Rant: Seller's Rights vs. Minimum Bid (in General)

"I retain all right not to sell if I'm not offered what I consider to be good enough."

"I retain the right not to sell if the figure i judge is not reached"

"I reserve the right to sell if the offer is not acceptable"

"no minimum bids except on the character but stupid bids are ignored and I don’t have to sell if I don't like the bid"

"yeah seller rights or what ever i will not sell unless i find a good price that iv been waiting for"

"As for what prices im after, bid what you want,and ill accept what i like."



I pulled this handful of phrases out of current sales in the FS/WTB forum. I would like to express that I am not targeting the specific people who stated the above, but rather the fact that nearly all sales now include that phrase in some form or fashion.

To put it bluntly, I feel like any sale or auction that feels the need to use the above phrases to be deliberately wasting some of my time. I also feel that it is abusing the concept of "seller's rights". After seeing it for the umpteenth time today, I am flat out sick of it.

When I think about "seller's rights", I believe that those rights include the right to not sell to someone that you dislike or are offended by, the right to not sell the item if an arrangement of a personal nature occurs, the right to not sell the item because it suddenly became more appealing to you, etc.

I feel that the right to not sell if the price is not high enough should be expressed in the form of Minimum Bid instead of claiming "seller's rights" and not specifying the amount that you require.

My reasoning is thus: if you are going to refuse bids that are "too low" in your opinion, then that indicates that you have a specific amount that you want to make from the item. There is nothing wrong with wanting a certain amount of value in exchange for your goods, but I feel that it wastes the time of every person who makes a bid or offer that is below your minimum threshold. If you require a certain amount of value, then you should state the amount you want, and save everyone on both sides the time of making bids that are too low. People will trade an amount of value that corresponds to how much they desire the item. If you make the minimum bid low on a high desire item, then bidding will rapidly rise to a more acceptable level. If you make the minimum bid high on an item that no one wants for that value, then the odds are that you would not have gotten that value by keeping it secret behind the curtain of "seller's rights" anyways.

In summary, the only purpose that is served by claiming a seller's rights to refuse low-ball bids is to prolong the sale/auction for no purpose. I ask that people start using minimum bid requirements in the above situations, or to rebut my rant here.

Thank you.

auctions >> forums

complain to crank up the FS/WTB posting fee, maybe ? ;) devilish idea, no ? Make lots of friends, fast ..

/me blinks in confusion.

Where did I mention anything about the posting fee? I'm just ranting because I prefer that seller's use a "Minimum Bid" instead of "Seller's Rights" in the above situation. If I understand Jonathan's response correctly, his suggestion is that I stick to the auction system instead.

I think Bubo has a valid point. When you think about it, people really are wasting bidders' time by putting a low minimum bid. An example is when Destluck put a $25 minimum bid on his char, then when the bid got to $45, he kept spamming to keep his post up that he wanted more.

I don't think that seller's rights should include a low minimum bid, but I'm not sure that a rule can be put on to regulate it, because people could just say they got a sudden appeal for the item or something if the bids were too low.

I agree with the complaint, but am not sure if there is a solution.

sellers rights = sellers rights.


if not content go to auctions.
if you don't want the hassle => auctions
if you don't want high prices => store (if your lucky)
if you don't want either of above => forum and take the 'blahblah talks' for granted.

Like I said in my title, this is simply a rant. It is me venting my annoyance at hidden minimum bids, nothing more. I don't want, nor do I believe, that it should warrant any kind of rule, or regulation, or punishment. If any kind of punishment is called for, at most it should be a boycott by buyers. It came about because, a week or so ago, hidden minimum bids were rare, and now it is rare to see an auction/sale in the FS/WTB forum without a hidden minimum bid. While there will always be sales were the seller changes their mind in the middle of the sale about how much they want for their goods, I personally hope that this should be the exception instead of the rule.

The purpose of me posting my rant is two fold. One, I hope that some of the sellers who use hidden minimum bids simply because everyone else uses them reads this, and chooses to stop using them in the interest of social and trade etiquette. Two, I recognize that I can be the one who is in the wrong on this issue, and I hope that someone can enlighten me as to why I'm wrong.

Someone answered elsewhere that buyers tend to post below the minimum bid with the statement "at least it's a bid". This does happen, but a minimum bid indicates that nothing below it will be accepted. It frees the seller from the obligation of selling their item for less than they expect for it. On the other hand, a hidden minimum bid places an undue obligation on the buyer. It is generally recognized that when a bid is made by a buyer, the value of the bid is already available to pay with, or an acceptable schedule is contracted to pay the bid (i.e. pay plans). Until they are outbid or given a "no" from the seller, the ethical buyer has lost access to the funds that he has placed against the bid. While exceedingly low amounts like 1k or 10k or $10 may not seem to be that much of a burden, I have witnessed higher amounts, in the multiple hundreds of CB2$ and like Destluck with the USD$45 for his character, take place. During the time that these sales tend to go on, the bidder is forced to pass up other sales while waiting for the results of his bid.

