Frenzy Rumble's ULTIMATE Optimus Prime for sale on Ebay

[KillinSpoon]

What is the basis for this theory?

You watch one of his auctions the next time it goes up, the zero bidders come and go until the last day.
He's been doing it for ages now, along with advertising it as 'another member' (one time he left his trip on a post on /toy/ giving himself away).

It is more 4chan hate for him because of this crap he pulls all the time, Jin does the same thing (it is suspected that he makes multiple customs of the same thing like Jin does, shill bids to a massive price and then offer 'second chances' to the next 3-4 highest bidders).

It may just be business and what he does for a job but that doesn't mean that I approve of his tactics.

[kaiden]

You watch one of his auctions the next time it goes up, the zero bidders come and go until the last day.
He's been doing it for ages now, along with advertising it as 'another member' (one time he left his trip on a post on /toy/ giving himself away).

It is more 4chan hate for him because of this crap he pulls all the time, Jin does the same thing (it is suspected that he makes multiple customs of the same thing like Jin does, shill bids to a massive price and then offer 'second chances' to the next 3-4 highest bidders).

It may just be business and what he does for a job but that doesn't mean that I approve of his tactics.

thats such a crappy thing to do. i guess commissions just dont pay enough :]

[jaydisc]

You watch one of his auctions the next time it goes up, the zero bidders come and go until the last day.
He's been doing it for ages now, along with advertising it as 'another member' (one time he left his trip on a post on /toy/ giving himself away).

It is more 4chan hate for him because of this crap he pulls all the time, Jin does the same thing (it is suspected that he makes multiple customs of the same thing like Jin does, shill bids to a massive price and then offer 'second chances' to the next 3-4 highest bidders).

It may just be business and what he does for a job but that doesn't mean that I approve of his tactics.

Sounds pretty inconclusive. Isn't it possible these could be from one or more seriously interested buyers using bullshit bids to see how high the current bidder is? Or even disgruntled folks looking to cause this impression?

[bruticus]

oh wtf? i noticed that his customs are always heavily overpriced.
now i know why.

sounds plausible to use zero bidders and then remove them later once someone genuinely beats the price.
cos right now there are no longer any zero bidders on his auction!

also sounds plausible to make multiples and offer them to the genuine bidders who missed out.

but hey, this is his full time job and if there are actually people out there who are willing to pay an exorbitant amount of cash for his work then who i am to judge?

[kaiden]

oh wtf? i noticed that his customs are always heavily overpriced.
now i know why.

sounds plausible to use zero bidders and then remove them later once someone genuinely beats the price.
cos right now there are no longer any zero bidders on his auction!

also sounds plausible to make multiples and offer them to the genuine bidders who missed out.

but hey, this is his full time job and if there are actually people out there who are willing to pay an exorbitant amount of cash for his work then who i am to judge?

yeah i just had a look and indeed the zero bidders are gone which makes no sense if they were legit bidders - so he just removed them to erase evidence.

and while i don't care how much people want to pay for his customs, to artificially raise the price is so unethical and a disgusting exploitation of the bidding system on ebay.

[jaydisc]

I don't see how you all can be so sure it is him doing this.

[jaydisc]

oh wtf? i noticed that his customs are always heavily overpriced.
now i know why.

Can't be higher that what someone was willing to pay, because even if you buy this theory, there still has to be someone with a legitimate bid below the shill bidder who actually wins the auction. This theory makes little sense to me, and has even littler basis.

[Geminii]

also sounds plausible to make multiples and offer them to the genuine bidders who missed out.

Exactly. Much of the work on the first version is design, and testing various combinations of additions, modifications, paintwork etc. Once it's all been nailed down, it'd be stupid not to make near-identical pieces (which could be assembled and prepped much more quickly) for people willing to pay significantly more than the reduced price.

Example: Someone paying $1500 for a piece which might easily have taken 40 hours of design and testing, and $500 in parts, spares, duplicates, and raw material to get the final effect. That's not a very high hourly profit rate (~$25/hr pre-tax). But if three other people are willing to pay $1000 each for copies which might be able to be assembled and detailed in 25 hours each using $200 of parts, that's $32/hr gross for those three. That raises the total hourly rate for a given design from $25 to just over $30 - a 20% pay rise just for adopting a different business strategy.

Of course, I have no idea if these numbers are anything at all like what professional kitbashers/sellers see day to day, but they illustrate the point.

[STL]

Can't be higher that what someone was willing to pay, because even if you buy this theory, there still has to be someone with a legitimate bid below the shill bidder who actually wins the auction. This theory makes little sense to me, and has even littler basis.

I'm not much more informed than you but I can see the advantage is that the shill bid raises the perceived value of the item, forcing those interested to fork out more. Itn a perfect world, people have an inbuilt pricing system and will make rationalised choices on that but the ability to affect perceived value is invaluable as it creates a sense of urgency and confirms your perceived value. Price, more than it should be, is a powerful motivator and differentiator to confirm the status of an item. And in this case, I can only imagine it's subtantial given the rarity of items in question. There are a lot of pricing signalling studies that will attest to this in auction settings.

I will note I bought a custom WFC Prime last year on eBay and after losing the auction, I was offering a second chance as the customiser had another one. The practice to me does not seem to far of a stretch, especially when as we note one of theses guys is doing for a living.

[kaiden]

Can't be higher that what someone was willing to pay, because even if you buy this theory, there still has to be someone with a legitimate bid below the shill bidder who actually wins the auction. This theory makes little sense to me, and has even littler basis.

just because someone is willing to pay a higher amount, doesn't mean they have to - if they put down $3000 as their max bid and no one else bids after the price is at $2000 then they have saved themselves quite a bit of money. the shill bidding forces the buyer to go to/or beyond the price as the seller now has that vital information and can manipulate the outcome to an extent and if he makes multiples, he can select who else to offer the copies to.

but if you cant accept this theory (or others), then maybe you can come up with a reason why the 0 feedback bidder has been removed from the bidding history? like i said before, if it was a legit bid by a legit person - then there was no need for either the seller or buyer to remove that bid as it was beaten anyway.

I don't see how you all can be so sure it is him doing this.

if its not him then who else would benefit from such actions? and even if it was someone else, i doubt he would be so oblivious to it.

I'm not much more informed than you but I can see the advantage is that the shill bid raises the perceived value of the item, forcing those interested to fork out more. Itn a perfect world, people have an inbuilt pricing system and will make rationalised choices on that but the ability to affect perceived value is invaluable as it creates a sense of urgency and confirms your perceived value. Price, more than it should be, is a powerful motivator and differentiator to confirm the status of an item. And in this case, I can only imagine it's subtantial given the rarity of items in question. There are a lot of pricing signalling studies that will attest to this in auction settings.

I agree very much so and also want to make a point about perceived value.

First i would like to point out that the internet has made it increasingly difficult to measure 'perceived value' as more people have the option of shopping online. Like a Transformers deluxe is $12US(is that right?) in America but here its $25-30AU

with that information i instantly perceive we should be getting our Transformers cheaper. even with the midyear sale with deluxes around the $20AU mark roughly 20-25% off i still feel we're being ripped off (considering the quality of the dotm line) but other people like parents who dont know any better would be like wow! im saving $5-10 how great is that?

also i would ask how much do you shop online compared to buying locally from a store?

so perceived value is a complicated matter and even more so when it comes to a TF custom being sold on ebay.