Internet Auctions.

OK, so I am a avid internet bidder as I live in a no stamp zone. Most shows or stores are at least a 3 hour drive. I used to mainly bid on StampWants but many auctions disappeared to "buy it now" sales after the site sold. Switched to ebay but the shill bidding is getting so rampant deals are few. And now they are getting flooded by replicas, fakes and forgeries. I actually have turned to Delchampe and have found quite a few deals. Granted many overpriced items but they have beat out the other sites as of late.
Maybe I am ranting but just my views of late. How has others been doing on internet auctions lately?

Mac:

One 'improvement' I've noticed at Delcampe is that most of the sellers now accept PayPal making it easier for US buyers. In the early days, it was only Moneybookers.

The prices for things on ebay is just utterly outrageous. And I am not just talking about Buy-It-Now for certain "Bargain" dealers. Could be shill bids I guess, but wow. Haven't been on in ages.

Smauggie, the ebay ones are mainly from shill bidding. I mean c'mon now how can a stamp be sold for more than catalog even when it is not even a VF copy. Just got through a couple auctions where a bidder had over 10,000 buys and a 90% ratio with the seller and no feedback. Yeah right how blatant is that.
I always check the bidders bid to see if I am being shill bid and most times will catch them but it is getting tiresome.

Kirk, you are right about paypal. It is the only way I pay and has come into use on Delchampe lately.

Plus, Seb, the owner of Delcampe, belongs to several stamp forums, and WILL answer questions and complaints personally. That's a big plus. I like Delcampe, I am not crazy about their cluttered, try-to-be-everything-to-everybody format. I'd love to ambush their website with virtual pruning-shears, it would easier to navigate when I was done.

The big problem is that European sellers don't particularly like auctions, so a sizeable proportion of lots are buy-it-now. That discourages me from listing, as I don't know the European market, and could easily under- or over-price my BIN items, a waste of time. And that issue is no fault of either Seb or Delcampe.

Doug you are right the search needs improvement. Though it is much better than before. Most of my searches are by Scott numbers which you know Delchampe is a bust because of so many overseas sellers. Many prefer Gibbons or Micheal catalogs. Best search going right now for me is by year and then keyword.

Can someone explain how one knows there are so-called "shill" bids going on? It might be some info many of us could use. Thanks.

I have gotten some good deals on Delcampe lately.
As a buyer, I like the option to exclude certain sellers from my search. If a seller has consistently too high prices, or not what I am looking for, I exclude them.
It really narrows the search.
Yes, I may miss some items, but the payoff is worth it (time savings, good deals, etc).

My current ebay list shows 92 completed auctions over the last month of which I was winner on 10. This is about my usual percentage. I see no evidence of shill bidding on the lots I go after, only competition which seems to be getting stronger. The general quality of material is deteriorating. There has always been a fair amount of mis-description of which 95% is in favor of the sellers. Once in a while one of the other 5% makes a fine purchase.

I rarely BIN on ebay because the value is not there. I rarely bid or BIN at Bidstart because the material is not useful to me. I have found and bought maybe 1 item on Delcampe over the last 10 years.

I enjoy looking at stamps so spending a few hours sifting through online auction dreck is kinda fun for me.

Oh, and I hear you about the no-stamp zone. Internet stamping is 98% of my stamp activity.

I too live in a no stamp zone and have to use ebay if I want anything.

I have not tried bidstart or decampe, maybe I'll have a glance and find something that doesn't cost a fortune.

I sure wish there were other options for some of us that live in the Boondocks.

My experience on ebay, as a buyer and a seller, has been 90% positive.

My experience on Delcampe, as a buyer, has been 100% positive.

My experience in real life, at stamp shows and with dealers and stores, has been 80% positive.

My experience at the Post Office is about 80% positive, over all the years I have been buying stamps there,

I have a score of 800 on ebay and 38 on Delcampe, and 3 on dealers and stamp shows, and 100 at Post Offices.

I buy usually cheaper stuff, under $10 or $100 at a stretch, and am generally happy with what I get and can explore and enjoy.

I am not on drugs.

Life is life. Live on.

As far as buy-it-nows, my experience selling on ebay is that I get far more sales on fixed price items in my ebay store than I do with auctions. I've had items (stamps and other collectibles) up as auctions multiple times without a bid. I'll change them to fixed price with the price being a little ABOVE the original auction starting price and they'll sell right away. I think a lot of buyers don't want to bother with auctions because they want the instant gratification of an instant purchase. They limit their search to buy-it-nows. So, anymore I don't put many things up for auction, and when I do it's only once before switching to fixed price.

Be careful about listing items now on ebay as "Buy it now" as other sellers are complaining that ebay has made it difficult to combine items into one invoice and a lot of buyers are paying for items individually. Apparently ebay made changes last Sunday on how the BIN process works and it's a total mess.

As for myself, I will only list in auction format. Never, ever will used a fixed price system.

My buying has slowed considerably the last couple of months. I've been less than satisfied by all of the auction sites. Shill bidding on ebay has been crazy. Then others list items for more than book? I thought it was some phase I was going through. I'm glad to see others have noticed too. I used to sell on Stamps2go, but ended that. To many sellers mis-listing their stamps. No oversight. I think its time for a vacation.

I buy and sell on bidstart and have had no problems so far except that when buying make sure you look carefully at the scans for any defects. That applies to any site. I do use ebay to buy but find them expensive, delcampe was good but now is expensive, I don't sell there anymore, stamporama I have only bought and have only had good experiences on there. Happy hunting to you all

regards
martyn