did only a fraction of the second chance offers are ever succesful as most people get caught up in the moment of bidding, and they decide to move on when the auction is over. 2) If they were shilling, they would constantly be winning the same necks and bodies and forced to relist them. In fact, if they were shilling I highly doubt they would be posting the serial #'s in each neck they sell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bal704 Posted February 6, 2011 Members Share Posted February 6, 2011 How do you know this? 1) ReliableFender does not send second chance offers, and even if they did only a fraction of the second chance offers are ever succesful as most people get caught up in the moment of bidding, and they decide to move on when the auction is over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ashasha Posted February 6, 2011 Members Share Posted February 6, 2011 1) ReliableFender does not send second chance offers, and even if they did only a fraction of the second chance offers are ever succesful as most people get caught up in the moment of bidding, and they decide to move on when the auction is over. 2) If they were shilling, they would constantly be winning the same necks and bodies and forced to relist them. In fact, if they were shilling I highly doubt they would be posting the serial #'s in each neck they sell. I agree with that and said as much in my first post in here. I don't know about guitar bodies and crap, but when you start getting nickeled and dimed to death on $3 trem covers and knobs you start to lose money at some point I'd imagine. I don't know, I could see it either way. Seems like a hell of a lot of work to pull it off to me. I mean I looked last night and the guy's got 5000 active listings....that's a hell of a lot to try to manage shills unless you set up some kind of elaborate auto bidding system and then you've got to keep track of all of that on top of managing the store, buying guitars, taking them apart, listing stuff, inventory, packing, shipping, paypal, fees, and whatever else on top of that. It's like a 400 person operation at some point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarmandp Posted February 6, 2011 Members Share Posted February 6, 2011 How do you know this? I am a member of Terapeak so I have access to all of their sales data going back a year. They have not sent a single second chance offer in the past 90 days Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarmandp Posted February 6, 2011 Members Share Posted February 6, 2011 I agree with that and said as much in my first post in here. I don't know about guitar bodies and crap, but when you start getting nickeled and dimed to death on $3 trem covers and knobs you start to lose money at some point I'd imagine. I don't know, I could see it either way. Seems like a hell of a lot of work to pull it off to me. I mean I looked last night and the guy's got 5000 active listings....that's a hell of a lot to try to manage shills unless you set up some kind of elaborate auto bidding system and then you've got to keep track of all of that on top of managing the store, buying guitars, taking them apart, listing stuff, inventory, packing, shipping, paypal, fees, and whatever else on top of that. It's like a 400 person operation at some point. Flip-It-Fast! who has since been suspended on eBay had an eBay business of buying guitars and then auctioning them off on eBay, I believe they did lots of shill bidding because I would see the same guitars getting relisted over and over again on eBay. I just don't see it with ReliableFender and if they are buying these guitars at cost they don't need to shill bid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bal704 Posted February 6, 2011 Members Share Posted February 6, 2011 I am a member of Terapeak so I have access to all of their sales data going back a year. They have not sent a single second chance offer in the past 90 days I'd like to see that data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarmandp Posted February 7, 2011 Members Share Posted February 7, 2011 After a while you get tired of filling out customs forms and missing time on the slopes and one of them would send an email to the other. I'm pretty sure the customs forms are done online, and he probably makes money off shipping and handling on each order but anyways, this is why your wrong. The guy from Germany bought this pickup for $11.50http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360335527926 That same pickup sold on a different day to somebody else for $18.05http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200567946659 and 4 different bidders bid more than $11 for that pickup that days earlier sold for $11.50 Why would they sell pickups in bulk to this seller for $11.50 if on different days that same pickup is bringing in as much as $18? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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