Selling Proposal: Chicken Mode

Ebay's hard core: Sellers who want the stuff sold within a month. Liquidators. They attract buyers.

Today, such sellers have two choices:
1. Sell for cheap on a BIN
2. Sell at 99c auction (conceptually or literally)

Neither are anywhere near optimal.

The optimal scenario creates some buyer excitement, and attracts as many qualified buyers as possible.

Chicken Mode Listings

The Chicken Mode Listing is a bit like a reverse auction.
It's a BIN, where the price drops every day. Guaranteed.
1%, 2%, ..., to 25% Per DAY.

And the price drops at the exact second that the listing was created.

Some sellers don't like snipers. I like snipers. Snipers are the life blood of hard core ebay. Sniping is exciting. Excited buyers buy from you and me, not from Amazon.

And this idea attracts sniping.

Buyer can buy now, at the current price.
Or, buyer can try to snipe the new price. Maybe buyer will win. Maybe some other buyer will win. Or maybe, seller will chicken out and pull the listing before the next price drop.

Chicken mode.
Exciting.

As a seller, you have this item you'd be happy taking $200 for. But the demand is limited, and while you're not saying so, you're prepared to understand that it might only bring $50, but you're not prepared to take only $50.

So you list it on a $200 BIN, 30 days of 5% chicken mode.

As a buyer, you're looking for one of those, but only if it's cheap. You're hoping for $20, but deep down you know you're not getting one for that. $75 would do.

Now the thing about a 30 day 5% chicken mode is that one of three things happens:
1. It sells along the way
2. It gets pulled by seller
3. It ends up offered, on the last day, for about 1/4 the original listing price.

That final potential price is prominently displayed in the listing. Just hang on, and you might be able to buy it for that. Very attractive to buyer.

In the scenario, buyerS, plural, start paying attention, and wonder if they can buy this $200 thing for $50.

Halfway through the 30 days, as the price goes under $100, anyone interested at all starts paying attention. Every day it's there, the price drops another $4 or so.

Seller sees the watch count rising (or not), and hopes every day will be the sale. Buyers, on the other hand (not seeing the watch count), hope that every day will be another price drop. Until they can't stand the tension any more, and BIN. Buyer chickened out. With Immediate Payment Required, of course. No hassle with Non Paying Bidders.

But as the price goes under $75, seller might choose to just pull the listing. Game over. Seller chickened out.


The math:
To see the fraction of the original price the item will sell for on each day, use the formula f=(1-r)^day

So to see what the effect of a 10% chicken mode after 29 reductions, enter into google: 0.90^29


0.90^29 = 0.047101287

That is, an item listed for $100 on a 30 day 10% chicken would be offered, on the last day before expiration, for $4.71.

Generally, 5% chickens halve in about two weeks, 10% halves in about 1 week.

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Things you might be concerned about.

Q: What if..the snipe occurs too soon, and buyer then says "I bought it a the lower price, not the higher price".
A: Keep in mind, Immediate Payment Required. A snipe is defined a bit differently here. It occurs when payment is completed, not when the bid is placed. The amount being paid is always well stated by ebay in an IPR context.

Ebay please fix, curent software defects

1. The software will not allow increasing the price of an item.

Historically, one has been able to list a 99c listing, and if it didn't attract attention, one could raise the price, although an additional fee would accrue.

Now:

This increase in your item price significantly changes the value of this listing. To list at this price, please create a new listing.
{e36871-654616x}

This result occurs when raising the price from 99c to $1.99, which would incur an additional fee of 15c.

2. There is no way to know how close one is to the number of listings one is allowed to list. The obvious report is simply broken. It only counts some things, and in particular does not count auction listings.