Run Until Sold - the spawn of Satan?
If there’s one listing feature that gets eBidders hot under the collar, it’s Run Until Sold (RUS).
Many forum users blame RUS for the scourge of the “dump and run” sellers. Without it, goes the argument, even if a seller left, their auctions would expire and the problem of unattended listings would vanish. Undoubtedly, this is true. But… it would be simple enough to check the presence or absence of the seller in a dozen other ways that would not involve removing an option that some sellers find useful.
So why do some sellers like to use RUS?
Low maintenance.
The big winner for RUS is the lack of maintenance required to keep them running. Reposting everything you wish to sell might not seem a major task for a small/hobby seller, but when your listings reach into the thousands it can be a major task. Sure, many big sellers still prefer to use the manual relist (with 10 automatic reposts inbetween, as a rule), but that’s not an option that suits everybody.
A question of visibility
The major reason given by regulars advising new eBid sellers to avoid RUS is the lack of visibility. RUS listings are bottom of the pile in the default search sort order of “time remaining”. If you’re selling a popular (in selling terms) item that can certainly be a drawback, and sure - if you’ve got a handful of something that’s listed in thousands - you want to do everything you can to get your turn at the top of that search list. But how much of a problem is that really? How do buyers really search, and what’s the scale of the returned search list? Let’s take a few typical examples at random and see how they shape up:
On the UK site a search for the following terms returned the number shown.
- Denby plate 36
- Sony battery 236
- Pink blouse 47
- Souvenir ashtray 7
- Wine glass 187
- Paddington bear 46
- Black gloves 129
- Vauxhall Cavalier exhaust 0
- Blue glass beads 1,079
As you see, that’s quite a range of results. I chose the items purely at random (or at least, off the top of my head - which probably says terribly things about my subconscious) and included everything I thought of and tried, regardless of results. I think that’s a pretty fair test.
The results show that what you are selling strongly affects whether or not you should use RUS. If you’re one of many sellers of blue glass beads, then for sure you will want your turn at the top of the timed list. But if you’ve got the first and only Vauxhall Cavalier to sell - then any format you like will be fine and dandy. But excluding those extremes, the results are far less clear cut and a choice has to be made. If I had a Denby plate to sell I certainly wouldn’t fret unduly about being at the end of such a short list, especially if I was confident about the quality of my item and competitiveness of the price. Equally thirty, forty or even fifty items does not seem overly threatening. On many items the first phrase put in might be a general term to see the scale of eBid’s offering, with the buyer being able to narrow down the list returned further if necessary: what design of Denby plate; what colour wine glass?
Ring the changes
Even where lists are longer, does every item you sell need to be the same format? For example, I sell templates and shop logos by the hundred. Must I force each of them to the top of the list? Why not half, or a third? Then the others can sit as RUS waiting to be found by buyers drawn in by their more visible counterparts. I don’t then need to be constantly relisting all of my items, just a selection - in effect I’m dressing my shop window, while leaving the rest of the stock waiting patiently inside on my shelves. Not, perhaps, a technique you want to use if your items are hugely varied, but for those of use who have large numbers of similar items RUS can be a helpful feature.
How about that search order?
Sure, time remaining low to high is the default order. But do buyers necessarily leave it at that? It’s fairly well accepted, at least by eBid forum users, that many sales on eBid are BuyNow rather than auction. That being the case, the amount of time remaining on the listing is an irrelevance. Buyers using the site to make instant purchases (apparently most of them) are going to be rather more concerned about price than time. I know when I search for an item the first thing I do with the list returned is re-sort into price low to high. Unless I find a bargain price offered at auction, at which point I’ll check the individual timing, I really don’t care how long it’s got left to run. Even auctions tend to be reposted automatically, so I know that in most cases the time left is a “fake jeopardy” much beloved of reality TV. To paraphrase Jerry Maguire, “show me the price”. So there’s no need to worry about getting to the top of the timing list if your price is competitive, you’ll be right in your buyers face as soon as they sort by a more useful order. Not so?
So no, I don’t think RUS is the spawn of Satan. Like many things in life, it needs to be used with care and intelligence; not something I believe eBidders are short of. If I did, I’d be listing it by the bucket. On Run Until Sold, of course!