There exists a parallel event that places the seller into the same role as the buyer in the above situation. When a buyer bids on an item, allows the sale to conclude, and then remarks after the sale that "I didn't expect my bid to win. I don't have the money to pay it." This event places the seller in a situation where the time they spent on the sale is wasted, as the second highest bid could have already spent the money they reserved for the sale. While the seller has not lost their goods in this event, they have lost the time of the sale, and lost the ability to purchase other goods with the promised money of the sale. They are in the same boat as the buyer is in the above situation.

In summary, posting a minimum bid creates a burden on the seller of ignoring bids below the minimum. Using a hidden minimum bid creates a burden on the buyer to forgo other sales until the bid is answered or outbid.

Shade is correct. One can simply choose to ignore the FS/WTB forum entirely if hidden minimum bids become such a hardship. Likewise, a seller can choose to ignore the FS/WTB forum if bad bids are a hardship. However, the forum itself says "This is for advertisements of characters or non-forging services (such as loans, item naming, supporterships, etc.) for sale or wanted-to-buy." These are things that cannot be sold through auctions. Additionally, items are sold in the FS/WTB forum that have special attributes that are not readily apparent from the auction system (such as being ranked #1 of that type). I would like to enjoy shopping for these kinds of items, instead of entering the forums with the glum knowledge that I am going to have to gamble that I both choose and bid high enough to cross the magic minimum bid threshold, because if I didn't choose and bid well, I am passing up other sales that I could have taken advantage of.

To me, my request is simple respect of the rights of others as well as ourselves. I am not asking the sellers to lower their prices. I am not asking them to include additional merchandise in their sales. I am not asking for sellers to honor $1 bids for extremely high value items. I honestly believe that I am not asking them to do much more than they already do. All I ask is that, if you have a value in mind that you won't sell below, then tell us what that amount is instead of mocking us with the hidden bid clause. If you think that this is too much to ask, then at least tell me why or what kind of benefit you get from tying up your potential customers money like I described above.

I lot of people just don't know what thier crap is worth. I get that problem all the time, I don't have time to pay attention to the economy. So, you gauge what your gonna sell for off the first bid or so.

If I were in CB1, for example, and I used "sellers rights" here is what I'm thinking:

Okay, I'm selling... we'll say some Tulks, +10 or so. Worth about 2 mil base, so 2 mil and some change.

I put up sellers rights.

My first bid comes in at 1.5 mil. But I don't KNOW they're worth 2 mil, that's why I used sellers rights.

Now, hopefully, someone can jump in and overbid that, because they're really worth at least 2 mil, anything less is a steal. And that person will be overbid, and I can judge how hot the bidding war is over whether I'm getting a fair deal.

If I only get 1 bid. Let's say in that case I got a bid of 2.25 mil. I need to stop for a second and think. Did I only get one bid because that one bid was fairly high ball and fair, and as such a good amount to sell by? Or has no one noticed my sale? NOW I do research. Because NOW I NEED to. Before I didn't really have to, the bidding does it for me.

Now I could see someone arguing that I should just figure this out, but come on, I work anywhere from 40-80 hours a week. I barely have time to blend, much less research.

So I use sellers rights to try to by pass the research process, and recall my auction if a satisfactory price is not reached after I research.

IMHO: The whole sellers rights thing started as "I reserve the right not to sell." PERIOD. Just that. None of this "unless a price is reached" bs. Why should I even have to put that?

I could post in FS/WTB:

FS: Undertow. Minimum, 5 million CB2 or $250 USD

and even if I get that amazing deal, I DON'T HAVE TO SELL! Whose gonna make me? No admin is gonna reset me when things never even changed hands. "Wah wah wah, I promised him money for his stuff, now he won't do it!" they'll tell him to cry his way home.

You don't want to sell, don't sell, don't even tell someone you've changed your mind, just ignore that post you made, who cares?

Bubo -- my point of the FSWTB posting fee may take a few steps to follow. Work with me here.

I believe the fee was imposed to encourage folks to use the auctions system. Unless you want to insta, trade or sell for something other than $CB2, you really should use the auctions.

Cranking up the FSWTB posting fee would, hopefully, get people to always use the auctions.

And what can you do with auctions ? Set the minimum bid (among other things). Plus, no sellers remorse, no buyers remorse, no backing out of a bid, so many things are better in auctions than in FSWTB.

Thus, crank up the FSWTB fee, and your problem will go away. If you make it expensive enough via the fee (and transfer costs) to force people to use a scam-free, simple bidding and tracking way of selling items.

Not a great leap of logic.

These sellers "rights" are complete garbage. It gets you nothing. All it seems to be is official sounding language that attempts to cloud a moronic seller with a fog of intelligence. All it does in realiity is make the seller look like a fool, at least in my eyes. An admin wont reset someone for refusing to make a deal with someone as long as goods havent been exchanged. I wholeheartedly agree that the auctions should always be used. The FS/WTB section is nice in that one can offer pay plans and trades, but that's about it.

From now on when I see this moronic jargon in a post, I'll just include in my offer "buyers rights" just to piss them off. Something along the lines of "I reserve the right to withdraw my offer at any time I please." What does this accomplish? Absolutely nothing other than pissing the seller off and stating the obvious. An admin will never reset someone for retracting an offer as long as goods havent been exchanged.